Theoretical Issues for Game-based Virtual Heritage

Abstract

Abstract. This paper critiques essential features in prominent theories of serious games, and compares them to interaction features of commercial computer games that could be used for history and heritage-based learning in order to develop heuristics that may help future the specific requirements of serious game design for interactive history and digital heritage.Keywords: Heritage Á History Á Serious games Definitions of GamesThomas Malone's paper, Heuristics for designing enjoyable user interfaces: Lessons from computer games [1], was an attempt to understand why games are "captivating" and how they can be "used to make other user interfaces interesting and enjoyable to use." In order to answer this question he set up three empirical studies (but only describes two), and takes away "motivational features" to see which features add the most to captivation. Malone asked eight groups of ten students to play a computer game (called "Darts"), and then another game ("Hangman") but with one of eight features missing. He recorded how long played each game (completion time), their personal opinions (as to which game they preferred), and their gender.In his second study, using a similar method, Malone found that explicit goals, scorekeeping, audio effects, and randomness were particularly important. These two studies were then followed in his paper by the claim that challenge, fantasy, and curiosity were the important ingredients that make games captivating and fun to use. More recent publications, such as a doctoral thesis by Federoff [2], and other papers [3][4][5] have stressed the importance of Malone's paper in explaining the unique features of games, how they differ in the way they are experienced from other types of software, and from typical HCI, and how a new set of heuristics is needed to address these specific game features.In contrast to typical software design aims, Malone's paper reminds us that our quest is to create more challenging environments, (and challenge in the sense of a difficulty people wish to face, not wish to avoid). There is an often-overlooked gap between games and other software, for games are not just efficient rules-based systems. Malone explained that HCI traditionally seeks to improve software that is easy to learn and easy to master, but notes the founder of Atari said games are designed to be easy to