Designing educational games through a conceptual model based on rules and scenarios

The design of a successful educational game (EG) is a challenging task that requires a lot of knowledge and a variety of skills. EG designers not only have to deal with the inherent technical complexity of game design, but also have to be able to interweave learning activities in a way that is enjoyable and educationally effective at the same time. In order to make available the benefits of game based learning to a wider audience, it is necessary to provide means to alleviate the cost of envisioning new EG by providing tools that might contribute to make the design process easier and quicker. As a first step towards this goal, in this paper we introduce a conceptual model that organizes in a modular way and in different design perspectives the game features. In order to help EG designers, the features that are most often regarded in the literature as significant in producing engaging, fun and educational game experiences, have been included in the model through a set of design entities. Furthermore, the organization of the elements of the model facilitates reusing pieces of the EG designs to quickly produce variants of the same game which can be used to match different learning purposes. The opinions gathered from the educators and game designers that participated of an EG design workshop confirmed that the model can help multidisciplinary EG design teams. Moreover, the model successfully contributed to the process of designing a collection of EGs aimed at raising children ́s awareness of emergencies and domestic risks, whose educational and ludic value was assessed in an experience conducted with students and educators at a primary school in Madrid.