Learning Scenarios for Serious Educational Games with Creative

Visualization in Natural Eco-Context

Maxim Goynov

, Detelin Luchev

, Radoslav Pavlov

, Lilia Pavlova

Mariya Monova-Zheleva

1,2 d

, Yanislav Zhelev

1,2 e

and Desislava Paneva-Marinova

Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 8, G. Bonchev Str., Sofia, Bulgaria

Burgas Free University, 62, San Stefano Str., 8001, Burgas, Bulgaria

Keywords: Serious Educational Games, Learning (Game) Scenarios, Platform for Serious Games Development,

Game-Based Learning, Environmental Education.

Abstract: Serious educational games are increasingly helping to promote creativity, engagement and effective learning

in modern education. The focus of this paper is on learning scenarios and their key role in the development

of serious educational games with creative visualization to build competence in natural ecosystems,

responsible management of natural resources and environmental protection, in the context of the ProNature

project. In the development, a structured framework for developing game scenarios was set and followed,

applying and integrating pedagogical principles, game design elements, and adaptive learning technologies to

improve educational outcomes. The paper discusses the key dimensions of effective educational game design

and provides insights into formalizing game scenarios and integrating them into a scalable, user-friendly

platform. The findings highlight the potential of serious games to address critical environmental challenges

while promoting innovative and inclusive learning experiences.

1 INTRODUCTION

The unprecedented proliferation of online gaming,

becoming a key component of culture and society

(Bertacchini & Borrione, 2012; Cerezo-Pizarro et al.,

2023). Gamification (Hamari, 2019) is now an ever-

present part of the modern era (Zhang et al., 2021;

Mabalay, 2025). This has a huge impact on social

trends and necessitates the need to offer digital

gaming solutions with high added cognitive value

(Koivisto & Hamari, 2019; Mohd et al., 2023).

Considering that popular computer games can raise

awareness, attract the interest of young people and

increase the popularity of embedded content in virtual

reality, more efforts should be made to use games in

a broader perspective and benefit and especially to

https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2244-4314

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0926-5796

https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8250-9235

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8910-2502

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2783-5617

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5998-687X

build and develop serious educational games (Ofosu-

Ampong, 2020; Kobari et al., 2022; P K et al., 2023).

Despite the interest in this direction, there is a lack

of evidence and evaluation on the potential of games

to achieve creativity, effective learning and

acquisition of useful knowledge and skills (Hamari et

al., 2014; Qian & Clark, 2016; All et al., 2016; Chugh

& Turnbull, 2023). Due to their advanced

interactivity and multimedia interfaces, modern

serious educational games can convey complex

concepts and facts in a widely accessible and

engaging way (Knox, 2023; Dahalan et al., 2024;

Karimov et al., 2024; Sun et al., 2024). Serious

educational games of the interactive system or

simulator type rely on the additional pedagogical

value of fun and competition. On the other hand, the

rapid development of serious educational games

834

Goynov, M., Luchev, D., Pavlov, R., Pavlova, L., Monova-Zheleva, M., Zhelev, Y. and Paneva-Marinova, D.

Learning Scenarios for Serious Educational Games with Creative Visualization in Natural Eco-Context.

DOI: 10.5220/0013501300003932

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2025) - Volume 1, pages 834-845

ISBN: 978-989-758-746-7; ISSN: 2184-5026

towards building through virtual and mixed reality

provides additional opportunities creative

visualization and interactivity, collaboration and

teamwork, leadership, communication, critical

thinking, problem solving, flexibility and

adaptability, global and social awareness,

information and technology literacy, initiative, social

responsibility and ethics (Zakrzewski et al., 2025;

Nguyen-Viet & Nguyen-Viet, 2025).

Contemporary serious educational games are

extremely valuable especially if their construction

and consideration is the result of a collaborative effort

between a team of specialists in digital technology,

the target subject area to be studied and the pedagogy.

A well-structured scenario must integrate both

pedagogical principles and game design elements to

ensure a balance between entertainment and learning.

