"Gotta Catch `Em All" - Game Design Patterns for Guild Quests in Higher Education

The system of modern higher education has gone through many reforms, but still features many deficits in terms of knowledge acquisition and learning methods. The concept of gamification, which means the implementation of game elements in non-game contexts, offers a possible solution and increases motivation and participation among the students. Therefore the project The Legend of Zyren was initiated to mediate learning contents via a gamified framework. This part of the study focuses the so called guild quests (group tasks) and their principles of construction regarding the collaborative and the competitive game pattern, which ultimately result in an increase of the learning success. The results of a final evaluation confirm the usefulness of the use of game elements and game patterns with regard to content mastery and learning progress.