Q-BAT: A CUSTOMIZABLE VIDEOGAME FOR EDUCATION

Olga Peñalba, Antonio Cerezo, Alejo Silos and Alvaro García-Tejedor

CEIEC, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Ctra. Pozuelo-Majadahonda, Pozuelo de Alarcón – Madrid, Spain

Keywords: Edutainment, Videogames, Authoring Tools.

Abstract: This paper presents a videogame that can be customized by teachers to create materials for different

learning purposes. It is a first-person 3D game that includes challenges the gamer must get through to

successfully complete its mission. These challenges are formulated as questions, and can be edited using a

simple web-based tool that saves a configuration XML file that is then read by the game. Every learning

activity that can be designed as a sequence of questions can be carried out using our game, increasing the

students’ motivation and probably enhancing their learning experience. In this way, the game, together with

the editing tool, can be considered a simple authoring tool for educational game-based activities.

1 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the use of videogames to enhance

learning is a common practice (Jenkins, 2003) (Van

Eck, 2006) (Vogel, 2006), especially in Virtual

Learning Environments (Moreno-Ger, 2008).

There are two main approaches to the game

based learning: using existing commercial games or

developing ad-hoc games for specific learning

objectives.

The first one is the lowest cost and least complex

solution, although it is not possible to find games for

every learning context and goal. It also has the

advantage that commercial games are engaging and

provide good game experience to the users. An

example of this approach can be found in (Lacasa,

2009).

The second approach implies the development of

a videogame from scratch, which is a very complex

and expensive process, as it is briefly described in

section 2. This is normally known as edutainment.

(García-Tejedor, 2011) describes an example of this

approach.

To make the development of videogames

affordable for teachers and educational teams, it is

necessary to have authoring tools that hide the

specific design, art and programming tasks. This

paper presents a new solution in this field: a

customizable videogame that can be configured by

teachers for different educational activities.

The next section introduces videogames

development requirements showing the need for

specific authoring tools, and provides a brief

analysis of existing ones. Section 3 describes our

proposal: a customizable game that may be used for

different educational purposes. Finally, some

conclusions and future work are outlined.

2 GAME DEVELOPMENT AND

AUTHORING TOOLS

The time and effort needed to create a videogame

may vary notably depending on the game (from a

three people team during several months to a 200

people multidisciplinary team during several years).

The main roles and skills needed are:

 Designers: they develop the idea and theme

for the game, defining mechanics, game

systems, characters, dialogs, etc.;

 2D and ·D Artists: responsible for concept art,

sprites, textures, terrain images, user interface,

models, animation, etc.;

 Level designer: they create levels, challenges

or missions using specific programs,

sometimes tailored by the programmers' team;

 Programmers: software engineers that

develop videogames or related software,

including physic engine, artificial intelligence,

gameplay, user interface, etc.;

 Sound engineers: responsible for the sound

effects and music.

Apart from such multidisciplinary team, lots of

364

Peñalba O., Cerezo A., Silos A. and García-Tejedor A..

Q-BAT: A CUSTOMIZABLE VIDEOGAME FOR EDUCATION.

DOI: 10.5220/0003924103640367

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2012), pages 364-367

ISBN: 978-989-8565-06-8

 2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

different technologies and tools must be integrated

to develop a videogame (see Figure 1). The main

tools are game engines which are usually integrated

with other middleware solutions to get dynamic

physics based animations.

Figure 1: Tools for videogame development.

The idea underneath an authoring tool is simply

to allow the development of videogames without

having to perform all the tasks ordinary involved in

such process.

Authoring tools vary depending on their

flexibility (ability to create different games, that is,

games with different stories, missions, characters,

mechanics, etc.) and complexity (the technical skills

required to use them). From using an existing

videogame to developing an original one with a

multidisciplinary team and common technologies,

there are several options requiring different

knowledge and skills (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Authoring tools.

Most popular videogames authoring tools are not

intended for creating educational videogames, and

are not instructor-oriented nor consider educational

aspects in the game development. Examples of

authoring tools are:

 Mission Maker: a tool for students, it lets

create 3D and first-person videogames. The

students can select elements from an extensive

object library, create and animate 3D

characters, import their own music, graphics

and video and set rules for game play;

 Game Maker: using easy-to-learn drag-and-

drop actions professional-quality games can

be created, including backgrounds, animated

graphics, music and sound effects;

 App Game Kit: With its own BASIC script

language it makes it quite easy to code

videogames for mobile platforms. This tool

facilitates portability, but many technical

skills are needed to create games;

 Little Big Planet 2: It is an authoring tool built

into the game with the same name. It allows

the development of custom game levels by

using assets that are achieved while playing;

 <e-Adventure> (Moreno-Ger, 2005): It is an

instruction-oriented authoring tool for

educational point-and-click videogames,

created with the purpose of reducing

development costs for educational games. It

takes into account educational features

regarding assessment and adaptation. Besides,

the games created with e-adventure can be

integrated within Virtual Learning

Environments.