At the same time, to develop and implement effective

learning tools, it is essential to consider all

stakeholders (users, educators, families, researchers,

developers/industries) (De Gloria et al., 2014).

All this would be difficult to achieve when there

is no clear learning scenario, concept, learning

content and use cases to develop the game in a

specific learning context, with a learning objective

and learning-focussed gameplay. The scenario in

educational games plays a crucial role in creating an

engaging and effective learning experience by

directing the player's attention toward key

educational objectives (Bellotti et al., 2010). In

developing a serious educational game, one should

follow and clearly articulate the learning

characteristics, specify the role of each game object,

the space (scene) in which the serious game takes

place, the actions, and the expected outcome. It is also

important for the scenario to be adaptive, allowing

players to explore different strategies and observe the

consequences of their decisions, which fosters a

deeper understanding of the learning content. Recent

studies emphasize the importance of incorporating

adaptive learning technologies and personalized

feedback mechanisms into serious games to enhance

their educational impact (Lameras et al., 2021).

Adaptive scenarios that respond to the player's

progress and learning style significantly improve

engagement and knowledge retention.

This paper focuses on the learning scenario (also

called game scenario) of a serious educational game,

its formalization and development in a special

learning-supported software platform. The target

scenario reflects the specific learning content and

player (learner) activities and in particular the

specifics of the learning game objects, game scene,

learning strategy, gaming learning flow, etc. The

development of learning scenarios is a key

component in the ProNature project

(https://pronature-project.math.bas.bg), which aims

to develop an innovative software platform for

serious educational games with creative visualization

to build competence for natural ecosystems,

responsible management of natural resources and

environmental protection. The project creates

scenarios for serious educational games in the context

of:

 awareness and knowledge about the

functioning of protected ecosystems;

 sustainable use, protection and management of

natural resources;

 pollution prevention and control;

 protection and responses in critical situations of

biodiversity and natural ecosystems, etc.

In Section 2, the specifics of serious game design,

focusing on the integration of pedagogical principles

and game mechanics to create engaging and effective

learning experiences, is explored. Section 3 presents

the formalization and specification of a learning

scenario of a serious educational game with creative

visualization for building competence in natural

ecosystems, responsible management of natural

resources and environmental protection, providing a

structured approach to defining game objects,

activities and outcomes within a specific learning

context. The design of the ProNature platform,

highlighting its modular architecture and the role of

the game scenario module in facilitating the creation

of adaptable and reusable educational games, is

presented in Section 4. Section 5 discusses some key

dimensions of successful serious games, including

learning-related, game-related and technical aspects.

In Part 6, conclusions are drawn and views on future

research and development are presented.

2 SERIOUS GAME DESIGN

SPECIFICS

The acceptance and popularity of gamification as a

strategy designed to boost user engagement, enhance

motivation, and deliver lasting experiences attracted

much attention (Bozkurt and Durak, 2018). A lot of

research shows that this innovative approach has

gained significant recognition and nowadays serious

games and game-based learning mechanisms have

been used to promote positive attitudes, behaviours,

and learning achievements across various domains,

including primary, secondary and higher education,

adult education, healthcare, professional learning and

Learning Scenarios for Serious Educational Games with Creative Visualization in Natural Eco-Context

835

training, culture and social field (Lee et al., 2024; Bijl

et al., 2024; Dernat et al., 2025). The thorough

analysis of the theories used in primary studies related

to gamification and serious games (Bozkurt and

Durak, 2018; Krath et al.,2021) shows that a variety

of theories are employed (more than 100). However,

Self-Determination Theory (Mora et al., 2017;

Thomas et al., 2020; Tobon et al., 2020) and Flow

Theory (Bozkurt and Durak, 2018; Ab Jalil et al.,

2020; Gris and Bengtson, 2021) emerged as the most

beneficial frameworks in gamification research.

Creating an educational game is a challenging task.

