Abstract

Creating an effective learning game involves many tasks – some that are driven by the methods of particular disciplines and others that blend the approaches of multiple disciplines. An iterative learning game development method is introduced that blends best practices from all of the key disciplines involved in learning games as well as embodies lessons learned from prior efforts to create learning games. The chapter discusses some of the key issues you may encounter in your learning game development effort, how the different disciplines contribute throughout the project, and what to consider as your game grows in capability over time.

Introduction

Certainly by now you realize that developing an effective learning game is a multifaceted challenge – you must design and develop a variety of instructional and gaming elements, robustly test and carefully tune your game to ensure that it teaches effectively, and appropriately integrate it into the target learning environment to ensure success. Moreover, as with many complex software development efforts, you may not know all of the specific requirements for the game in advance and/or those requirements may evolve as you progress.