Matej Zapušek

Educational Game design

Games

• Is about playing, pretending

• Contains: goals and rules

• Is fair!

• State of flow

• Risk / Reward

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Activity

• Think of a game in which two players are competing against

each other. The game must include a ball but it is not

allowed to kick or throw it. Prove that the activity is really a

game by pointing out the main characteristics of every

game.

– Gameplay (how do we play it)

– Main goal / other goals

– Rules

– Why is this activity challenging?

– "State of flow"

– Risk / Reward

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Adventure games

• Activities

– Puzzle solving

– Gathering and using items

– Story, setting, and themes

– Dialog and conversation trees

– Goals, success and failure

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Game design

• Target audiance!

• Learning unit (programming, computer

communications, algorithms…)

• Learning goals + Game goals

• Mapping learning goals with game goals!!!

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• Our goal is to "blend" learning goals into game

activities -> student is enjoying the game and

doesn't even realize that she is learning

complex concepts

• Designing a game:

– Story is very important!

– Virtual, fantasy world

– Main character, NPC's

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Activity

• Think of a game from your field of interest.

Pick one learning goal and map it with ingame

activity.

• Also define:

– Target audiance

– Story

– Main character

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eAdventure

• Game engine for designing adventure games

• Easy to use

• No prior knowledge about programming is

required

• Integration with LMS (SCORM)

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eAdventure

• Introduction movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfi-

Bqp3YiI#t=97

• Download link:

http://e-adventure.e-ucm.es/download/

• Mac, PC & Debian

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Graphical materials

• Search words: sprite, sprite sheets, images,

backgrounds, textures, game graphics

repositories

• Useful links:

– http://www.cgtextures.com/ - high quality

pictures, PS tutorials

– http://opengameart.org/ - theme packages

(sports, space, medival..)

– http://tsgk.captainn.net/ - commercial games

graphic repositories10

– http://www.videogamesprites.net/ - materials

from Nintendo games

– http://www.bogleech.com/games.html

http://www.retrogamezone.co.uk/

http://www.spriters-resource.com/

backgrounds from older commercial games

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Implementing with

eAdventure

• Scenes

– Places where the action of the game takes place

– Player interacts with objects and characters

– Connected with other scenes by exits

• Cutscenes

– Slideshows

– Videoscene

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• Main character

– Player controlled character

– Define animations (standing, walking, talking…)

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• NPC – non-player characters

– Any character that is not controlled by player

– Same animations as for main character

• Game items

– Actions (examine, grab, use, use with, drag to)

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• Conversations

– Interactions with characters

– Action -> talk to

– Elements of conversations:

• Start

• Dialog

• Options

• Links between dialogs

• End

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Advanced features

• Global states

• Timers

• Macros

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