"Taking on Serious Topics in Children’s Entertainment Games" published in ACM Computers in Entertainment

Posted January 25, 2018

Children negotiate their relationship with the world around them and create meaning as they play. For them, all play is serious. Games offer children a space that supports learning on their own. Moving from the typical to the atypical game, from simple problem solving that increases cognitive skills, to social problem solving that teaches empathy, is a shift that can happen through participation in narrative dialogue. Social value in a game can exist when the cognitive load is not in computing numbers but in the challenge of uncovering the more intriguing stories beyond the surface of coded messages.

The following article presents preliminary ideas for game designs that were developed by a group of EU Erasmus students this past spring, partially in response to the Manchester Bombings, when tasked with the challenge of creating physically engaging entertainment that addressed social responsibility through narrative.