Exploring Interaction Possibilities in Educational Games: A Working Proposal

Abstract

The design of the user interfaces for educational games (EGs) poses specific challenges, as this feature does not only have an impact on the game playability but can also be used to reinforce learning or to establish associations between concepts. However, implementing advanced in-game interactions can be an issue due to the wide range of technologies for defining input modalities, actions and events that game designers need to consider. In this working paper, we propose an approach to ease the development of educational games that go one step beyond classical mouse and keyboard interaction and provide interaction alternatives within the same game rationale. Our proposal is based on the integration of a game design model and an ubicomp interaction toolkit that manages heterogeneous devices.