reminded to pay more attention throughout each level
so they can successfully pass the quiz and proceed to
the next level.
The Relevance of Games in Education
Video games first emerged since the successful
proof of concept by Physicist William Higinbotham
in October 1958 using circuitry revolving around the
use of resistors, relays, capacitors and transistors
(“The First Video Game of William Higinbotham,”
n.d.). Since then during the next decade, video games
have seen a radical change as general computing
became more developed and commercially viable.
With the release of the first video game console,
the Magnavox Odyssey the video game industry saw
its first leap towards public interest and the industry
began its capitalization of the at home entertainment
system (Schilling, 2003; Williams, n.d.). Popularity
with video games made its first big break with the
release of the Atari 2600 in 1977 (Bellemare et al,
2012) and the Nintendo 64 in 1996 (Schilling, 2003);
since then video games have caught the attention of
millions of children and families which has strengthen
its status as a must have electronic of the modern
household.
Video game interaction revolves around user
input on a touchscreen, gamepad or keyboard and
mouse to control and perform the appropriated
directed action desired on screen. These repetitious
actions are fundamental in playing and through
studies have shown to help improve motor
functionality and hand eye coordination. The video
game experience in particular allows gamers to
develop perceptual and cognitive skills in many
aspects that exceeds those of their non-gamer
counterparts (Green and Bavelier, 2004).
The educational games genre has yet to see their
popularity boom, as most players tend to use video
games as a form of entertainment rather than
education. However, in more recent times the use of
video games to develop educational tools has
expanded due to the rise of affordable and accessible
technology, especially in smart tablet devices. It
allows them to be an effective classroom tool to help
students learn and reinforce a variety of skills and
knowledge (Rossing et al, 2012).
Rewards should be given out to players for
completing specific tasks that range from easy to
hard. The drive to seek out higher rewards come from
video games tendency to promote competitiveness
amongst players and their peers. Such behavior can be
exploited to promote higher engagement and
retention rates as players are more likely to work to
completing more difficult tasks if they are tempted
with a greater reward for completion. Such rewards
are built around how the game is developed, but
should be meaningful so that they do not feel
worthless. For example, giving new unlocks for
levels, badges, medals, titles or character
customization options are suitable rewards and can
garnish players’ attention.
An educational game designer should first
thoroughly understand the contents and
methodologies of its subject. Without a strong and
accurate background, it would be difficult to have
confidence in the teaching material and curriculum.
One can then decide on the best way to represent that
content in a meaningful way. Each dimensional
environment (2D or 3D) has its own strengths and
weaknesses, one being more immersive through
freedom of a three-dimensional world, but more
heavy on hardware taxing reducing the potential
adoption of low end system players. While the other
is less engaging through a lack of connection that is
brought in from a two-dimensional world, but then
also allows a wider adoption due to less hardware
constraints.
Following a teaching structure that is similar to a
classroom curriculum will help build a path of content
that is easy to grasp in the beginning and later
becoming more difficult. Progressively expanding the
content allows players to start off with the basics and
slowly move up to more in-depth and complex
concepts, giving them a natural curve of increasing
knowledge.
2 RunJumpCode GAME DESIGN
RunJumpCode is a 2D platformer with basic left, right
jumps & gravity idea. It was adopted from Super
Mario Bros. (Pedersen, Togelius, and Yannakakis,
n.d.) due to its high success rate (Ryan, 2011; Chen
2011), simplicity and level of entertainment. User
have to learn theory, solve problems and apply
learned knowledge in order to progress through the
game (Baghaei, 2016).
Once launched, the player is taken to the main menu
where items are clear and easy to understand. The
idea behind the simplicity is so that the players on a
broad age group will be able to figure out the
workings of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) with
minimal effort. And since this is the user’s first point
of contact with game and as a first impression, it was
imperative for the design to be cluster free and easily
understandable.
RunJumpCode was developed with a diverse age