Ingenious Game: Insights Into Evolving From a Learning Card Game to a Learning Software Application Game

The Ingenious game is a learning simulation designed for a mechanical engineering master's course, in which student groups compete to develop a product through four product design and development (PDD) phases while minimizing cost, drawing on more than 80 engineering design techniques. The work traces the game's evolution from a physical card game (version 1.0, played by 25 students in 2021) to a hybrid spreadsheet and presentation format (version 1.5, played by 39 students in 2022), and then to a software application (version 2.0). Its central argument is that digitizing the game can preserve and enhance its educational value, with the authors framing the design through the Octalysis gamification framework and its eight core drives.

The most consistent finding concerns student response: feedback indicated heightened motivation and improved reflection quality as the game's design matured. Version 2.0 introduced hidden trait values, three engineer seniority levels with differing costs, a budget tracker, and escalating rework costs ranging from €500 to €4,000 in later phases. Octalysis-based comparisons rate versions 1.5 and 2.0 as stronger than version 1.0 on dimensions such as epic meaning, accomplishment, unpredictability, loss avoidance, and learning support, though these ratings are relative rather than absolute measures.

The evidence base has clear limits. Outcome data beyond participant counts and qualitative feedback is not reported, and version 2.0 had only been tested in pilot groups rather than in a full course deployment. The game's scope is a single graduate engineering course, so its generalizability to other disciplines or institutions remains untested. The work is best read as a documented design trajectory and a rationale for gamified multidisciplinary product development education, rather than as proof of learning gains.