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Electric Shocks: Lessons learnt while converting an educational boardgame from the physical to the virtual
Conference presentation

Electric Shocks: Lessons learnt while converting an educational boardgame from the physical to the virtual

Ben Rolfe, Jo Rosier, Uwe Terton, L Boshammer, Nicholas Hansen and Nicholas J Stevens
USC Research Conference, 2014 (Sunshine Coast, Australia, 14-Jul-2014–18-Jul-2014)
University of the Sunshine Coast
2014
url
https://www.usc.edu.au/View
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Abstract

Computer Software
Educational games are a large and growing area of interest to educators, both within and beyond the classroom setting, and computer games give the capacity to increase the reach, scalability, and use opportunities of educational games. While games come in many forms and are played in many media, this presentation explores the translation of one form (the board game) from one medium to another (specialised physical tabletop artefact to software on a generic digital touch device), by means of a case study, conducted in the planning discipline at USC. Thanks, in part, to the proliferation of touch devices like the iPad, digital board games are enjoying an upsurge in popularity, with many old favourites being translated into digital form. Despite this, digital board games do not appear poised to replace physical ones. Part of the reason may be that digital games, even with the same rules, play differently to their physical counterparts - games are about people interacting with each other through a mediating system. When we take the view of game-as-interface, it becomes clear that changes to the interface change the interaction. When we move the same rule set from a physical game to a digital game, changing medium without changing form or structure, the interaction still changes - it becomes a different game. The challenge for designers of serious digital board games is to leverage the opportunities that the digital medium provides, and structure play activities that work with, rather than against, the strengths of the medium. Translating a board game to digital should be viewed in much the same way as making a movie of the book; while there is pressure to be true to the original, directly duplicating the same form and structure will usually result in an unsatisfactory translation. This ongoing design-based research explores the choices made in the translation of physical boardgames to digital. Although there is no one right way to make a serious game, we have also learned many valuable lessons with broad applicability to serious game development.

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