A Creation Tool for Serious Puzzle Games

Gaëlle Guigon

, Mathieu Vermeulen

and Jérémie Humeau

IMT Lille Douai, Institut Mines Télécom, 941 Rue Charles Bourseul, Douai, France

Keywords: Puzzle Game, Serious Game, Escape Game, Design, Tool.

Abstract:

This article aims to present a tool for designing serious games with riddles, such as escape games. This

multilingual tool will be available online freely and presented as a form on a website with a database to save

and share one’s projects. After completing the form, a graphic overview of the project is presented to the user.

It is based on different Serious Escape Games and Serious Puzzle Games realized in the past three years and

on several websites giving advice to create this type of activity. This tool is at its early stages and the prototype

has been tested by a few Serious Escape Games designers on their previous projects. Feedback will be used

to improve the tool. Following the validation of the prototype, computer development has begun: the tool

meets the needs of the designers and ﬁts to the different tested projects. Intended initially for teaching after a

few requests, it is expected to be used by a wide audience and to respond to the various needs related to the

creation of this type of activity.

1 INTRODUCTION

For several years, serious games have regularly been

used in the ﬁeld of education. Many games exist

in various ﬁelds and their usefulness is no longer to

justify. More recently, the Serious Escape Games

(SEG) (also called Educational Escape Games), have

appeared in this ﬁeld (Sanchez and Plumettaz-Sieber,

2019; Eukel et al., 2017; Dietrich, 2018; Guigon

et al., 2017; Connelly et al., 2018; Pun, 2017)

and brought many beneﬁts: cooperation, collabora-

tion, organization, communication, reasoning, team-

building, application of the course in a different con-

text ... Indeed, this activity likened to a serious game,

is a multi-player life-size escape game, which typi-

cally involves escaping from a room or a succession

of rooms in a limited amount of time (Borrego et al.,

2017). To do this, a group of players must ﬁnd and

collect a number of clues and objects in order to solve

riddles (Guigon et al., 2018). However, designing this

type of activity is not always easy for teachers which

prevents them from designing this type of activity for

their students. To overcome this obstacle, we decided

to create a tool to help the teachers in the designing

process. The problem is to deﬁne whether a Serious

Escape Game model and its reiﬁcation into a tool fa-

cilitates the design of SEG for teachers? Based on

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1790-6418

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3646-1741

the previously created SEGAM model (Serious Es-

cape GAme Model) (Guigon et al., 2018) (Figure 1),

the tool presented in this article allows to build step

by step an educational escape game or another serious

game with riddles and to obtain a preview of the orga-

nization of steps, riddles and clues. To quickly present

the SEGAM model, it is inspired by the DISC model

(an acronym for Domain, Interaction, Scenario, Con-

text) created by (Vermeulen et al., 2017; Vermeulen

et al., 2019) to produce role-playing serious games

with steps. SEGAM kept from the DISC model the

separation between levels and the case studies are rep-

resented as riddles. Riddles are independent and a

red thread is present throughout the scenario, as in

the DISC model.

In our knowledge, no model (other than SEGAM) and

no speciﬁc tool to design SEG have been published.

However, there is a real need for it, in particular for

teachers and novice designers.

This article propose a tool to co-design SEG with

them. A ﬁrst experiment made it possible to test this

tool as a prototype on already realized SEG. Firstly,

we present our tool and its features. The second part

deals with the testing phase of the prototype and the

associated feedback. Finally, we conclude with the

perspectives of the project.

556

Guigon, G., Vermeulen, M. and Humeau, J.

A Creation Tool for Serious Puzzle Games.

DOI: 10.5220/0007796405560561

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2019), pages 556-561

ISBN: 978-989-758-367-4

Figure 1: SEGAM, Serious Escape GAme Model.

2 PROPOSITION

As a result of SEG’s growing production, the creation

of a tool to structure and collect all the information

needed to design escape games quickly became a

necessity for many teachers. In addition, most of

them have no instructional designer or game designer

to help them in this process. When creating such

activity by themselves, teachers can get easily over-

whelmed by the quantity of information to deal with.

A lot of websites give tips and tricks to help build

this type of activity but the information is scattered

across the web. The tool proposed in this article is

therefore intended to guide them step by step so that

they can create a serious game with riddles (escape

game type) more easily and in an organized way.

The methodological approach used to conduct this

research is based on Mandran’s work (Mandran

and Dupuy-Chessa, 2017): the THEDRE research

method for Traceable Human Experiment Design

REsearch. This method is based on the improvement

process Plan-Do-Check-Act (Sokovic et al., 2010)

and thus on iterative cycle with indicators to evaluate

the quality of the research. Furthermore, THEDRE

was developed for human centered research. In this

article, we propose the results of the ﬁrst research

cycle and thus, the ﬁrst iteration of a tool to help

teachers to design SEG.

