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Need help/feedback for developing an Educational Game

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by SirJimiee, Mar 6, 2018.

  1. SirJimiee

    SirJimiee

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    I am trying to develop an engaging educational game aimed at college/GCSE students for a client. I am doing this as part of a research project, in which I am trying to investigate and compare the benefits of educational video games in contrast to conventional teaching methods. I am having a lot of difficulties trying to come up with a good and appropriate game concept. My client wants the video game to educate about one of the following topics:
    1. IT Support/Resolving technical issues
    2. Website design and development
    3. Digital communication technologies
    I would be extremely grateful if anyone could help me come up with a cool game idea/concept. I am not particularly a creative person, hence why I'm asking for suggestions and feedback ;)

    Also, in case you're wandering, I'm by no means an advanced game developer/programmer. I'd say i'm an intermediate-level software developer and have had a few years worth of experience with several different programming languages.
     
  2. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

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    Yikes, those seem like very hard topics to teach, in part because they are so broad and nebulous. Do you have to come up with the curriculum as well as the game? Or do you already have a curriculum to cover?

    I mean, you could always make a quiz/flashcard game, but... yawn. Effective (if you implement a spaced repetition system for any information that should be memorized) but dull.
     
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  3. SirJimiee

    SirJimiee

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    Thanks for the reply! I don't need to come up with the curriculum as I've already got most of the necessary information. But like you said, these topics are rather broad :/ I will be meeting up with my client again relatively soon so I can see if they have any other suggestions. I was thinking of a quiz-type game, but they are pretty boring and not very engaging.
     
  4. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

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    Yep. But it's a tough challenge because frankly, those topics are pretty boring. Website design/development is the most interesting of the three, but that one is learned best by actually doing it; sitting in classroom or at a game about web development won't be nearly as effective. Ideally you'd have a sort of lab environment, with directed exercises where students write some code (or HTML/CSS) and then immediately see the results... but that'll be hard to make in Unity, since it lacks (as far as I know) a web viewer component.

    Maybe you could do a sort of simulation game with the first one, where customers come in with their IT problems and you have to solve them. Each customer would provide clues/symptoms, sometimes including red herrings; and then I guess you'd have to pick from a list of things to try. Each of these would cost some time (and perhaps money), and the results would provide more clues. Your challenge is to solve each problem as quickly as possible so as to maximize customer happiness, something like those restaurant games that kids play these days.
     
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  5. SirJimiee

    SirJimiee

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    That's a good idea, and funnily enough, I came up with a very brief concept incredibly similar to the idea you mentioned. The only issue with this is that although it seems very effective educationally, it does sound a bit boring. I could most definitely incorporate some more engaging features though. Maybe some sort of reward system, where the players could earn badges or money for resolving problems (not quite sure what they could spend the score/money on though, possibly character upgrades?).

    This sounds like a good start. Thank you a lot for your help, really do appreciate it :D
     
  6. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

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    Well, serving food (or coffees or whatever) at a restaurant sounds boring too, but those kinds of games are very popular... I suggest you download a few and spend some time playing with them. See what they've done to make them fun. (I'm sorry I can't recommend any specific ones, as I don't play them much myself, but I know my younger son has played several.)
     
  7. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    Diner Dash.
     
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  8. Tiny-Tree

    Tiny-Tree

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    hacking game
     
  9. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    Sounds a lot like "Papers Please" to me in terms of game mechanics. Maybe that's a good inspiration?
     
  10. snacktime

    snacktime

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    I think if the part about drawing conclusions matters, pretty much everything is way too broad. But in this area people throw out all sorts of conclusions that aren't actually founded on data you can measure in a meaningful way. And to do that I think you need to narrow down everything. Like test a specific teaching approach where you use the same approach in both the game and non game version. And with a subject matter where it's narrow enough you can much more easily measure it.

    If drawing conclusions about which is most effective isn't that important, then ya just go for fun.
     
  11. SirJimiee

    SirJimiee

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    The teaching approach that will be used is a typical school-type lecture, where the teacher talks to the class and explains the concepts to them, with interaction between the students and the teacher/lecturer. The issue is though, I can't really test this specific teaching approach exactly the same within a game, otherwise it wouldn't be a game and would be more of a digital lecture. Although, the two approaches (the game and the lecture) will both educate/teach the same concepts to make the research as fair as possible.
     
  12. TonyLi

    TonyLi

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    JoeStrout provided a lot of great ideas. I'm just cherry-picking this one thing out:
    It may be that for your purposes correctness is more important than speed. In this case, this is the one aspect I'd drop.

    You make a very important point. It must foremost be a game -- one that's fun enough that people choose to play it regardless of educational benefit. This is what a lot of "educational games" get wrong (and fail), and what distinguishes them from fondly-remembered games like Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego, and more recently Kerbal Space Program and even Minecraft. (Think of the architecture, and even the functional computers, that people have built in Minecraft.)

    What's the curriculum for "digital communication technologies"?
     
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