Game Kits: Metadesign considerations on game modding for learning Nikoleta Yiannoutsou Abstract Educational Technology Lab Today’s technologies that blur the distinction between University of Athens users and designers have empowered end-users to School of Philosophy, University engage with powerful learning activities like game Campus, Greece modding. In this paper we discuss the characteristics of [email protected] modding tools as expressive media that support teachers and students alike, to integrate in games their Chronis Kynigos knowledge and ideas without being restricted by tools Educational Technology Lab bound to the way the game is implemented; i.e. mainly University of Athens through programming and STEM knowledge. We School of Philosophy, University present work in progress on “Sus-X”, a GameKit that Campus, Greece generates SimCity like games and provides [email protected] pedagogically designed modding tools. We explore the expressive power of “Sus-X”, through two studies with students that engaged in modification of two different games created with “Sus-X”: one game involved urban sustainability and the other involved nutrition. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for Author Keywords personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are Game modding; End-Users, Learning; Half-baked not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights microworlds for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author. ACM Classification Keywords Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). IDC '16, June 21-24, 2016, Manchester, United Kingdom H.5. INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION ACM 978-1-4503-4313-8/16/06. H5.2. User Interfaces; User centered design; http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2930674.2936000. Evaluation/methodology K.8 PERSONAL COMPUTING K.8.0 General – Games Framework the existing authoring tools available to teachers and The current technological landscape is populated with students for authoring and modifying games [1, 8]. tools that support end-users to design, modify, extend, Specifically, Marchiori et al [8] argue in favor of evolve and share their artifacts. Around these providing teachers with tools to modify adventure technologies emerged a new culture in which user games for teaching. They provide a review of relevant activity incrementally shifts from consumption to authoring tools to support their claim that existing participation and the distinction between users and authoring tools are difficult to use due to their basic designers is blurred [3]. This shift takes place through metaphor; i.e. they are structured around the a technologically mediated transformation of the user programmable implementation of the game and not from a passive consumer of finished goods designed by around a metaphor that is understood and used by some to be consumed by many, to an empowered teachers [ibid]. Apart from trying to design “easier –to- individual equipped with the means to participate use” tools, Avontuur et. al. [1] discussing modification actively in the produced culture. In this spirit function of Head Up Games, stresses the following point: many communities revolving around popular games modding and adaptation tools should be relevant to the that either support free creation like Minecraft and/or context and the experience they are meant to support come with modding tools allowing modifications that (i.e. outdoor play shaped by groups in a specific range from light-weight changes (like skins, location) and programming is not always relevant. customization of avatars etc.) to alterations in the Along the same lines, we argue that programming- mechanics of the initial games [12] The widespread use oriented modding tools do not exploit the full potential of technologies that support user creations and the of games as learning contexts. Specifically, one informal learning that takes place in the gamers’ characteristic of games is that they constitute communities, have boosted the interest in exploring expressive media in the sense that they can re-mediate game design for contextualized learning. Learning in the way we understand phenomena and the way we these cases involved mainly domains like programming, represent knowledge as designed experience in the robotics and mathematics, but there were also cases form of challenges, goals and practices [10]. However, applied to history and language learning and to the we should not forget that games are not realistic introduction of new skills like design thinking [4, 9]. In representations of the real world and they shouldn’t be. most cases, however, when domains such as history Instead, they integrate a set of simplified assumptions are involved, deep modification of the game rules and about the world ensuring playability and easy entry mechanics is more about programming than history. point for the players. Consider for example class Civilization 5 for example requires modders to work mobility in “The Sims” (at least in the version that was with xml code. Similarly, sandbox games like Minecraft, out in 2005): once a Sim enters the game his wealth which allows creation of maps and historical worlds level can increase but never drop [7]. Such simplified (see for example the “World of Humanities”), also models, have given rise to criticism about the requires programming skills to interfere with the game educational value of games, focusing mainly on the mechanics [2]. Several voices have started to question need for educating children in the new media, so that they do not take at face value “misleading” information a set of modding tools, they also include “half-baked” [5]. In our previous research, game assumptions have games, a digital construct integrating our pedagogical triggered new learning designs structured around the design on domain learning through game modding. concept of challenging and “hacking” these assumptions through game modding and empirical Half-Baked Games studies demonstrated strong learning potential [12]. Half-baked games stemmed from the idea that Going back to the earlier example of “The Sims”, game modding tools alone cannot support targeted learning. assumptions might involve various scientific fields and They are an extension of the idea of half-baked Figure 1: BaDi: A half-baked thus they can be exploited for learning different microworlds coined by Kynigos [6] to describe game on balanced diet. concepts. To this end, we argue that we need game exploratory digital environments conceived, by design, modding tools that will allow teachers and students to call for modification and change. Similarly, half- alike: (a) to access these assumptions, analyze and baked games are designed so that they are fully modify them; (b) to focus on the concepts of interest functioning games with characteristics that “provoke” without being restricted by technical difficulties students to modify them because they don’t like them imposed, for example, by a simplified programming [12]. Twisting a game idea like this, supports students to language; and, (c) to use games as new creative forms focus on what is important for learning. Furthermore, half- of expressing and representing knowledge. baked games build on the new media pedagogy of educating students to be critical of game assumptions and Design of “Sus-X” they take it a step further as they provide students with Figure 2: Meals represented by To address the above challenge, we borrowed from the tools to change these assumptions and see the effects of yellow dots and pictures. gaming world the GameKit idea. For our purposes, we their changes in the modified game they create. To define GameKits as thematically coherent generators of illustrate the idea of half-baked games further, we present games with the following characteristics: (a) they two of the instances created with “Sus-X” both of which support the embedding of specific pedagogies in are accompanied with data from their use with games; (b) they provide the respective modding tools; students. and, (c) they empower non-technical users (like teachers and educational researchers) to design games BADI: A HALF-BAKED GAME ON BALANCED DIET that allow modding [12]. GameKits can support the BaDi is an instantiation of “Sus-X” designed to support generation of different games of the same genre and student game play and modification around the concept the alteration of these games with a set of modding of Balanced Diet. BaDi was designed in the context of a tools. “Sus-X”, the GameKit we present here, consists course on “Design and Evaluation of Educational of a template generating SimCity-like games. Game- Software” by a postgraduate student who was also a Figure 3: Overview of the values play revolves around selecting items of the game teacher in a private primary School. The aim in the of a selected meal (chicken) with respect to the parameters of the according to their properties, in order to achieve a game-play mode is for the players to help Ignatius (see game specific score or to avoid running out of resources. Fig.1) to lose weight by selecting his meals to create a GameKits do not only come with a game template and balanced diet. The rationale underlying this game is that a good plan for weight loss includes a diet that is like “restaurant”, “library”, “work” etc. (see Fig. 4,5). healthy but it also fits with personal preferences. This Each site has a specific value with respect to a set of concept has been twisted to become half-baked as parameters – sustainability indicators - such as energy, Ignatius can have a balanced diet only if he consumes hygiene, money, health etc. (see Fig.6). During game- not only healthy food (like chicken, fish, eggs, dairy) play, players need to decide which places to visit after but also some fattening, pleasure increasing food (like reviewing the attributes of each place and after taking pizza, sweets, ice-cream, soft drinks).