The process involves integrating diverse

perspectives, including essential learning theories and

principles combined with effective game design and

suitable educational content to ensure an engaging

experience and educational effectiveness (Mifrah,

2023).

Researchers in the field have identified 12 key

elements of effective educational game design and

classified them into the framework including the

following 4 dimensions (Prensky, 2003; Shute and

Ke, 2012; Whitton, 2012):

 Learner-specific - profile, role, competencies;

 Pedagogy - associative, cognitive,

social/situative;

 Representation\Action-Domain Link - fidelity,

interactivity, immersion;

 Context - environment, access to learning,

supporting resources.

The developed framework was extended further

by incorporating cognitive and instructional

approaches to be used in educational game

development, known as the Four Dimensional

Framework (FDF). The Table 1 below shows the core

elements of FDF (De Freitas and Jarvis, 2009).

Table 1: FDF core elements.

Learne

-specific Peda

Challenge

Conflict

Progress

Adaptation

Assessment/Feedback

Debriefing/Evaluation

Instructions/Help/Hints

Safet

Representation Contex

Control

Interaction (Equipment),

Interaction

(Interpersonal),

Interaction (Social)

Location

Problem-Learner Link

Representation

Sensor

Stimuli

Fantasy

Goal/Objectives

Language/Communication

Mystery

Pieces or Players

Player Composition

Rules

Theme

The FDF has been enhanced by incorporating

cognitive and instructional approaches into the game

process (van Staalduinen et al., 2010, Ahmad et al.,

2015). Figure 1 illustrates how to connect the

educational game elements across the four mentioned

dimensions. Learning objectives and player goals

shape the engagement of the learners (i.e. players)

and guide the learning process. Based on their

achievements in the game, the learners receive

feedback and assistance from the system aiming to

improve their learning effectiveness and behaviour.

The changes in behaviour and achievements affect the

learning content, leading to adjustments in the

complexity level of the same topic or a transition to a

different topic. This, in return, influences the learning

objectives and player goals.

Figure 1: Improved FDF (Ahmad et al., 2015).

Emerging technologies such as generative AI,

extended reality (XR), and real-time analytics provide

opportunities to create more adaptive and realistic

learning scenarios. Current solutions often fail to

leverage these advances outlining a field for further

improvement (Kamalov et al., 2023; Li, S & Zhou,

Y., 2022; Ratican, J., Hutson, J., Wright, A., 2023).

Another consideration is the existing need for

personalized, inclusive, and scalable serious game

solutions that cater to varying skill levels and goals.

The focus of educational development should

prioritize sustainability and equity. This is

particularly relevant in the context of game-based

learning platforms, where there is an increasing

emphasis on the need for accessible and cost-effective

tools. Many existing platforms, however, are

characterized by being resource-intensive or

prohibitively expensive, thereby significantly

restricting their potential for widespread adoption.

Addressing these barriers is imperative to ensure

inclusive access to educational resources and to foster

broader participation across diverse socio-economic

groups.

ERSeGEL 2025 - Workshop on Extended Reality and Serious Games for Education and Learning

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The development of an innovative software

platform for serious educational games with creative

visualization to build competence for natural

ecosystems, responsible management of natural

resources and environmental protection (also called

ProNature platform) is one of the main objectives of

the ProNature project (https://pronature-

project.math.bas.bg). Wide range of serious

educational games with creative visualization in

selected eco-contexts on the basis of created game

educational scenarios, will be developed through the

platform. The resulting games are mainly oriented

towards students at the junior and senior secondary

level but would also be of interest to representatives

of the scientific community, educational institutions,

NGOs, industry and society in general.

The proposed software platform and the serious

educational games are aimed at contributing to the

awareness of natural resources and ecosystems, to the

creation of practical skills in students to design

environmentally sustainable solutions. In general, the

ProNature software platform is aimed at stimulating

innovative thinking in solving environmental

problems of the future towards sustainable

management practices in industry and social life

(Goynov et al., 2024). The methodology for the

development of the serious game scenarios and their

design specifics in the ProNature project considers

the extreme dynamics of the development of the

subject area, the applied research in it and the

interdisciplinarity, which helps the developed

models, methods and tools to be flexible, extensible

and reusable.

