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EnglishJogo sério para aprendizagem da instabilidade de vertentes Gonçalo Ferreira Araújo - 2013
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Support : Références scientifiquesAuthor(s) : Gonçalo Ferreira Araújo
Editor : FACULDADE DE ENGENHARIA DA UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO
Date : 2013
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Description
Abstract
Serious games have been receiving a lot of interest in the recent years and have been increasingly used for educational, military and business purposes. One of the positive sides of serious games is the fact of being tools that allow the creation of an environment where players are immersed in a playful activity, and are much more receptive to knowledge acquisition. Through serious games players are more likely to retain information for a longer period of time. The terrain instability through rainfall infiltration can cause slope movements that in most cases do heavy damages to people and goods. Therefore, in order to raise awareness on this subject, the goal of this dissertation is to use serious games to teach the problem of terrain instability and slope movements. In the game developed, the player has the role of Geógrafo Zé, a young geographer who wants to measure the susceptibility to slope movements of the city’s terrains in order to protect the population. But he has to be quick and escape the owner of those terrains, who wants to block him, because if the terrains are marked as unsafe, their prices may drop considerably. Having three levels of increasing difficulty, this game, which was developed with Unity 3D and Blender, has two phases for each level. The properties’ registration phase is a phase where players have to collect as much permeameters (measuring devices) as possible without getting caught. The planning phase is a phase where players should select which places are safe to build, depending on the factor of safety of the said place. With the purpose of understanding if people could learn with the game, a survey was conducted. The survey was split in two parts: the first was done before people had played the game, to evaluate what they initially knew about the theme. The other part was conducted after people had played the game, to try to understand if there was any learning of the terms present in the game. The results were fairly positive, showing that players learnt all the concepts very well, because not only could they relate to the terms, but also tell their meanings. It is possible to conclude that serious games have great potential, since they allow the learning of instability and slope movements terms allied to a playful activity. Unity 3D revealed itself as a very useful and flexible tool, while Blender although essential, required a lot of effort to accomplish basic tasks. Concerning future work, it is proposed, among others, an online component to promote competition between players.
References (1):
D. Djaouti, J. Alvarez, J. Jessel e O. Rampnoux. Serious Games and Edutainment Applications. Springer, 2011.