The prototype (the ﬁrst iteration of the tool) proposed

here ﬁrst appears as a form (Figure 2) written in

HTML and CSS to use it on the web.

Different types of criteria are requested in simple

ﬁelds:

Pedagogical. The purpose of this section is to

deﬁne the general educational objective of the ac-

tivity as well as the skills or learning objectives to

be achieved during the course of the game. There

may be prerequisites that are important to deﬁne

beforehand to conceive the riddles. For a serious

game, these elements are essential because they will

Figure 2: Screenshot of the tool.

guide all the riddles and help select the content to be

treated during the activity. It is important to focus

on this aspect as the riddles will be the pillars of the

activity and these will be based on the educational

content.

Various Constraints. Many constraints are to

be taken into account for the creation of this type of

activity and will affect in particular the format of the

game: the available time, the number of sessions,

the number of learners, the place, the budget, the

supervisors during the session, etc.

Background. Here, it is a question of deﬁning

the global plot, the scenario in which the learners will

evolve: what is the initial situation, the goal of the

game, what will happen in case of failure ? Are there

any important characters in the script? Is the game

collaborative or competitive? Keeping in mind that

the game can be competitive and educational, several

teams ﬁghting for the same goal.

Organization. In this part, the designers will

deﬁne their project team, information concerning the

tests and the reengineering to be carried out before

the implementation of the activity. Indeed, the tests

are a key step in the design of an activity of this

type because the testers (having a proﬁle as close as

possible to the target audience) will be able to give

A Creation Tool for Serious Puzzle Games

557

their feedback on the activity and each riddle will

then be tested: are the clues explicit enough ? Is there

any challenge inducing a state of ﬂow (Csikszentmi-

halyi, 1990)? This step will also show the robustness

of the clues and if the reasoning of the designers

is the same as the users’. Then, it is the reengi-

neering step, and thus the changes needed. Some

may be done quickly, others may be only done for

the next session, requiring more time to achieve them.

Structure. Once the previous elements are de-

ﬁned, the designer will be able to structure his

activity: how many steps will be necessary, what will

be the riddles that will compose them. The latter

will be associated with prerequisites and pedagogical

objectives deﬁned beforehand. Another important

element is the deﬁnition of the clues to solve the

riddles: their form, the cost they represent, the step in

which they will be discovered in the game and where

will they be hidden.

Educational and Financial Report. Finally,

once all the elements are deﬁned, the tool offers a

ﬁnancial statement to check that the forecasts for the

equipment are compatible with the allocated budget.

And there is also a pedagogical review to make sure

that all the objectives and skills initially deﬁned are

properly treated during the activity.

It has to be noted that most ﬁelds are optional,

so the designer can only enter information that

interest him. Only some information concerning the

steps, the riddles and the clues are required because

they make it possible to generate the representation

with the SEGAM model. Moreover, there is no order

to ﬁll the form, the designer can ﬁll the ﬁelds in the

order of his choice.

Thus, in a second step, thanks to the ﬁlled criteria,

the model SEGAM is completed with the different

elements of the escape game: steps, riddles and clues

(Figure 3). Clues referring to the same riddle have

the same background color. They can be distributed

in the steps preceding the solving of the riddle in

question and not only at the step of the riddle to

be solved. This brings some complexity for the

players who must then use them at the appropriate

moment. Notice that the SEGAM model has evolved

from its original version and now the term "Levels"

is replaced by "Steps"”. The term "steps" is more

representative because the concept of level could

induce a notion of difﬁculty, which is not necessarily

the case from one activity to another.

The tool must be practical and functional, but also

intuitive and quick to take in hand in order to be

Figure 3: Representation of the project.

used by everyone. Based on the prototype, the ﬁrst

version consists in obtaining a form as complete as

possible and meeting the expectations of the target

audience (mainly teachers originally). The basic

outcome of the form is the pdf export to keep track

of the work done or to print it if necessary. A second

version is being developed. It will make the tool more

ergonomic and easier to use, offering the possibility

to add or delete steps, riddles or clues directly from

the SEGAM model and affecting the associated

ﬁelds in the form. Moreover, the technology used

to create the tool has evolved in order to have a

fast and efﬁcient deployment. Angular allowed

that, it is a maintainable framework, with a large

community. The project will be easier to manage for

the next evolutions. Finally, the tool will remain in

responsive design, and therefore easily accessible on

smartphones, tablets and computers.

3 TESTS AND FEEDBACK

The tool was tested at ﬁrst with several Serious

Escape Games and treasure hunts made by our team.

