NODEM 2014 Proceedings

Multi-narrative Serious Game Design Applying Learning Style Model for Cultural Heritage Education
Characters
Players engage in missions to recover the spiritual energy of the royal tombs with four guardian characters:
a photographer, a traveler, a historian, and a treasure hunter. Each of these characters represents four learning
styles of Kolb’s experiential learning theory and explores distinctive part of the target heritage. We designed
game activities in each narrative path reflecting properties of four learning stages of Kolb’s theory and induce
players to experience all four stages of learning.
In “The Guardians 2.0”, we apply the four learning styles to each character that are the professions in cultural
heritage domain.
Table 1. Matching the Learning Styles with 4 Characters
Learning
Style
Imaginative Learner Inquiry based Learner Objective based
Learner
Cooperative Learner
Character
in game
Photographer Historian Treasure Hunter Traveller
Game Play
“The Guardians 2.0” has four stages corresponds with four learning styles. Each stage consists of simple quests
and the players must solve them to proceed with the game story. When the players complete every mission in
one stage, they can see a cut scene that implies the existence of a villain who damages the royal tombs. Then,
they can select next mission among the rest of the stages. There is no priority as to the selecting of missions;
the player can choose any mission first.
If every stage is completed, the last stage appears. The last stage is one in which the final fight with the villain
takes place and the player attempts to defeat him; the players need to use knowledge learned during the game
play. This stage is for reviewing of the learning perspective and provides the catharsis in the narrative structure.
After the last stage, the ending video is shown and the game ends.
NODEM 2014 CONFERENCE & EXPO
254