3 FORMALIZATION AND

SPECIFICATION OF

SCENARIOS OF A SERIOUS

EDUCATIONAL GAME WITH

CREATIVE VISUALIZATION

TO BUILD COMPETENCE FOR

NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS,

RESPONSIBLE MANAGEMENT

OF NATURAL RESOURCES

AND ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION

The game scenario is presented as a distinct

component within a broader software architecture

designed for the ProNature platform.

The architecture (Fig. 2) tries to isolate the

components in order to divide and simplify the

process of a serious educational game creation by

strictly separating the tasks of:

 Creating and selecting the game artefacts -

texts, audio and visual assets (2D or 3D),

animations, configurable embeddable mini-

games;

 Creating the scenario by defining a flow of

sequences;

 Defining game rules;

 Creating the complete game using the desired

environment (2D or 3D), scenarios, artefacts

and rules using interactive software tools.

Figure 2: General software architecture of the ProNature platform.

Learning Scenarios for Serious Educational Games with Creative Visualization in Natural Eco-Context

837

The isolation of the components also gives a

certain level of abstraction which would allow game

developers to experiment by combining one game

scenario with various sets of game artefacts or rules,

or to use one scenario for different games.

Component inheritance will also be supported,

meaning that a game (or game component) created by

one game developer could be inherited, cloned and

modified by another developer.

3.1 Formal Presentation of a Learning

Scenario

A well-structured and not complicated formal

definition of a game scenario is needed in order to put

a stable foundation for the whole game process

implementation. Game scenario development as a

predecessor step of the actual game development

should be done in a very precise and thoughtful way

in order to reduce double work and rework on the next

stages of the game development process.

For this reason our team set up a scenario

definition (shown on the analytical design diagram

below), containing a very simple repetitive flow,

composed of very few entities:

 A scene, which defines the current environment

and its descriptions, an introduction containing

short educational parts, a game scenario may

contain more than one scenes;

 Game objects, artifacts which are parts of the

scene. They contain valuable educational

content and allow interaction with players.

Game object may have 3 statuses:

o active - the player is able to interact and

play (go through the scenario);

o locked - the player will be able to interact

after some other actions are completed, or

a certain number of game points are

gathered;

o completed - the player has completed all

scenario activities related to this game

object. Player is still able to replay them.

 Available activities. Every game object

contains a list of available activities related to

its specific features. Activities can be specific

tasks or cases to be solved by the players

 Outcomes. Activities are related to their

relevant outcomes. Outcomes depend on player

’s decisions when playing with the specific

part of the scenario (solving a game object’s

specific task).

Figure 3 presents a diagram of the analysis for

game scenario formalization. The purpose of the

diagram is to show the object classes and the

relationships between them concerning the basic

elements of a game scene. Each scene consists of

game objects that can be active, locked or completed.

Active objects are those that are available for player

interaction. Locked objects are those objects that are

not yet available for player interaction, but a certain

condition needs to be met for them to go into active

status. Completed are all objects that the player has

already played.

Each game object contains possible actions for the

player to choose. Each action, in turn, provides a

choice of possible outcomes.

Figure 3: Diagram of the analysis for game scenario

formalization.

3.2 Presentation of Content of Specific

Learning Scenarios

The descriptors of a particular scenario directly

depend on the learning content that is the subject of

the game and are specified and grouped as general

and specific. General descriptors mainly refer to

genre, player characteristics, scenario context,

general description and learning objective, learning

characteristics, scene (space, terrain) on which the

game will take place, inventory, active objects and

their representation, game flow/development. Figure

4 represents an activity diagram of the game progress.

It tracks the steps the learner (player) goes through to

advance a level in the game. The activity diagram

presents the flow of interactions between the system

and the player while performing the game scenario.