In general, all the existing authoring tools are

quite flexible but complex, as all of them required

some skills in the field of game development process

and technologies.

3 Q-BAT

Q-BAT is a simple educational authoring tool that

provides a first person 3D game (Q-B) that involves

as part of its plot a collection of challenges the

gamer must get through. These challenges can be

edited by the teacher just by filling in a web form.

The questions and their answers are saved in a XML

file, that is then used to customize the game. So, Q-

B can be reconfigured to be used for different

educational purposes, for instance to motivate and

guide in autonomous learning, for assessment or to

promote collaborative learning. In general, Q-BAT

is suitable for any learning activity that can be

organized as a collection of questions.

The advantages of Q-BAT are, on one hand, the

simplicity of the teacher editing tool (the only

teacher required skill is to formulate "interesting"

questions), and on the other, the game genre, which

has been designed in order to make the game

experience immersive and engaging, focusing

Q-BAT:ACUSTOMIZABLEVIDEOGAMEFOREDUCATION

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primarily on this experience instead of educational

aspects.

3.1 The Game

The objective of the game is to get out of a building

before dying. To do so, the gamer must get through

a collection of challenges. In his way to the exit, the

gamer comes across some boxes which display the

challenges to pass. Figure 3 shows one room of the

game.

Figure 3: Fire room of Q-B.

Each challenge is presented as a minigame,

containing a question and a specific game mechanic

to provide the answer. Figure 4 shows an example of

minigame: the answer is a number that must be

provided by “catching” the light bulbs with the

corresponding digits while they are on.

Figure 4: Example of a minigame.

The game has been developed using Unity, a

game engine that enables versions for multiple

platforms (PC, Xbox, iPad, web, etc.).

3.2 The Edition Tool

As said before, the edition tool is just a web form

where the teacher edits the questions and provides

the correct answers (see Figure 5).

By the moment, four types of questions are

included:

 numerical: the answer is a number;

 textual: the answer is a name (or a text);

 multiple choice: five different options are

provided as possible answers, one or more are

correct;

 matching: five pairs of concepts must be

related.

Several different minigames are provided for

each question type, being selected randomly by the

game manager when customizing the game. For

instance, the minigame shown in Figure 4

corresponds to a numerical question.

Figure 5: Editing tool.

3.3 The XML Configuration File

"Config.xml" is a file defined in xml 1.0 that allows

the teacher to customize the game with the questions

he desires. This file is structured with the following

nodes (see Figure 6):

 <cuestionario></cuestionario>: are the

opening and closing tags of the file;

 <pregunta></pregunta>: is the opening and

closing of a question. An "id" attribute defines

the number of the question;

 <tipo></tipo>: corresponds to the opening and

closing tag of the type of question. It can be

numerical, textual, multiple choice and

matching;

 <enunciado></enunciado>: are the labels for

the question´s statement;

 <respuestas></respuestas>: contains all the

answers to the multiple choice questions as

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well as the first column of the matching ones;

 <respuesta></respuesta>: corresponds to each

possible answer in multiple choice or

matching questions;

 <soluciones></soluciones>: contains the

correct options in the multiple choice

questions, the right column in the matching

ones, as well as the solutions to the numerical

and textual questions;

 <solucion></solucion>: contains each of the

possible solutions to the questions.

Figure 6: Example of a XML configuration file.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The challenges of the twenty first century education

make it necessary to incorporate new strategies and

tools in the teaching and learning process.

Videogames became a very interesting option, as

they combine traditional game-based learning

benefits with new digital media, more familiar to our

students.

There are authoring tools for creating

videogames easily, with low cost and in short time.

But teachers usually lack the technical skills needed

to use them.

We have developed a first-person 3D videogame

that includes challenges that can be edited by

teachers with a simple web-based tool. These tests

can be used to introduce some educational aspects in

the game, and so the same game can be used for

different learning purposes. In this way, the game

together with the questions editing tool constitute a

very simple authoring tool for creating educational

videogames.

Q-BAT is so far a basic platform for researching

purposes. Future work is focused, first, on validating

the interest and usefulness of the Q-B game in

supporting learning and teaching. Then new research

lines will be opened, to include minigames with

mechanics adapted to specific problems, to add

“help” facilities during the game to provide

information and educational contents, or to integrate

Q-BAT within Learning Management Systems.

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