Three of them were created according to the SEGAM

model. The co-organizers of these SEG were the ﬁrst

testers. Then the tests were expanded to other puzzle

games not designed with the SEGAM model. Here

is some feedback from these tests: Overall, the tool

is comprehensive and the user understands easily its

operation. He feels guided and all the information

necessary to the conception of the activity is present.

This tool seems to give inspiration to the designers,

discovering ﬁelds in the form they did not think

about. Here are some improvements for each section

of the form:

Background. Basically the activity is intended

to have only one end goal, assuming that all learners

play for a common purpose. However, by giving

them the idea that there may be multiple goals, this

can inspire designers to create different scenarios:

teams ﬁght for different goals, or some players have

different roles and goals from the other players. The

target audience of this tool is looking for inspiration

CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

558

to create such activities and will therefore be fond of

tracks for their scenario.

Organisation. It would be interesting to have a

checklist in order to make the management of the

changes easier in the "Reengineering" part. The

progress of the improvements would thus be more

visual and practical.

Structure

• In the current version, the possibility of having a

clue used in several riddles is missing. This op-

tion should be selected in the edition of the clue

in the form, giving a multicolored background

to this type of clue in the representation with

the SEGAM model. Each clue of the SEGAM

model would have a different number, except

those present in several riddles, which would then

be duplicated in the SEGAM model but not in the

form.

• If the activity has to be played by several teams si-

multaneously, it is possible that riddles are nearly

the same (to avoid cheating for instance). To save

time for designers, the clues and riddles should

therefore be duplicable and the possibility of indi-

cating whether a particular piece of data changes

from one team to another should be added. Fig-

ures 4 and 5 illustrate this possibility with a rid-

dle on logic gates for the purpose of displaying a

digit. Indeed, Figure 4 shows the different param-

eters depending on the groups: Group 1 has the

parameters: a = 0, b = 0, c = 0; group 2 has: a = 0,

b = 0, c = 1 etc. Thus the diagram in Figure 5 is the

same for all, but the electrical signals being differ-

ent for the three entries, the ﬁnal solution will be

different for each group, while treating exactly the

same course notions.

• For the sake of clarity and to decrease the mass of

displayed information, it would be wise when you

enter the number of steps in the tool, to have the

corresponding number of buttons below. Thus,

when one clicks on one of these buttons, the part

"Riddles" of the form appears. In this way, each

riddle is placed in the corresponding step. This

avoids having a very long form with all the rid-

dles of the game afterwards, making the naviga-

tion very ergonomic.

• Moreover, in the same spirit, the fact of displaying

the questions by groups for the riddle part would

make this part less impressive by the number of

criteria to be informed. Indeed, it would be possi-

ble to display the questions step by step and thus

the questionnaire would seem lighter and easier to

handle.

• To have a better visualization of the construction

of the activity, having the representation with the

SEGAM model always visible (on computer and

tablet) would help to see the progress of the struc-

ture of the game. The designer would thus have a

direct return of his actions making easier the read-

ing of the model.

Figure 4: Settings of the riddle.

Figure 5: Riddle on logic gates.

Representation. This is the most attractive part of the

tool, one that users will want to take in hand quickly.

During the creation of the tool this part was the fo-

cus of the design. The aim was to get the designer

motivated to use this tool rather than a sheet of paper.

Rolland Viau’s works (Viau, 1994), showed that mo-

tivation is necessary to persevere and to reach one’s

goal, that’s why this tool put the emphasis on that mat-

ter through its practical and ergonomic aspects. The

fact that the tool is accessible online at any time on

any device, shareable and recordable will provide a

signiﬁcant advantage for users. They will be able to

print only the elements useful for them.

• To facilitate the understanding that each riddle un-

locks a new step, one could add a padlock icon

opened at the end of a riddle on the line between

the last step of the riddle in question and the next

step. When hovering or clicking on this padlock,

the detail of the unlocked object would be dis-

played.

• The user may want to consult the constraints

quickly from the "Representation" part, an option

to display the list of these constraints could be

A Creation Tool for Serious Puzzle Games

559

useful (mainly on the computer and tablet version

but less convenient on the mobile version).

• From the moment the user deletes a clue in the

SEGAM model, he should have the possibility to

reorder clues numbers. If he chooses to do so,

then he could do it manually: choose which clue

takes the number of another deleted or automatic:

all numbers are shifted to compensate for missing

numbers.

• Then, to facilitate the management of items in the

SEGAM model, it would be interesting to be able

to drag and drop clues from one step to another or

to reorder the riddles by dragging a line and place

it elsewhere.

