Despite the computational resources present today, rendering high fidelity real-time graphics is a computationally intensive task. Although designers and developers of virtual learning environments typically strive for high fidelity graphics, evidence suggests that high fidelity graphics does not always lead to greater learning. Here we describe work in progress that is seeing the development of a medical-based cultural competence serious game called Fydlyty, that focuses on a low graphical ifdelity design. Building upon our prior work, here we describe refinements to Fydlyty's scenario editor, and the dialogue authoring tool to address two diferent categories of users' (i.e. educators, and students).
Not too long ago the primary purpose of video games was to provide personal and
social entertainment, but this trend has gradually changed. With the tremendous
amount of scientific research conducted regarding the use of games for educational
purposes, the potential value of video games for learning is very prominent [
We have recently introduced Fydlyty, a web-based serious game for
medicalbased cultural competence education [
In the field of medicine, serious games can be used to facilitate enhanced
communication, and can help avoid conflicts in a clinical environment. Conradi
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et al. [
The Fydlyty serious games, intended for medical-based cultural competence
education, was recently introduced [
Game Users The game consists of two diferent types of users (i) educators/curriculum designers, and (ii) students/trainees. The educators are the privileged users who can create scenarios, modify dialogue scripts, and assess the overall progress of each student. On the contrary, the students are the game players who take the role of the character (a medical professional such as a doctor or nurse), assigned to them by the educators, and play the game. Scenario Editor The scenario editor design (see Fig. 1), is based on: (i) background, (ii) characters (whose mood can be either normal, upset, or angry), (iii) script, and (iv) role of the game player. The background, and virtual characters are represented by images (JPEG or PNG) which are rendered at the interface level. Each characters’ image represents an aspect of the mood (i.e., normal, upset, and angry) of the VC. As the conversation moves forward, and the mood of the VC alters, the image expressing the new mood replaces the previous image. This provides the game player with a sense of achievement (when the mood is positive), or concern (when the mood is negative).
The script that each scenario is based consists of the: (i) context, (ii) scene, and (iii) dialogues. The context describes the circumstances that form the setting of the event so that the game player can fully understand and assess the environment. The scene describes the characters involved in the event and the place where it will occur. Finally, the dialogues, which are uploaded using a comma-separated version (CSV), describe the narrative between the game player, and the VC are described in greater detail in the following section.
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Dialogue Authoring Tool The dialogue authoring tool has two purposes: (i) manage dialogues in the database, and (ii) propose diferent variations of each dialogue. When the CSV file containing the original dialogue script is uploaded, each dialogue is saved in the system with reference to its parent. Once completed, the dialogue authoring tool will then create diferent variations of each sentence stored. The dialogue authoring tool refers to a predefined list of phrases that it uses to replace the original phrase with. Depending on the number of alterations, the new mood (upset or angry) is estimated. One such example is shown in Fig. 2 where the doctor (game player) replies to the patient (VC) by mistakenly referring to her as “Mr. Wilson” rather than “Mrs. Wilson”. At this point, the VC’s mood changes to “upset” while the game player’s score decreases.
Given that the game is still under development, every possible dialogue does not have an associate version. Furthermore, it cannot be expected that each version of a dialogue will be completely correct. To overcome this issue, each dialogue (as shown in Fig. 2 for example), is editable, and it is the educator’s added responsibility to ensure that the final dialogue script is grammatically, and factually correct.
Debriefing At the end of the game, rather than just showing the correct options
that the game player selected and could have selected, we employ the online
educational networking web site OPEN (Observational Practice and Educational
Networking) [
Here we described recent improvements to the Fydlyty medical-based cultural competence serious game. Fydlyty facilitates the dialogue between a game player and a VC allowing cultural barriers to be examined. Future work includes improvement of the design for the dialogue authoring tool, and the inclusion of audio (speech) to increase the fidelity of the VC and measure its efects on learning.
Acknowledgments This work was supported by an Ontario Simulation Network (SIM-one) Simulation Research & Innovation Grant. The support of the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) is also acknowledged.