MiBoard: A Digital Game from a Physical World

TL;DR

MiBoard is a digital multiplayer game designed to emulate a physical educational board game, highlighting challenges in translating physical game designs to digital formats and questioning the assumption that games inherently boost engagement.

Contribution

The paper introduces MiBoard, a digital adaptation of a physical educational game, and discusses challenges in digital translation and engagement effects.

Findings

Physical game designs do not always translate well digitally.

Games do not necessarily increase user engagement.

MiBoard emulates a physical educational board game.

Abstract

Increasing user engagement is constant challenge for Intelligent Tutoring Systems researchers. A current trend in the ITS field is to increase engagement of proven learning systems by integrating them within games, or adding in game like components. Incorporating proven learning methods within a game based environment is expected to add to the overall experience without detracting from the original goals, however, the current study demonstrates two important issues with regard to ITS design. First, effective designs from the physical world do not always translate into the digital world. Second, games do not necessarily improve engagement, and in some cases, they may have the opposite effect. The current study discusses the development and a brief assessment of MiBoard a multiplayer collaborative online board game designed to closely emulate a previously developed physical board game, iSTART: The Board Game.