2015 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE)
Effective Learning Through Meaning Construction in
Digital Role Playing Games
Klaus P. Jantke
Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology
Erich-Kästner-Straße 1a
99094 Erfurt, Germany
Email: klaus.jantke@idmt.fraunhofer.de
Abstract—Game-based learning (GBL) is promising, almost
as promising as learning when sleeping. But why does it work?
And how to implement it? For which purpose is it appropriate?
And when is GBL doomed to fail? Serious games design is an art.
How can game designers and developers utilize deep and well-
established results of the humanities to make the design and
implementation of digital games for learning a routine process?
The understanding of digital role-playing based on theories
of social psychology such as symbolic interactionism leads to
the authors’ original generic approach to game-based learning
design. A serious game has already been designed, implemented,
and evaluated for language learning that runs on conventional
computers, as well as on varying mobile devices such as tablets.
The stage is set for a series of similar role-playing games which
allow for learning in largely varying domains.
Keywords—Game-based learning, role playing, game design.
I. P ROS AND C ONS OF G AME -BASED L EARNING
According to Prensky [24], it is done. Learning by means
of digital games is well-established, at least in the industries,
for already more than a decade. Some of the authors’ own
observations [14] contradict Prensky’s gushy description of the
practice of game-based learning (GBL). Egenfeldt-Nielsen [7]
proves Prensky wrong: “Edutainment started as a serious
attempt to create computer games that taught children different
subjects. Arguably, it ended up as a caricature of computer
games and a reactionary use of learning theory.” (ibid., p. 42)
Apparently, some authors believe that what humans do in
competition establishes a game or, in other terms, to compete
means to play [22]. Similarly, some believe that to collaborate
means to play (ibid.). In this way, we are getting many games
that have an educational purpose, but are not much fun to play.
One of the key problems with so-called serious games [26]
is that playing and learning literally fall apart [13]. It takes
enormous efforts to seamlessly integrate learning and playing
and it requires some appropriate technology to systematically
wrap educational theory into game play [19].
The crux is that players can only learn–or even train–what
they are really doing. Consequently, there is an urgent need
to better understand and respect the relation between the real
and the virtual [16].
In the training game T RA S T [1], just for illustration, human
players really make decisions and choose measures of disaster
management which have a real impact on how the disaster
evolves. The disaster is virtual, but the decisions are real.
978-1-4799-7543-3/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Tim Hume
Universal Learning Games
Framtidsvägen 12A
352 57 Växjö, Sweden
Email: tim.hume@ulearngames.com
II. D IGITAL G AME P LAY, M EDIA P ERCEPTION &
S YMBOLIC I NTERACTIONISM
No doubt, digital games are entertainment media and, as
such, they are perceived highly differently by different players.
Media perception is very personal and relates to the human
user’s experience, preferences, needs and desires, style and
taste, as well as to context conditions and the current mood.
When digital games are developed for a purpose, there is
a need to think about how to transfer the intended real content
to the player visiting the game’s virtual world [7], [26], [31].
The authors’ central research problem under investigation is:
How to develop some appropriate methodology and some
related process model for wrapping real learning content into
attractive virtual worlds. In particular, how to do this on a
firm psychological and sociological basis that makes it likely
to succeed. For the targeted methodology and process model,
to be generic it must be demonstrated by means of a series of
implementations of games for learning; a first one, at least.
Initially, there is a need to understand what players are
doing and experiencing in virtual game worlds, a question
which is unlikely to have a simple answer.
“The relationship between game player and game char-
acter is immensely complex, despite the ease with which each
identity is assumed. We think nothing of picking up a controller,
toggling through a few menu screens, and pretending to be
another. We might be a plastic token on a game board, a 3D
figure blowing up enemies on a PC, or an imagined persona
taken up and acted out in a tabletop role-playing game. In
every case, games give us permission to play with identity
because they give us characters to play.” ([27], p. 27)
Maybe Salen and/or Zimmerman feel sometimes like a
plastic token on a game board; the majority of players do not.
To avoid pondering the emotions and experiences of plastic
tokens and the like, the authors decided to focus on games that
tell a story1 ([3] [12] [18] [21] [28] [29] and the individual
papers therein), because there exist a large variety of successful
applications, although far from being generic (see [11], e.g.).
In stories told digitally, there may be large amounts of real
content as well as completely virtual things.
1 Neither T ETRIS nor M INESWEEPER tells a story and S UPER M ARIO ’s
princess does not do as well.
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 2015 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE)
Richard Bartle, one of the fathers in spirit of Dungeons
and Dragons, said that “at the persona level of immersion, the
virtual world is just another place you might visit, like Sydney
or Rome. Your Avatar is simply the clothing you wear when
you go there. There is no more vehicle, no separate character,
it’s just you, in the world.” (cited after [32]). But what is real?
