Development Process of an Educational Game

SBC – Proceedings of SBGames 2015 | ISSN: 2179-2259

Computing Track – Short Papers

Development Process of an Educational Game: An experience in Brazil Wilk Oliveira dos Santos Anderson Alves de Souza Ayane Karine Tenório da Silva Millena Lauyse Silva de Oliveira Sebastião Rogerio da Silva Neto Ariane Nunes Rodrigues Clovis Gomes da Silva Junior University of Pernambuco, Informatics Center, Brazil Abstract This paper presents a development process of an educational game. The “Challenge With Sticks” which aims to develop a mathematical logical reasoning, through problems associated to numeric, symbolic and textual representations. This study maker the development process, from the requirements specification stage, passing by the stages of prototyping, implementation, and usability tests of software. Its development is part of a research Project of the Degree Course of Computing from the University of Pernambuco – Brazil, maintained by CNPQ. Keywords: development of educational development process, Challenge With Sticks

games,

Authors’ contact: {wilk.upe, anderson.dercio, ayanek18, millena.lauyse, sebast.rogers}@gmail.com {ariane.rodrigues, clovis.gomes}@upe.br

1. Introduction Increasingly, it is common to notice the presence of digital games in the daily lives of any age group of people. According to [Buchinger 2012] the electronic games are gaining more space in the international market and begin to draw the educational institutions attention. [Mattar 2010] claims that attributes of games can be useful for education, in the sense of motivation and orientation to goals, even after the failure. However, the main challenge associated with the educational game is pointed by [Albuquerque 2009]. This author point out that not all educational games, can relate the educational content with the game operation. In this sense, [Meira 2014] accentuates that there is a consensus that educational games in general are boring and often clueless, based on pedagogical concepts that should be "hidden behind the game", so that the learner can play a game fun. In order to unite the playful aspects of the games with the difficulties in hard subjects learning, several studies support the use of games in teaching subjects like Mathematics. [Silva Junior 2008] believe that through the games, can be identified development of language, creativity and deductive reasoning, required

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in a play choice and an argumentation necessary for the exchange of information. So, serving not only as an aid to learning mathematics, but also in the routine activities of daily life. Associated with this context, is noticed the absence of formal process for the educative software development. According to [Rodrigues 2010] among the various models of software development designed in recent years, some have been adapted to create specifics models for games development. However, these are usually superficial and not always fit the needs of games that include pedagogical approaches. In this scenario, this paper describes the development process of an educational game entitled “Challenge with Sticks”, for the Mathematics teaching. The activities adopted in this process approach since the game intention until the phase of usability tests. It is important to mention that the development is based on Games Virtualization (Games Virtualization Technique). According to [Carissimi 2009] “The virtualization is to extend or replace a resource or an interface, existent, on the other, to mimic a behavior”. In other words, the virtualization can be understood as the creation of a virtual place that simulates a real place. In development of games, this is a technique utilized to develop digital versions for traditional games, looking for keeping the pedagogical aspects of the original versions, allowing the game has a mechanical contemporary of games [Santos 2013]. The game presented here it is an educational game that consists of ten phases, which have a series of mathematical teaching concepts such: symbolic numerical and textual representations, conversion values and logical reasoning.

2. General Recommendations A software development process, according to [Kotonya 2005], is a set of activities that leads to the production of a software product. In this sense, the same author also indicates a series of stages that answer to the development process of a software, which are: requirements specification (also defined as "elicitation"), implementation and software validation. However, dealing with the development of educational software, there isn’t in the literature homogeneous

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SBC – Proceedings of SBGames 2015 | ISSN: 2179-2259

processes defined for the development of such software. In this sense, the game development process followed the traditional software process defined by [Kotonya 2005]. The Figure 1 (Steps of the development process) shows the process followed during the game implementation.

Computing Track – Short Papers

(X) Head Crack (X) Sticks Game Information presented in sequential order

(X) Head Crack (X) Sticks Game Interfacing overloaded with information

(X) Puzzle Matches (X) Matchstick (X) Head Crack (X) Sticks Game Do use of icons

( ) Puzzle Matches ( ) Matchstick (X) Head Crack ( ) Sticks Game Do use of sound effects

(X) Puzzle Matches (X) Puzzle Matches (X) Matchstick (X) Matchstick (X) Head Crack ( ) Head Crack (X) Sticks Game ( ) Sticks Game Table 1: Analysis of similar games Figure 1 (Steps of the development process) Each of these steps is described in the following: The requirement specification step, according to [Kotonya 2005], represent the activities involved in the discovery of a system's requirements. Therefore, in the game requirements specification, the following steps are considered: interview, analysis of similar software and analysis of related academic papers. Considering the information acquirement process, was chosen an open and non-structured interview because it is believed that in this way, teachers could discuss freely and express their views collaboratively, similar to what occurs in the preparation of traditional software. In the occasion, the difficulty of students in obtaining logical thinking, the incapacity to solve routine problems and the absence of specific software for the teaching of Mathematics was topics. At the core of the similar software analysis, were analyzed four games, which two for mobile dispositive and two for online use, which are: i) Puzzle Matches ii) Matchsticks iii) Sticks: Head Crack and iv) Sticks Game . The above games were analyzed in relation to its aspects of usability and cognitive processes, considering in a special way the attention, memory and perception principles, suggested by [Preece et al. 2005]. The analyses of the elements of these principles are shown in Table 1 (Analysis of similar games). Following a framework is presented with the analysis around these software, that were fundamental in making decisions on the principles adopted in the game proposed in this paper.

