Unity and Unreal Engine Games for Education
Having spent quite a bit of time playing Flash games this semester, I was happy to see what more complex game engines have to offer. I spent time with two very different games, both in terms of genre and learning objectives, representing two different game engines — Unity and Unreal.
Power the Grid (Unity)
Power the Grid is an “energy management tycoon” game that you can play in a web browser. Though there were some display issues on fullscreen (see below), the graphics and interface were noticeably more refined.
Systems Thinking
The game clearly represents Gee’s Systems Thinking principle. Like all tycoon games, Power the Grid puts you in the control seat of a system from the very beginning. Its tutorial was effective in minimizing complexity early in the game, with features being unlocked progressively.
These features add layers of complexity to the game, allowing the player to make a greater variety of choices to influence how the system works. In this case, there are trade offs to consider with each type of energy source. These tradeoffs are clearly marked, such as the differences in price shown above.
The interface introduces a clear status panel to help the player monitor the power grid, which is separate from the status of the game itself. Separating the idea of “lives” or the game goal from the system the game aims to present is a wise choice.
I found myself much more interested in keeping track of the input and output of the power grid than the game itself.
Unity Game Engine
The game succeeds in presenting a progressively complex system and allowing a player to feel in control. Unity allows for a greater variety of game interactions, though many of these are not utilized in Power the Grid. The image assets were higher-fidelity than most Stencyl games I have seen, with a clear relationship to the theme of the game.
Mattie Math Bot (Unreal)
It was a bit difficult to find a game created with the Unreal engine tagged as “educational” that I could play on a Mac. I decided to pay a few dollars to access Mattie Math Bot on my iPad (though it is also available for Apple computers). I thought that the touch interaction would be more appropriate for this style of game.
The learning goals are quite blunt, with division and multiplication problems taking up most of the user interface. This superficial labelling is misleading, however. When playing the game I really could not understand how the game would help a player better understand these operations.
Identity
Gee’s principle of Identify is present in the game design, though I cannot say that it is applied in a meaningful way. In the game you play as a robot avatar presumably named “Mattie” though the context is never introduced. Who is Mattie the robot? Why is it wondering around cities and villages smashing boxes?
Unreal Game Engine
More classic game engine features were at play in this game: collisions, avatar movement, and a countdown clock. Unreal obviously allows a developer to distribute their game on mobile platforms, which is a significant feature given the direction of technology (as Squire mentioned in Creating the Future of Games and Learning).
Inspiration
Since I am developing a text-based game for this course, I really could not identify any specific features of these games that would inspire me to use Unity or Unreal to develop my game. My current tools allow me to use web standards (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) without any proprietary abstractions or walls.
However, I can see how these engines could help a beginning game designer create educational games in different genres and release them on several platforms (web, desktop, and mobile).
