Högskolan i Skövde

Gamification is the application of game design elements in non-gaming contexts to reach some purposes. It has been proposed as a solution in several domains, such as teaching, corporate training and healthy living. This paper presents the design and evaluation of the skill tree method which is a part of a gamified approach to motivate and support NEET-youth (Not in Education, Employment or Training) to leave their isolation and take steps towards better inclusion in society. The overall approach is based on two principles: 1) it targets adolescents with an interest in games 2); it utilizes their interest in games as the starting point for the intervention. Part of the intervention is based on a skill tree which maps in-game skills to out-of-game skills and visualizes the output so that the participant can become better aware of how their interest can drive personal development towards societal participation. The paper presents an evaluation of the skill tree method from the project staff perspective. The findings are positive but some need for improvements in the method as well as the tool were identified.

A game is best evaluated by playing it and prototyping is therefore an important activity in game development. Game writers and narrative designers are responsible for the narrative structure of a game, which may have a varying degree of interactivity to it. The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of prototyping tools for game writers. There is a limited range of such tools available, of which Twine is one of the most established. Most of these tools have a text-based programming interface for modelling of game mechanics. This paper presents Deig—a proto- typing tool for creating point-and-click adventure games. In Deig, game mechanics is modelled graphically using nodes from a set of primitives. We present an interview study where game writing students reflect on their experience of using Deig and Twine as prototyping tools. The result shows that both tools have their merits and complement each other. Deig was found to be intuitive for modelling of game mechanics, which lead students to create interactive narratives. Twine was found to be more useful for experimental writing. The conclusion of this work is that there is a need for a diverse set of prototyping tools to support game writing.