MA Digital Game Development, University of Aveiro
Liliane Costo PhD
In this activity, students engage in role playing to evaluate the games they developed, going through different steps of the evaluation process and quality assurance.
In the evaluation process, students took on different roles, for example the ‘Play Tester Wizard’, ‘Bug Nina’ or the ‘Narrative Elf’. In teams, they had to evaluate their own game accordingly with the roles chosen, and then, exchange games to evaluate with other groups. By undertaking different roles, this learning experience enabled students to establish evaluation goals concerning the different phases of the game development process (alpha, beta, versions).
By exchanging the roles between teams, students were stimulated to discuss the evaluation stages that each role should go through. Reporting on the process and results, as well through presenting insights and participating in other groups, students learn to recognize the evaluation stages that a game goes through from beginning to publishing. They learn to critically evaluate a game in terms of mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics. Lastly, they learn to communicate the product to be tested, the evaluation protocol and results.
