Game Designers’ Experiences with Educational Game Design Elements: From Practice to Conception

This study examines how game designers in Australia apply educational game design elements in actual practice, rather than relying solely on theoretical frameworks. Drawing on phenomenological interviews with 17 designers, each with five to fifteen years of experience, the research is grounded in John Dewey's theory of experience, particularly the concepts of continuity, interaction, situation, freedom, and desire. Its central motivation is the fragmented state of existing educational game frameworks, which often overlap and rarely test whether practitioners actually use their proposed elements. The stated aim is to produce an "Essential" Educational Game Elements framework built from practitioners' lived experiences.

The findings suggest that most designers did not substantially change their processes when working on educational projects, though a small number did adapt. Two designers in particular stood out: one adopted a bottom-up design approach, and another used verbs drawn from the curriculum to structure gameplay. Across the sample, designers stressed that educational games demand explicit and carefully refined rules, a balance between seriousness and engagement, graduated difficulty, and experiences memorable enough to support learning. Practitioners also identified the practical constraint of fitting meaningful tasks into limited classroom time as a persistent challenge.

The concluding analysis highlights surprise, clear communication, goal-driven experimentation, and collaborative learning as factors that create lasting impact in educational play. From these insights, the study proposes a set of interconnected essential educational game elements, including curriculum and purpose, game mechanics, playtesting and prototyping, feedback, difficulty levels, and collaboration. Presented as an integrated system rather than a checklist, this framework offers a practice-informed foundation for future educational game design and research, though its conclusions rest on qualitative evidence from a single national context.