Serious Pervasive Games

António Coelho,A Augusto Sousa,Liliana Santos,Pedro Cardoso,Rui Rodrigues,João Jacob,Rui Nóbrega,Leonel Morgado,Maria Van Zeller

doi:10.3389/fcomp.2020.00030

Abstract

Serious Pervasive Games extend the “magic circle” to the players’ surrounding environment. The blend of both physical and fictive game worlds provides a push in player engagement and promotes situated learning approaches. Space and time, as well as social context, acquire a more meaningful impact on the gameplay. From pervasive learning towards science communication with location-based games, this article presents case studies that exemplify their benefits and related problems. Pervasive learning can be defined as “learning at the speed of need through formal, informal and social learning modalities”. The BEACONING project aims to contextualize the teaching and learning process, connecting it with problem-based game mechanics within STEM. The main goal of this project is to provide the missing connection between STEM subjects and real-world interactions and applications. The pedagogical foundation is based on problem-based learning, in which active learning is in the center, and learners have to work with different tools and resources in order to solve problems (quests). Teachers create, facilitate and assess pervasive and gamified learning activities (missions). Furthermore, these quests are gamified in order to provide non-linear game plots. In a second case study, we demonstrate and evaluate how natural heritage can benefit from pervasive games. For example, in a natural park, a set of location-based games has been developed in order to provide enhanced experiences, as well as additional information about some species that are more difficult to observe or that are seasonal. Throughout the development of this project, we have encountered and identified several problems, of different natures, present in pervasive games. As a solution to some of these problems, we propose adaptivity, customizing the gameplay to the users’ profile and context.

Highlights

Games can be considered a cultural media, and source of formative experiences, in the broad definition of “Ludification of Culture” (Raessens, 2006).Serious games take advantage of the potential of games to abstract and simplify reality and engage players in activities other than entertainment (Sawyer and Rejeski, 2002)
We have developed a set of prototypes to analyze how serious pervasive games can improve the visitors’ experience and the effectiveness of the science communication
Since a location-based game is played in the spatial context of the player, extending the magic circle from the mobile device to the surrounding environment of the user, several relevant issues must be taken into consideration

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Games can be considered a cultural media, and source of formative experiences, in the broad definition of “Ludification of Culture” (Raessens, 2006). The game should not disengage the visitor from the primary focus on the museum experience Pervasive games extend this magic circle to the real world, exploring the context of the player (Montola, 2005; Montola et al, 2009). Arango-López et al (2017) define its concept as “A pervasive game delivers to the player an enriched experience of game through an evolvement of the dynamics of the game, expanding the space of the game according to the context where it is played This allows breaking the boundaries of the game world, making reality part of it and that the elements in that reality have an influence during the game.”. Pervasive learning is an immersive experience that mediates between the learner’s mental (e.g., needs, preferences, prior knowledge), physical (e.g., objects, other learners), and virtual (e.g., content accessible with mobile devices, artifacts) context The intersection of these contexts is referred to as a pervasive learning environment (Syvänen et al, 2005)

Related Work

Findings

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE CHALLENGES