Whatever humans encounter, they have an ability to give
meaning to “the senseless infinity of world affairs” as Weber
put it ([33], p. 180). This point of view resulted later in what
is nowadays called symbolic interactionism (see [25] and [17],
in general, [8], [30], and others, in detail, as well as [20]
and [5], for the roots including the term itself). For example,
humans are used to giving some meaning to gestures and face
expressions. This is known as body language2.
According to the theory of symbolic interactionism (see
[25] and [17] which are both excellent sources), one might
say–perhaps a bit exaggerated–that a story evolving through
game play is not in the game, but is constructed by the player.
Storytelling as story generation even within some cultural or
sociological context is studied by Friess where the scientific
perspective evolves from [9] to [10]. When humans play,
there occur emotional and cognitive processes of meaning
construction. This unavoidably diversifies the way in which
humans learn through game play.
In response to suchlike essential difficulties of GBL, the au-
thors have developed an approach in which emphasis is put on
role-playing characteristics within digital storytelling. Before
summarizing the approach in section III and demonstrating
an application in section IV, it is necessary to discuss the
essentials of digital role-playing seen from the perspective of
its subsequent use.
In a digital role-playing game, you play a virtual character–
not a plastic token, not a ninepin, not a chessman, . . . –in
some virtual world. The characteristics of this virtual world
must allow for assigning meaning to places, actors, and actions
(according to symbolic interactionism) such that it’s just you,
in the world (according to Bartle, see above). There are
challenges to be mastered. For this purpose, you need to
develop your character–the virtual one in the virtual world.
Characters in role-playing games have properties named
attribute, skill, and the like3 . From a very formal point of view,
those are variables. The variables have initial values which
depend on certain player’s prior choices such as race or clan.
Skills may be developed, i.e. the variables’ values can be
increased by appropriate game play. The player’s character
may gain strength or more sophisticated witchery, for instance.
Apparently, many of the character skills are only virtual.
Even in case you experience that it’s just you, in the world,
it does not buy you anything in real life, if you developed your
witchery drastically.
2 The cultural dependence of meaning assigned to expressions of body
language is definitely interesting and relevant to digital games, because it helps
to understand why and how games may be perceived differently in different
regions of the world. But this issue is beyond the limits of the present paper.
3 In T HE E LDER S CROLLS : O BLIVION , there are 8 attributes and 21 skills
such as, e.g., acrobatics, alchemy, athletics, mysticism, sneak, and speechcraft.
In the T HE E LDER S CROLL : S KYRIM, there do exist 18 skills in 4 groups.
There is no way to provide anything like a survey of character concepts in
role-playing games.
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III. D IGITAL ROLE -P LAYING G AMES FOR L EARNING
Recall that GBL requires human learners, even in virtual
worlds, to do real things [16]. The crux of the authors’
approach is, very roughly speaking, to make the knowledge
and the skills to be acquired variables of the role-playing
system’s character model (see figure 3 for some prototypical
implementation in the digital game T HE E NGLISH M INNITS).
Just for illustration, let us consider two rather different
examples, one from higher mathematics and another one from
language learning.
It is known that there is no universal approach to solving
arbitrary ordinary differential equations; there is not anything
such as a closed theory, but a huge collection of largely varying
methods [23]. Those methods are related in an intriguing way,
as certain types of differential equations are subtypes of others.
For those methods covered by a digital game for learning,
make the ability to use the method a skill (like mysticism and
alchemy, e.g., are skills in T HE E LDER S CROLLS : O BLIVION).
Within game play, solving equations must play a role for
reaching goals that make sense and are attractive to the player.
The players may need to shoot dragons or to beat zombies,
actions that are definitely virtual. But solving any differential
equation is a real activity. Solving some equation of a certain
type results in increasing the character’s related skill, i.e.,
increasing the variable’s score4 .
If you want your learners to develop language skills such
as, e.g., showing disbelief or giving an opinion, make those
real skills a component of a virtual character’s skill profile
in a digital role-playing game. If it is necessary for progress
of game play to express some disbelief in appropriate words,
human players have a real opportunity to practice and learn,
even if they need to talk to an ork or to an elf. Apparently,
orks and elves are virtual, but the player’s speech act is real.
To motivate the human players to engage in knowledge and
skill acquisition, some appropriate game design is necessary.