A scene begins with a short introduction which

aims to let the player into the scene details and to

provide some contextual information about the target

scene environment. As a rule of the thumb we assume

that the introduction should not be longer than 30

seconds in order to keep the player's attention.

Next, the scene environment with game objects is

presented to the player. Player is able to observe the

whole environment and decide to continue with some

of the active game objects.

Choosing a game object leads to presenting

additional information or a list of specific tasks

related to the object. The player is able to select a task

ERSeGEL 2025 - Workshop on Extended Reality and Serious Games for Education and Learning

838

Figure 4: Activity diagram of the game progress.

to complete and possible ways of its completion. The

system estimates the completion of the task and

according to the game rules decides whether it was

successful. According to the game rules, players

could be awarded, new scenes / levels / game objects

can be unlocked.

The specific descriptors are related to the

specification of the selected active objects. For

example, in Scenario 1, the first level is cognitive in

the context of awareness and knowledge about the

functioning of protected ecosystems. The actions of

the learner (player) are related to exploring and

learning educational information and interesting facts

about the lake and its inhabitants. The player learns

about some of the most important birds by

researching basic characteristics and features about

each bird. We selected the Atanasovsko lake and its

inhabitants - the birds Dalmatian Pelican, Pied

Avocet, Shelduck, White-tailed Eagle и Common

Tern. For example, for the selected active object

“bird” descriptors are included such as: distinctive

features, specific information, how, where and what

it eats (in general), habitat, nesting, residence in

Bulgaria, who its enemies are (in general), why it is a

protected species, interesting facts. Visualization

through 2D and/or 3D images and sound and

interactive learning units that teach and test the

acquired knowledge are included (Figure 5). In the

second level, the focus is on the food of birds and the

specific descriptors for a given active bird object are

feeding places, how they catch their food, food -

examples and description. Scenario 2 focuses on the

sustainable use of ecosystem resources by birds and

humans, and level 1 focuses on bird reproduction.

The active objects in the level are the selected lake

and its specifically selected inhabitants - birds. For

each of them, knowledge about: breeding season,

nesting sites, pairs, nests, eggs, young, etc. is

presented in an interactive way.

Learning Scenarios for Serious Educational Games with Creative Visualization in Natural Eco-Context

839

Figure 5: 2D and 3D images of learning objects.

Visualization through 2D and/or 3D images and

interactive learning units that teach and test the

acquired knowledge are included. Scenario 3 is under

development, which aims to raise awareness and

knowledge about the protection and care of a

protected natural ecosystem (lake), its problems,

enemies of the inhabitants, prevention and control of

pollution and protection and responses in critical

situations of biodiversity and the natural ecosystem,

etc.

4 ТHE DESIGN OF THE

PRONATURE PLATFORM AND

ITS GAME SCENARIO

MODULE

A traditional 3-tier architecture was selected for the

implementation of the ProNature platform and its

components:

 A database layer provisioned by the non-

relational database management system

MongoDB;

 An application layer, supported by the

following technologies: NodeJS, Express,

NGINX.

 A presentation layer, based on the web

technologies Vue JS, Vuetify and THREE JS,

using RESTFul APIs for the communication

with the application layer, and thus allowing

the system to have multiple presentation layers

implemented.

The component diagram (Figure 6) of the game

scenario module illustrates how data entities are

structured and stored within the database. The

ScenarioManager control class is part of the

application layer of the platform, responsible for the

main logic of the game scenario management.

ScenariosManager is a boundary class and manages

the communication between the application and

presentation layer of the component (it implements

the RESTFul API).

All scenario entities will be stored in the non-

relational database management system MongoDB

using the JSON format. Together with the MVVM

(model-view-viewmodel) pattern used for the user

interface development, a rapid software development

process will be achieved, minimising the needs for

data transformations between the layers of the

platform.

