2.1 Authoring Approach: Script
Game script is widely used in game-making field. The components of a game script include scenes, objects, characters, music and so on. Based on the structure of game scripts, we can categorize game scripts into narrative and structured. The narrative game scripts usually are for those professional game script writers. The descriptive structure of these narrative game scripts is close to human thinking, which makes it easier for people to express their game scenarios. Nevertheless, the descriptive structure is hard for system processing. There must be another transformation or human-intervening process to organize the script and obtain the structured information for system processing. Previous research [5] has proposed a <e-game> project, which is a documental approach to develop adventure games.
The editor first has to fill out the descriptive script in natural language, and then ask the editor to mark up the filled-out script with the <e-game> XML language.
The script thus becomes a structured document which is easy for system implementation. However, structured document is hard to understand or edit for normal users, even the author of the <e-game> project admitted that it is not easy for normal users to tag with the XML language.
For game-script authoring, our previous research has proposed an Object Oriented Interactive Content Model (OOICM) [6]. The OOICM allows user to design the high level game knowledge and we help them get their desired game.
The OOICM takes scenario construction as the first step to design RPG games.
The editor can focus on scenario editing first and then add other implementation details later. As shown in Figure 1, OOICM is composed of three components which are Story Control Flow (SCF), Activity, and Scene Object (SO). Story Control Flow is a sequence of sub-goals. Activity denotes the action that SOs can perform. Some activities may achieve sub-goals in the SCF. Scene Object denotes the objects that constitute the scene of learning content. In order to complete the playing of the game, the player has to perform some activities to achieve the sub-goals in the SCF. Therefore, SCF and frames maintaining activities and objects information are applied for editors to express the game scenario, and the game will be realized by the OOICM engine. Though the authoring method is clearer than structured XML documents, it is still hard to edit when the game scenario is complex and multidimensional.
Figure 1. Object Oriented Interactive Content Model (OOICM)
2.2 Formative Assessment in Games
Tan[7] mentioned that the environment should include formative assessment methods to allow learners to monitor their learning and enable them to correct their mistakes and misconceptions, and ”Challenge Zone quiz” with a dynamic
7
assessment mechanism was provided for students for evaluating the students’
understanding of ecosystem behavior.
Shih[8] proposed a method to find out learners’ problem-solving and cognitive level by observing the playing route of each learner. However, the proposed method is non-automatic, which requires teachers to keep track of the learner’s playing route by his/her side. This is really a burden for teachers since they have to handle a large number of learners. What is more, the method only considers the relations between tasks, without the details about each learner’s behavior patterns.
Moreno-Ger [9], in the series of the <e-game> project researches, proffered an assessment technique which allows game designers to indicate what tasks are relevant for the learning process. Learners’ behaviors in the indicated task will be recorded when playing and reported to teachers after they finish the game.
Nevertheless, learners’ behavior patterns are various. Only observing the appointed task will lack other behavior pattern details which might contain more meaningful information.
2.3 Modified Multistage Graph (MMG) Model
A Modified Multi-stage Graph (MMG) [10] model is a decision-making model of games. The model can express the effect of “different decisions, different game flows”. All the players’ actions can be traced on the model and thus can be used to find the cause of game failures. MMG consists of four main components which are states, stages, edges and working memory. Stages are each decision branches in the game and states represent the possible choice of the stage.
Edges are used to connect different results due to different choices. The reason to be called “modified” is the use of working memory and rules attached on the edges. Working memory can be provided for each stage’s status information while rules on the edges can be used to enable/disable some possible choices of the stage.
Figure 2 shows the modeling ability of a farming game called “Banana Farm”
[10]. In Figure 2, there are several predefined actions in each stage which can detect the meaningful behaviors and inquiry process of players. For instance, in the first stage - BTS (Banana Types Selection), each state (TypeA, TypeB, TypeC) of the stage means the possible actions, i.e. choosing which types of bananas.
Edges are used to connect with different decisions’ results. Besides, the working memory of MMG meets the need of global variables.
Figure 2. Modified Multi-stage Graph (MMG)
The information of MMG provides a clear high-level meaning of players’
behaviors through different paths. Therefore, MMG is suitable as our analytical model.
9