• Finally, to facilitate the management of groups, it

would be practical to be able to duplicate riddles

or clues and thus manage the different parame-

ters from one team to another. Knowing that all

changes made within the representation with the

SEGAM model would be reﬂected in the form.

Operation

• It would be interesting for new users to have ac-

cess to an optional tutorial to brieﬂy explain the

functions of the tool.

• Some ﬁelds of the form may not have the same

meaning for different users, so it would be use-

ful for them to have an example of the form ﬁlled

with a real project to be inspired and understand

what is expected.

• In the same spirit, it might be interesting to have

an explanatory bubble next to each ﬁeld for a bet-

ter understanding of the criteria.

Extension

• The tool can be used for puzzle games without ed-

ucational purpose, some sections of the form will

be no longer essential in this case.

• It may be interesting to add a menu with improve-

ments planned in future versions of the tool, as

well as a place for users to make suggestions for

enhancement. The version of the tool would thus

be displayed and would make it possible to realize

if the tool has beneﬁted from improvements since

the last use.

• The goal is to give a maximum of elements so that

the designers can take in hand riddles activities.

For example regarding the escape game type, it

would be useful to add advice, tips and tricks to

the "Help" category. For instance with elements

concerning the introduction of the game to the

public like security advice classically stated, or

useful elements for the ﬁnal debrieﬁng. Indeed,

debrieﬁng is essential (Lederman, 1992; Crookall,

2010) because the teacher will come back on each

riddle met during the activity and explain the

course notions and expected objectives. Rewind-

ing each riddle will allow people who have not

solved this riddle (as they were solving another

one in parallel for example) to return to the course

notions that he could not address and get feedback

on the notions seen by those who solved them.

Thus the debrieﬁng will make them aware of their

learning, they will realize as well that they do not

come only to "play" but also to review several no-

tions of course and their detail.

Following these tests, the most relevant changes to

help designers create their activity will be integrated

in the next version of the tool, the others will be added

later. For now, a tester wanted to keep the prototype

to start a new project. Then, an instructional designer

heard about the project. She would like to have quick

access to this tool to test if her previous Escape Games

ﬁt in the tool and to help her designing the next ones.

These ﬁrst returns seem to conﬁrm the important need

of this type of tool and will allow to develop it accord-

ing to feedback from the user community.

4 CONCLUSION

Given the ﬁrst tests, this tool seems to facilitate the

design of SEG for teachers, being more guided to ad-

dress all the elements essential to the creation of this

type of activity. This tool will evolve with time and

user feedback, especially those mentioned above in

the "Tests and feedback" section. Improvements are

already planned: the third version of the tool will ask

to be authenticated on the site thus allowing to save

the project. Designers will be able to work on it in

several times. It is planned to include an automatic

backup to prevent unexpected data loss. Thanks to

a database, each user will be able to manage several

projects, to share them with other people, in public or

private mode, giving the rights of modiﬁcation or not.

Another function will be the ability to archive a com-

pleted project: it will be saved separately, and avail-

able read-only. People with access could then ﬁnd it

if necessary without cluttering their list of projects in

progress. Finally, users will have the option to delete

or duplicate a project if they want to create a variant.

Other more technical improvements are planned to

improve ergonomics and to consult, create, modify or

delete elements even more quickly with greater ease

than before, especially thanks to the SEGAM model.

To facilitate the organization of the project, it is also

planned to select the parts of the form that you want

CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

560

to export in pdf: for example only riddles and clues,

or the list of clues, the place of their hiding place as

well as associated codes for better management of the

elements on site during the activity. These ﬁrst el-

ements were inspired by the different SEG realized

in various contexts as well as some websites help-

ing to design escape games (AcadémieDeParis, 2018;

S’CAPE, 2017; lelivrescolaire, 2018; Quesne, 2017).

The SEGAM model was used to build the structure,

but many other elements were written on separate

sheets and were useful during the design or imple-

mentation of our SEG. This tool makes it possible to

centralize all the data concerning the escape game, to

be accessible on mobiles, tablets and computers, by

several people and the content can be updated regu-

larly and easily. The next step is to spread it widely to

help as many people as possible create serious puzzle

games and get their feedback to make it evolve and

meet the needs of as many users as possible. Then,

based on the escape games that were designed with

the tool, an analysis will be made thanks to the collec-

tion of user traces (students and teachers). This anal-

ysis will help to classify the SEG and to determine

what type of SEG to use based on: educational objec-

tives, the type of activity (discovery, learning or eval-

uation) or the type of skill (soft or hard). The results

of this analysis will also allow to classify the riddles

(for example, based on intrinsic or extrinsic metaphor

(Fabricatore, 2000)). Thus, it would be interesting

that the tool, through these elements, guides users to

create riddles according to their needs by proposing

similar generic elements.

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