Electronic Games in Education: creating a 3D historical game

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze the theoretical bases that support the construction of a fun educational game, elaborating a structure for the creation of games through theoretical concepts studied from the perspective of psychology and its relationship with this type of media. In view of the growth in the consumption of electronic games as entertainment among children and young people in the twenty-first century, we thought about the construction of an educational electronic game that contains three elements that are considered part of what makes games fun, the challenge, the fantasy or narrative, and curiosity. Using as an example the use of historical narrative as an educational tool developed in the games of the Assassin's Creed series, a project was created to develop an educational game set in Florianópolis in the 1950s, starring the artist and folklorist Franklin Cascaes, and based on the short stories published in the book The Fantastic on the Island of Santa Catarina. This article presents the results of the historical research carried out for the development of the game's first map, as well as a summary of its narrative and mechanics.