Despite the logical separation between the

components, the front-end design (presentation layer)

is planned to be implemented in a way that every

feature and functionality will be available for the user

(game developer) in a fast and intuitive manner,

considering all the good and modern UI/UX practices

for a productive game building environment.

5 DISCUSSIONS

The growing global awareness of the issues related to

climate change caused a notable rise in the

development of serious games focused on the topic

(Nabong & Opdyke, 2024). Many of these games are

designed to foster an understanding of the causes of

climate change and explore effective mitigation

strategies relevant to the targeted audiences and

contexts. The success of a concrete ProNature serious

game depends on three key aspects: gaming-related

factors (dimensions), relevant learning theories and

principles that should be integrated into the proposed

game scenarios (we called them learning-related

dimensions), and technical considerations. It is

important to carefully evaluate these aspects of the

scenarios to ensure they align with the characteristics

of the target audience (school students) and the

concrete educational context and align with the

national educational standards of the school

programs.

Learning-related dimensions: The objectives of

the ProNature games focused on fostering

competence and skills in the responsible management

of natural resources and ecosystems, as well as in

environmental protection, should align closely with

national educational standards and the broader goals

of sustainability education. The complexity and

format of the content should be appropriately tailored

to the target audience of learners, with careful

consideration of accessibility and inclusivity.

The scenarios should provide relevant supportive

learning resources and learning activities tailored to

the student's profile, fostering autonomy and a reward

ERSeGEL 2025 - Workshop on Extended Reality and Serious Games for Education and Learning

840

Figure 6: Component diagram of the game scenario module.

system to evaluate player performance. The proposed

scenarios should allow the smooth incorporation of

the game activities into more complex and

comprehensive learning activities encompassing

classroom discussions, group work and collaboration,

homework assignments, etc.

Gaming-related dimensions: The scenarios

should contain final objectives and short-term goals

to help players achieve the final ones. Players should

strive for continuous improvement by gradually

increasing the difficulty level without surpassing their

capabilities to prevent discouragement. The scenarios

have to provide the possibility for players to perceive

the impact of their actions enabling behaviour

adjustments. Positive feedback, often tied to rewards,

enhances engagement, immersion, and goal

achievement. The game experience should differ

across players and sessions, achieved by adapting

challenges to the player’s skills and knowledge. The

game should captivate a diverse student audience

through features such as a compelling narrative, an

engaging virtual environment, contextualization, and

challenging objectives.

Technical aspects: The game should be based on

an intuitive interface and visual elements tailored to

the target audience to enhance engagement. All of

them need to be specified in detail in the learning

scenarios. Moreover, the scenarios should be

developed considering the potential for reusing them

in different contexts or gaming decors. This will

allow teachers to adapt or enhance the scenarios by

creating additional levels or adding new learning

topics using a user-friendly toolkit.

The proposed framework for scenarios for serious

educational games within the ProNature platform

demonstrates significant potential, but after the

implementation of serious educational games on it,

systematic empirical validation of its effectiveness

and scalability is yet to be carried out. One of the

directions in this regard is user studies to assess

engagement, learning outcomes, usability and

adaptability in different groups of learners. For

instance, pre-test/post-test designs could be employed

to measure knowledge acquisition, while control

group studies would allow for a comparative analysis

of game-based versus traditional learning methods

Learning Scenarios for Serious Educational Games with Creative Visualization in Natural Eco-Context

841

(Lameras et al., 2021; Nabong & Opdyke, 2024).

Additionally, learning analytics and A/B testing could

provide insights into the adaptability of the platform,

ensuring it meets the needs of learners with varying

skill levels and backgrounds (Kamalov et al., 2023;

Li & Zhou, 2022).

Another research direction that could influence

the development of the ProNature platform is a

broader comparison with existing serious educational

games. Future research will show whether and how

the ProNature platform excels in terms of adaptive

difficulty levels and personalized learning paths. For

example, while many platforms focus on static

content delivery, the ProNature platform’s emphasis

on creative visualization and dynamic scenario

adaptation offers an appropriate approach to fostering

environmental awareness and critical thinking

(Luchev et al., 2024). This novelty could be further

highlighted through comparative studies with

platforms like those discussed by De Gloria et al.