Beyond the motivation which is an inevitable prerequisite
of successful learning, the game mechanics must guarantee
repeated opportunities of character development throughout
game play. Key issues are
• character profiles that contain for each learning goal
at least one variable,
• a game story in which the players are likely to give
sense to their virtual character’s skill variables,
• a game mechanics which determines the relevance of
character development to progress in game play,
• sufficiently many and repeatedly occurring
opportunities of game play suitable for deliberately
developing character skills,
• effective in-game functionalities for the visualization
and inspection of the virtual character’s skill profile to
allow for player/learner-centered skill development.
Current patterns of game design [4] do not yet consider the
above requirements.
4 Developing one skill may have impact on another skill as well, if those
skills are related. If you solve some Bernoulli equation, this increases not only
your Bernoulli skill, but–a bit, at least–your Riccati score as well, because
Bernoulli equations are a special case of Riccati equations. This, however,
goes beyond the limits of the present paper.
 2015 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE)
IV. T HE M INNITS – H OW TO D O T HINGS WITH W ORDS
J. L. Austin’s insight that we can “do things with words”[2]
is not only of philosophical and sociological relevance. It is
inspiring to teaching languages, because it leads to language
learning by doing. This perfectly fits the authors’ approach
to learning by means of digital role-playing games in which
learners practice the real skills targeted in the virtual world.
Fig. 1. Two Screenshots from T HE E NGLISH M INNITS – An Early Game
State in the Background and the Current Character Profile in the Foreground
T HE E NGLISH M INNITS is a digital role-playing game
in which the human player’s avatar–recall Richard Bartle’s
saying: it’s just you, in the world–is characterized by a large
collection of skills. Some as on display in fig. 2 are relevant
to fighting dragons, whereas others on display in figs. 1 and 3
are relevant to doing things with words.
Fig. 2. Three Screenshots from T HE E NGLISH M INNITS – Some Game
State of Role Play at which The Need to Fight Dragons Occurs, a Combat
Scene, and the Current Part of the Character Profile Relevant to Fighting
The skill categories are interwoven by the game mechanics.
By means of developing language skills, players score points
655
which may be invested into advancing skills of importance to
fighting such as, e.g., the resistance to dragon attacks and the
firing range of the player’s weapon.
Consequently, even those players who are more interested
in the virtual game world with its dragon fights than in
language learning have a strong motivation to improve their
real language skills (named “Functions” as shown in fig. 3).
Role-playing means to act in a virtual world and to improve
the own character’s relevant skills. As briefly sketched in
section III above, there may be both virtual and real skills. The
art of developing role playing games for language learning is to
make the focused language skills relevant in the virtual world
and attractive to human players. This requires an appropriate
storytelling and its implementation in some game mechanics.
Fig. 3. Two Screenshots from T HE E NGLISH M INNITS – An Early Skill
Profile (left) Compared to a More Advanced Skill Profile Slightly Later (right)
Whether or not the game mechanics results in fascinating
game play is largely independent of real learning skills in
focus. It is an independent art to design good games. And
because it is an art, there does not exist any recipe which
guarantees success.
For role-playing games, it is important to give some
freedom of choice to the player concerning the way in which
the character shall be developed5.
Figure 3 shows two subsequent screenshots of the player’s
skill profile. Every skill listed describes some real human
ability of executing language acts in English.
The player’s skill profile on the left is a very early one.
there is not yet any achievement in the ability to start a
conversation. When players interact in the virtual world, they
are able to improve their real language skills. The screenshot
on the right taken slightly later shows first achievements
in starting a conversation as well as some more substantial
progress in meeting people.
5 In T HE E NGLISH M INNITS , this freedom of choice is still rather limited.
It seemed to be more important to come up with a first fully working
implementation than trying out a larger number of variants suggested by
theoretical investigations.
 2015 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE)
V. S UMMARY & C ONCLUSIONS
T HE E NGLISH M INNITS introduced in this contribution’s
preceding section is just a first instance of the huge category
of educational role-playing games according to the authors’
novel approach laid out. This paper is not about a particular
game, but about the principles underlying a whole category
of digital games suitable for learning through real character
development in a virtual world.
The evaluation of the game’s acceptance and impact is
necessarily beyond the limits of this first paper in its field.
Nevertheless, there are some facts to be reported. The game
has been trialled in schools in the Czech Republic, Germany
and Sweden. About 500 school children took part in the trial.
The feedback from the children and their teachers has ranged
from positive to enthusiastic.
Some systematic evaluation has to follow and will be
reported separately.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Sigma Ukraine together with Sigma Technology was in-
volved from the start in creating T HE E NGLISH M INNITS.
Using the game engine Unity 3D, Sigma helped ULG to come
up with the viable concept, design, develop and produce the
product.
It was one of their former employees–Yuriy Brovko–who
now works for Fraunhofer IDMT who was responsible for
establishing the working contact and co-operation between the
two partners. For this Yuriy is to be warmly thanked.
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