Serious Pervasive Games

Abstract

Serious Pervasive Games extend the magic circle (Huizinga, 1938) to the players' context and surrounding environment. The blend of both physical and fictive game worlds provides a push in player engagement and promotes situated learning approaches. Space and time, as well as social context, acquire a more meaningful impact on the gameplay. From pervasive learning towards science communication with location-based games, this article presents research and case studies that exemplify their benefits and related problems. Pervasive learning can be defined as "learning at the speed of need through formal, informal and social learning modalities" (Pontefract, 2013). The first case study-the BEACONING project-aims to contextualize the teaching and learning process, connecting it with problem-based game mechanics within STEM. The main goal of this project is to provide the missing connection between STEM subjects and real-world interactions and applications. The pedagogical foundation is supported on problem-based learning (PBL), in which active learning is in the center, and learners have to work with different tools and resources in order to solve problems (quests). Teachers create, facilitate, and assess pervasive and gamified learning activities (missions). Furthermore, these quests are gamified in order to provide non-linear game plots. In a second case study, we demonstrate and evaluate how natural heritage can benefit from pervasive games. This study is based on a set of location-based games for an existing natural park, which have been developed in order to provide enhanced experiences, as well as additional information about some species that are more difficult to observe or that are seasonal. Throughout the research and development of these projects, we have encountered and identified several problems, of different nature, present in pervasive games.

An Interactive Information System That Supports an Augmented Reality Game in the Context of Game-Based Learning

“…Emergent technologies like AR provide high interactivity and immersion, which can improve learning achievement, particularly in STEM education [17,26,36]. In addition, because of the increasing accessibility to more equipped mobile devices, MAR has been gaining prominence in applications with game-based learning purposes, namely in the context of Serious and Pervasive Games [41].…”

“…Because it provides physical movement and interaction with the real world, this game is also included in the pervasive games' paradigm [5,15]. In fact, joining the surrounding environment (physical world) with the fictive game's world improves the player's engagement and promotes situated learning approaches [41]. When the player captures a celestial body, a question about its characteristics appears on the screen of the mobile device with four possible answers (Figures 20 and 21).…”

“…Through mobile devices that include new technologies such as sensors, software applications and network communication, pervasive games can provide a new way of social interaction [5]. Regarding Serious Pervasive Games, in [41] the authors advocate that the environment and social context lead to a more meaningful impact on the gameplay. In this regard, they present research related to location-based games in the context of a natural park and its species.…”

“…This is in line with [9], where it is stated that it is important to design enjoyable games to be used in educational contexts. Furthermore, because the MAR application has learning purposes and provides physical movement and social interaction of the students in the real world, it is a serious pervasive game [15,41]. However, until now all implementations on the field were performed by the developers and researchers team.…”

Los juegos digitales más allá de las lógicas disciplinarias y de vigilancia

“…Tiene que ver con los llamados juegos pervasivos, programas de experiencia virtual que no están estrictamente vinculados a una localización física o temporal (Laine y Joy 2009). El conocimiento pervasivo implica una experiencia inmersiva que media entre la mente del usuario, el medio físico en todas sus dimensiones y la realidad virtual (Coelho 2020). Hablamos, por otro lado, del acceso a un territorio multisensorial y no solo de estímulos visuales.…”