Adventures consist of a strong and continuous storyline
throughout the game, with the player usually identified
with a character that embarks on an adventure. Many
adventures are divided into single missions (for example,
habitats that have to be visited one after the other). All
missions have to be completed to win the game. Within
the distinct missions, many game elements can occur:
usually, a mix between information elements, arcadegames
and dialogues is sought. Ideally, adventures are
designed in a way that makes it fun to play them more
than once. Note that for adventures that are both
designed for young children and educational purposes,
there are natural limits to the degree of complexity of these games.
Infotainment is the term to describe the thorough and
accessible presentation of information by means of
multimedia. This means that sound elements, text,
photos, graphs, films and quizzes or little games are
used to get information across to the user. In contrast to
other computer software, there is no continuing and
evolving storyline with infotainment software. Often,
there is no story at all, and the information is presented
to the user without much guidance in which sequence
the information should be approached. Many
infotainment programmes presuppose interest of the
user, while also often exceeding textbooks / reference
books in terms of in-depth treatment of specialised
subjects. And indeed, information is key with
infotainment, but it should not be underestimated that a
thoughtful presentation and use of multimedia can
make these resources very interesting to use.
This section comprises computer software that focuses
on education. While the content can be similar to a
strategy game or infotainment, the common attribute is
that all of these programmes are best used in schools or
other learning environments. There are not so many
game elements with educational software since the
focus is on getting the user to understand the topic.
Many educational programmes combine different aims
(i.e. aside from learning about biodiversity, users also
learn to calculate). Note that teacher's materials and
guides are provided with many of these programmes as well.
Strategic and economics simulations aim to emulate
certain features of real life, reducing them to some
parameters which can be manipulated (e.g. the number
of animals the player wants to have in her zoo). In most
simulations, the player can see the results of her
decisions on the large screen, while further information
about choice options, background information is
arranged around it. The decisions of the player
concerning the parameters are crucial for winning the
game. This suggests that luck is not the decisive factor
but rather the ability of the player to understand what is
going on in the game. The idea of using simulations in
edutainment is the following: while the player has to
understand causal relationships between the
parameters to win the game, she also learns something
substantial about the topic in questions. Concerning
biodiversity, the consequences of decisions for habitats
or the diversity of species could be used for a simulation.
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