| Abstrakt: |
Pervasive gaming is a new and emerging gaming genre where the games are not confined to the virtual domain of the computer, but integrates the physical and social aspects of the real world into the game and blends into the player’s everyday life. Games have in general proven to be useful in different types of learning situations. Given the nature of pervasive games, it may be possible to use that type of game as a tool to support learning in a university course by providing a gameplay where the students, by playing the game, expands the area of learning beyond the lecture hall and lectures and into the students everyday life. If this is possible, the area for learning will also become pervasive and be everywhere and anywhere at any time. To address this research area, a prototype of a playable pervasive game to support learning in university studies has been designed. The name of this game is Nuclear Mayhem and it is designed to support university studies in the development of Flash based Web‐games at the Nord‐Trøndelag University College, Norway. The game Nuclear Mayhem ran parallel with the course and started same day as the course began and ended when the students had completed the exam nine weeks later. The only mandatory activity the students had to do during the course was to participate in the game and to be allowed to attend the exam they had to complete the game within a given time limit. This paper presents the experimental pervasive game Nuclear Mayhem and how the game was designed to be pervasive and support the curriculum of the course. Analysis of log files showed that 87% of the logins in the game client was done outside of the time period that was allocated to lectures and lab exercises. Although most of the logins occurred during daytime, logins where registered in all the 24 hours of a day. These numbers indicate that the game became pervasive and a part of the students/players everyday life. The log files however also suggest that there is a need for a stronger link between the progress of the game and the course to get a better learning outcome. Interviews with the players indicate that they found the game exciting and fun to play, but that the academic tasks and riddles that they had to solve during the game was too easy to solve. The paper concludes that games such as Nuclear Mayhem are promising tools to support learning and transform the area for learning to become pervasive according to the players everyday life and suggest improvements in the game for the next versions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
