E-polis: Gamifying Sociological Surveys through Serious Games -- A Data Analysis Approach Applied to Multiple-Choice Question Responses Datasets

TL;DR

E-polis is an innovative serious game that gamifies sociological surveys to collect and analyze young people's political opinions through an engaging digital platform, using a novel data analysis middleware architecture.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new gamified platform for sociological data collection and a middleware architecture for data analysis, enhancing engagement and understanding of youth political opinions.

Findings

Successful implementation of a gamified survey platform

Novel middleware architecture for data analysis

Insights into young people's political opinions

Abstract

E-polis is a serious digital game designed to gamify sociological surveys studying young people's political opinions. In this platform game, players navigate a digital world, encountering quests posing sociological questions. Players' answers shape the city-game world, altering building structures based on their choices. E-polis is a serious game, not a government simulation, aiming to understand players' behaviors and opinions thus we do not train the players but rather understand them and help them visualize their choices in shaping a city's future. Also, it is noticed that no correct or incorrect answers apply. Moreover, our game utilizes a novel middleware architecture for development, diverging from typical asset prefab scene and script segregation. This article presents the data layer of our game's middleware, specifically focusing on data analysis based on respondents' gameplay answers. E-polis represents an innovative approach to gamifying sociological research, providing a unique platform for gathering and analyzing data on political opinions among youth and contributing to the broader field of serious games.