Designing entertaining educational games using procedural rhetoric: a case study

In the paper we describe the design and development of a video game about sustainable energy use that effectively unites fun with learning. We also present results from an initial study of the educational impact of the game. Many educational games do not properly translate knowledge, facts, and lessons into the language of games. This results in games that are often neither engaging nor educational. Our approach differs by using game mechanics to express the educational content. The design combines the fantasy elements and game play conventions of the real-time strategy (RTS) genre with numbers, resources and situations based on research about real-world energy production and use. The result is a game in which the player learns about energy use simply by trying to overcome the game's challenges. We demonstrate that effective and engaging learning games can be developed as long as sound game design principles are used. Results from a combined quantitative/qualitative study show that players enjoyed the game, learned new things and became more interested in the topic of energy use. This paper will highlight key aspects of the design that we believe contributed towards making the game fun as well as educational. The game also presents a model for translating real-world topics into game mechanics using the language of procedural rhetoric. The real world is ripe with problems and situations that could inspire interesting game mechanics and provide new creative ideas for educational and traditional game designers.