(2014) and Pellas et al. (2019), which emphasize

immersive technologies, but they lack an

interdisciplinary focus on environmental education.

Techniques such as facial expression analysis and

eye-tracking offer the potential to yield more nuanced

insights into emotional engagement, while think-

aloud protocols can elucidate cognitive processes

occurring during gameplay (Kickmeier-Rust et al.,

2011; Kiili et al., 2014; Psaltis et al., 2016; Hookham

et al., 2016; Pellicone et al., 2022). However, it is

essential to emphasize that apart from the need for

specialized analytical expertise, the effective

implementation of these engagement studies methods

necessitates specialized equipment, which may not be

readily available to all participants. This limitation

constitutes a significant challenge that warrants

further consideration in future research. These

methods, combined with self-report surveys and task

performance metrics, would offer a comprehensive

evaluation of the platform’s usability and learning

impact (Bijl et al., 2024; Zubair et al., 2024). In

general, learning effectiveness studies will assess the

improvement in knowledge or skills as a result of

playing games on the platform.

Considering these different aspects and choosing

appropriate evaluation methods will greatly assist in

achieving effective results. The process needs to

involve both teachers who have implemented the

proposed game-based solutions in their actual work

and teaching practices, the learners, as well as experts

from educational control bodies. In the project,

optimal evaluation methods will be investigated and

selected. Future studies should focus on long-term

retention tests, demographic-based analyses, and

focus groups to ensure the platform’s adaptability and

inclusivity. By addressing these limitations, the

platform can achieve its goal of promoting innovative

and sustainable learning experiences.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The presented research and development responds to

current trends in creating personalized, inclusive and

scalable serious gaming solutions for education that

meet different skill levels and goals. The target

software platform for serious educational games with

creative visualization is in the design and

development, but considering each component and its

role is essential to the outcomes. This paper focused

on learning game scenarios, showing its formalization

and development in the ProNature software platform.

The consideration of the project concept will continue

to evolve to ensure the effective use of the proposed

solutions, not only with a view to improving students'

understanding of natural ecosystems, but also they

will contribute to promoting critical thinking,

problem solving and environmental awareness.

Future work will focus on further developing and

refining the scenarios in the direction of

customization and adaptability, in order to improve

the learner's experience and to bring the visual

representation as close as possible to the real natural

environment. The possibility of reusing already

created scenarios, artifact sets, backgrounds and

game rules will be expanded, and this will greatly

facilitate different developers. They will be able to

experiment by combining one game scenario with

different artifact sets or rules or using one scenario for

different games, etc. Collaborative efforts with

educators, researchers, and industry stakeholders will

be essential to ensure the continued development and

widespread adoption of serious educational games as

powerful tools for environmental education and

sustainable development.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This publication was created with the financial

support of the European Union - NextGenerationEU.

All responsibility for the content of the document is

borne by the Institute of Mathematics and

Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and

under no circumstances can it be assumed that this

document reflects the official opinion of the European

Union and the Monitoring and Reporting Structure

ERSeGEL 2025 - Workshop on Extended Reality and Serious Games for Education and Learning

842

under the Recovery and Resilience Facility of the EU,

established by Regulation (EU) 2021/241, in the

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Project No. BG-RRP-2.011-0004 entitled

"Innovative Software Platform for Serious

Educational Games with Creative Visualization to

Build Competence and Responsible Management of

Natural Resources" from the National Recovery and

Resilience Plan, is financed under Contract No. PVU-

2/BG-RRP-2.011-0004-C01/27.05.2024 by the

Recovery and Resilience Faculty in implementation

of the Investment C2I2 "Increasing the innovation

capacity of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in the

field of green and digital technologies" from the

Recovery and Resilience Facility of the European

Union - NextGenerationEU.

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