Competence Complexity and Obvious Learning

A computer role-playing game for language learning was created in a European project. The process was challenging with a multidisciplinary team from three countries who did not know each other well before the project started. Game designers, linguists, pedagogues and teachers have different approaches to how such an educational tool should function. The requirements for the game were scarce before the project started, so it was up to the team to agree on the game design and contents. We early realised that we had to work much more closely together than what is common in educational projects, so we used virtual meeting rooms extensively in addition to many physical meetings. One important conclusion regarding the process is that small prototypes should have been made very early to enhance the understanding and cooperation between the writers and designers and those responsible for the pedagogical contents. Designers and pedagogical personnel should also have had a much closer cooperation in the early phases to better integrate the learning material into the game story. This paper discusses how we worked together to get consensus about the game. We will also touch upon some of the technical difficulties we had trying to satisfy all our requirements with the chosen open source platforms. We also say a few words about the first reactions of the target group. The focus is however on the process of making educational games and what can be learnt from this experience.