In search of works reported in the literature, was noted that few studies that show similar processes were found. Among those found, show up [ Bittar 2012] that present the conception process of the Ludo Educative Game, it highlight some challenges faced in building games for education. In turn, [Malfatt 2010] present a games construction that require little computational resources while maintaining good level quality in their graphic aspects, which is one of the concerns taken into account in the game development presented here. Then, it started the phase of prototyping of the game. According to [Pressman 1995] this process enables the developer to create software model that will be implemented. The requirements defined in the specification phase were considered in this activity. Being aspects associated with the interface, some principles set out in HCI (Human- Computer Interaction) and the Cognitive Load Theory were considered. Instruments

Game Maker Construct 2

Unity

UDK

Analysis of Instruments Types Supported of Platforms Games 2D Windows, Android, IOS, Ubuntu e Mac OS X 2D Windows, Windows Ohone, Android, IOS e BlackBerry 2D e 3D Windows, Windows Phone, BlackBerry 10, PS2, PS3 e Web 2D e 3D Windows, Android, IOS, Mac OS X, PS2, PS3, PS4

Developer

YoYo Games Scirra

Ayatana

Epic Games

Table 2. Analysis of Instruments Analysis of Similar Games Considerable Use of colors to highlight information words and pictures (X) Puzzle Matches (X) Matchstick

(X) Puzzle Matches (X) Matchstick

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Design implications were established in the game considering different cognitive processes such as: i)Attention, applied to the sources used in the buttons, tips, title and colors of layout, avoiding the accumulation of information and visual discomfort; ii) Perception, criterion adopted in the position of the

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Computing Track – Short Papers

buttons “tips”, “to play”, “credits” and “to restore” in an orderly manner allowing the user discover quickly your meaning; e iii)Memory that preconize the memorization of the items of design in the game. The Cognitive Load Theory, according to [Nunes 2003], refers to the human information processing, that is a set of principles that create an effective learning place increasing the cognitive process of a human being. According to [Tarouco 2004] this theory aims to make the human interaction with the technology aligned with the cognitive process. Therefore, because it is a process of developing of an educational game, it is useful to adopt certain principles of this theory in order to facilitate the cognitive process by players. The criteria adopted for the game refer to: i) Principle of Individual Differences that argued that each student has their own way of learning, some more easily and quickly than others. ii) Consistency Principle because greater the simplicity of the information, easier the learning user. In the construction of the prototypes of screens, it was decided to use the Corel Draw X6 software over prototyping software as Balsamiq Mockups. This choice by interface designers was done because of the possibility to create more reliable images as well as to use them in the future during the implementation of the game. In the implementation stage, first was considered the choice of the games development engines, by means of an analysis of four engines. These instruments were analyzed empirically by the development team and according to the game requirements and the characteristics of each instrument analyzed, were chosen the one. The analyzed tools are described in the table 2 comparatively regarding the type of game that can develop, just as well the platforms that are supported in order to understand the limitations of each instrument, directly impacting the development of the game. Given the observations made in the earlier stages of the research, it was decided to use the Construct 2 instrument, according to enable the development of 2D games for Android platform. It is also possible to use the drag-and-drop programming, linked to traditional programming (via source code) facilitating the development of the game. At the same time, it offers an extensive documentation and with available quality on its official website. The game was implemented by a team of a programmer, an interface designer, an IHC professional and three consultants, from areas of Mathematics, Pedagogy and Psychology. The home screen of the game developed, as well as some of its phases, are shown in Figure 2

XIV SBGames – Teresina – PI – Brazil, November 11th - 13th, 2015

Figure 2: Game Screens Therefore, after the development of the game, the game was subjected to the software validation phase. This time, it was evaluated by a group of 15 users with age between 15 and 17 years of the city of Garanhuns, located in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco. These users were invited to play freely for about twenty minutes to respond in sequence a series of questions based on Likert Scale [Likert 1932], in order to evaluate the performance of the game. The data collected during this developmental stage are given in table 3 (validation set). Seven assertions were presented, in order to evaluate questions related to interface, learning, memory and satisfaction. List of assertive: • Assertive 1: The game recognizes my touch-screen and moves the sticks correctly. • Assertive 2: The games colors are pleasant. • Assertive 3: Understand what each icon represents. • Assertive 4: The interface has little information. The information is easy to understand. • Assertive 5: Quickly understand what to do in the challenges of the game. • Assertive 6: The challenges of the game are motivating and makes me want to continue. • Assertive 7: Happy to be able to solve the challenges.

Assertive Assertive 1 Assertive 2 Assertive 3 Assertive 4 Assertive 5 Assertive 6 Assertive 7

Game Validation Likert Scale SA A I D 36% 55% 9% 0% 46% 18% 18% 18% 46% 27% 19% 9% 27% 55% 18% 0% 30% 30% 10% 20% 45% 44% 11% 0% 46% 36% 9% 9% Table 3: Game Validation

SD 0% 0% 0% 0% 10% 0% 0%

Caption: 'SA': Strongly Agree. 'A': Agree. 'I': indifferent. 'D': Disagree. 'SD': Strongly Disagree

3. Conclusion The development of this educational game established that it is possible to rely on the same principles of development of traditional games, in the development of educational games. It is important to note in this type of game the importance of collaboration of a multidisciplinary team that can assist the entire game development process.

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The results of the validation of this game provided an opportunity to realize that it recognized the interface touches and movements of most users, who considered the colors of nice game. The most also agreed that understood the icons representation associated with the buttons, as well as the mathematical challenges available in the game Another goal as future works is the development of new phases that can make a game more long lasting and motivation for its users, and to evaluate the same in new scenarios and new audiences. It is important to point out that this work is a project maintained by CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), which has been extended for the last three years and already has a number of other developed work, standing out [Santos et al. 2013] and [Santos et al. 2014].

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