Bat Cave: A Testing and Evaluation Platform for Digital Educational Games
Key: MWGS10-1
Author: Florian Mehm, Viktor Wendel, Stefan Göbel, Ralf Steinmetz
Date: October 2010
Kind: In proceedings
Publisher: Academic Conferences International
Book title: Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Games Based Learning
Keywords: Testbed, Evaluation, Rapid Prototyping, Adaptivity
Abstract: Adaptive Digital Educational Games (DEGs) are based on complex processes and algorithms, which can be tested and evaluated in various fashions. Concerning evaluation, either the overall effects of the games (e.g. on learning efficacy) or the functionality of algorithms can be evaluated. For testing, it is desirable for game authors to try out the game they are working on early during development, in order to test the effects of changes to the games’ structure or parameters of the adaptive algorithms. The European research project 80Days has developed a DEG for teaching geography that is based on several adaptive technologies. Among them are a Story Engine and a Learning Engine, with the former controlling the execution of the game, balancing aspects of narrative, gaming and learning (using data by the latter). Of the testing and evaluation possibilities described above, evaluations of the effects of the game have been carried out with an immersive game demonstrator at schools. However, for the other purposes outlined, a separate platform named “Bat Cave” is described in this paper. The approach of Bat Cave is to implement a game platform in a prototypical fashion, by creating simplified representations of situations found in the game. Details of the workings of the algorithms are visualized in several ways. Using Bat Cave, evaluation and testing of the methods and parameters is possible. In this context, Bat Cave is used as a testbed for this novel approach of creating adaptive DEGs. On the other hand, Bat Cave, due to its simplified structure, can be used by game creators to rapidly create early versions of the game, which can be tested extensively without having to play the actual game. Therefore, both the design of the game’s structure and content (narrative, learning content) as well as the impact of parameters for the adaptive algorithms on the game can be tested early, allowing a game creation process based on early prototypes.
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