An annales school-based serious game creation framework for taiwanese indigenous cultural heritage

Abstract

This study utilizes the characteristics of the Annales School, including their emphasis on total history and space and time integration, their focus on the economic world, and their use of structural analysis to develop a creation framework for a serious video game related to the cultural and life history of Taiwan's indigenous people. Game development comprised the tiers of data, logic, and presentation. During the data tier, we used taxonomy to extract the cultural components of Taiwan's Atayal tribe. During the logic tier, we employed an analysis of cultural characteristics and comparisons of historical education goals to confirm the game's framework and storytelling engine, selecting a construction management simulation game genre to present tribal life and economic operations. Finally, in the presentation tier, we converted cultural components into elements in the game's user interface. The game evaluation results showed that “Papakwaqa” (our serious game) had positive benefits for enhancing schoolchildren's learning motivation and performance regarding indigenous life and history. Our research verified that integrating the cross-disciplinary methods of anthropologists, history teachers, tribal elders, and game designers to establish instructional goals and design foci for game development and to create a cultural heritage serious game-creation framework warrants further study and effort.