Design of Gameplay for Learning

A common skepticism about educational games is that learning and play are frequently not well integrated—the skill or content to be used and learned lacks a semantic or meaningful relation with the fantasy and challenge elements and can be easily swapped without influencing gameplay. In this chapter, we describe and analyze design challenges associated with the core components of gameplay—game mechanics and the narrative scheme as it relates to learning—and review the gameplay design propositions and infield test findings of E-Rebuild. Via a retrospective investigation of design features and strategies in terms of learnability and playability (i.e., capability of activating knowledge-based cognitive performance without interrupting gameplay), this chapter aims to report and discuss how domain-specific learning is integrated in, and activated by, core game actions, rules, game objects, and the game world design.