Game Jams as a Space to Tackle Social Issues

Myers, Christina; Piccolo, Lara S. G.; Collins, Trevor

doi:10.1145/3316287.3316288

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…This approach is grounded on Critical Pedagogy to propose design principles for supporting the inclusive participation of novice and diverse groups in educational game design processes. This paper focuses on the design principles only, although the Game Jams needed resources to support participants in other aspects, such as the ideation phase and developing the educational games (Myers, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In total, 23 people participated in the Game Jams, and further details of the Game Jams, as well as the games created, can be found in Myers (2021). Ten of the 23 participants (43%) had previous experience in game design and only three participants (13%) had some previous experience in educational game design.…”

Section: Population and Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The participants were asked to fill out individual questionnaires that comprised open-ended questions and Likert scales, and these included background information, their previous experiences designing games, their perceived learning about educational game design acquired using the design principles and ideas to improve the design principles. All these resources can be accessed as open-source documents in Myers (2021).…”

Section: Data Collection and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The democratisation of educational games design can also directly impact the effectiveness of games, and especially to reach their intended educational outcomes (Deen et al, 2015). It is also evidenced as a process that offers opportunities for learning to broad and novice groups that are involved in designing such games (Myers, 2021). This paper introduces a set of 13 design principles aimed at enabling novice audiences to understand how to design educational games targeted at improving critical thinking and enhancing learning about social change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Democratising Digital Educational Game Design for Social Change

Myers

Piccolo

Collins

2023

JL4D

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Digital games can be used as educational tools for tackling structural inequalities and promoting social justice. Designing games with these purposes is often a complex task that requires a myriad of combined expertise, including games’ mechanics, software development, educational game design, pedagogy, and knowledge of the educational topic (which can target very specific social issues). Democratising the design of educational games is used to increase the agency and participation of diverse and novice groups throughout design processes - and can be used to improve the efficiency of such games as it directly leads to the inclusion of broad voices, knowledge, experiences and perspectives. This research adopted a Design-Based Research methodology to create, evaluate and validate 13 design principles to democratise the design of educational games for social change. Three research phases were implemented in turn: a preliminary research, prototyping and evaluation phase. The preliminary research phase was based on creating these principles by grounding them on fundamentals of Critical Pedagogy, a theory of education which presents pedagogical techniques to accelerate learning, engagement and social change. The prototyping phase was based on conducting semi-structured interviews to assess and improve these principles with educational and game design experts. During the evaluation phase, these principles were applied and evaluated during two weekend-long game design events, which were mostly attended by diverse groups who had never designed a digital game before. This research presents theoretical and practical contributions related to how to democratise educational game design for social change. It evidenced the relevance of facilitating design principles that addresses what could be done to trigger learning in games by presenting design principles; why this learning could be facilitated, from both educational and gaming perspectives; and how to implement these principles into an educational game.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Population and Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Collection and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Democratising Digital Educational Game Design for Social Change

Myers

Piccolo

Collins

2023

JL4D

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“…Based on the concept of Critical Pedagogy, Myers et al [94] build a framework for game jams designed to democratize knowledge, explore and teach the participants about a social issue. The focus is not the artefact, but on making the jammers into "agents of social change. "…”

Section: Teaching and Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Decades of Game Jams

Lai

Kultima

Khosmood

et al. 2021

Sixth Annual International Conference on Game Jams, Hackathons, and Game Creation Events

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In less than a year's time, March 2022 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the first documented game jam, the Indie Game Jam, which took place in Oakland, California in 2002. Initially, game jams were widely seen as frivolous activities. Since then, they have taken the world by storm. Game jams have not only become part of the day-to-day process of many game developers, but jams are also used for activist purposes, for learning and teaching, as part of the experience economy, for making commercial prototypes that gamers can vote on, and more. Beyond only surveying game jams and the relevant published scientific literature from the last two decades, this paper has several additional contributions. It builds a history of game jams, and proposes two different taxonomies of game jams -a historical and a categorical. In addition, it discusses the definition of game jam and identifies the most active research areas within the game jam community such as the interplay and development with local communities, the study and analysis of game jammers and organisers, and works that bring a critical look on game jams. CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → Interaction design; • Software and its engineering → Interactive games.

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