Play to Learn: Conducting a Playtest Session for Improving an Educational Game Completed Research

The integration of game elements in education is a widespread trend to increase learner's engagement and motivation. Nevertheless, many game-based learning applications failure because they are not fun. Game design processes that are used to iteratively develop commercial games include playtests during the entire design process to make sure that the desired gaming experience is achieved. However, playtests are seldom used in the development process of game-based learning applications. For this reason, we conduct and evaluate a playtest session for a digital prototype of a serious game for learning. Generally, the results show that the playtesters positively assessed the serious game but there are some aspects for improvement as well.