There's More Than One Way to Skin a Game: Templating Game-Based Learning

This work-in-progress paper from Aalto University's Online Learning-Online Hybrid Lab describes the authors' shift from custom-built academic educational games toward a templating approach, in which modular, genre-conventional game frameworks could be adapted by educators across disciplines. The central thesis is that resource-constrained academic developers can more economically serve diverse educational needs by separating reusable game structures from the specific learning content supplied by clients. The paper is primarily reflective, drawing on the team's prior projects rather than presenting empirical measurements.

The authors' earlier projects provide the basis for their reasoning. 'Playable Concepts' produced simple, openly licensed mechanic-focused games, and 'Promotypes' yielded several short games across text adventure, 2D platformer, and 3D exploration genres. The most instructive case was 'Cost Driver,' a delivery-driver game teaching introductory accounting, whose large 3D city environment and tightly interwoven script, mechanics, and content proved difficult to modify. The authors found that a visual-novel style of dialogue clashed with the faster driving sections, and that simultaneous development by a single developer delayed any assessment of learning effectiveness. Rather than reporting learner outcomes, the paper treats these experiences as qualitative lessons.

Conceptually, the paper extends the frame game model by distinguishing three layers: the structure, the supporting content that links learning content to objectives, and the swappable educational content itself. The authors propose reusing assets such as the vehicle control system and the Finnish-themed city environment, and they are developing an escape-room puzzle game and a city-planning simulation to test genre-based templates. The paper's scope is limited to the design process; it explicitly sets aside educational models and learning outcomes, which the authors defer to later work.