Reverse Engineering and Design Recovery: A Taxonomy
IEEE Software
Ontological Excavation: Unearthing the core concepts of the application
WCRE '03 Proceedings of the 10th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering
Don't Bother Me Mom--I'm Learning!
Don't Bother Me Mom--I'm Learning!
A Theory of Fun for Game Design
A Theory of Fun for Game Design
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The effective application and use of games and game technology for education requires examinations of existing artifacts, both in and out of formal educational settings, as well as the development of new theories and models for how to design games intended primarily to educate rather than entertain. One way to facilitate an understanding of how a medium like digital game technology can be used effectively in education is to study that medium's outstanding examples, regardless of their original purpose. This paper describes a methodology for analysing entertainment games that uses a synergy of reverse engineering and ethology, neither of which have been used in this context before. Normally, reverse engineering attempts to recover the original design of a software application, but in this case it will be used to generate an alternate design that can then in turn be used to inform instructional design. Ethology studies the observed behaviour of animals, but here is adapted as a method for the study of games. Through this perspective, it is possible to identify and classify built-in learning objectives and from there to associate the mechanisms and strategies employed to teach them. It is proposed that these strategies can then be used in educational games without compromising the essential qualities that have made digital games the most popular leisure activity in the western world today.