Playfulness-based design in educational games: A perspective on an evolutionary contest game

Abstract

Playfulness steering is an emerging approach in educational game design and play. The integration of arithmetic computation, game strategy, and teamwork into one game allows players to interactively “steer” the playfulness and enhance learning. In this paper, an evolutionary contest game was designed and implemented to examine the influencing factors. Through action research, focus groups and hermeneutic methods, the results of this study suggest that the playfulness design of an evolutionary game is influenced by the degree of uncertainty, flexibility in decision making, the level of challenge, equal conditions for fair play, opportunities to compete/cooperate, and the level of interactivity.