B3 Bachelor Complex Space Adventure

Who doesn’t enjoy a round of “Battleship”? Inspired by this classic game, we came up with the idea of “shooting” asteroids and alien spaceships. The coordinate system on which “Battleship” is also played offers the perfect opportunity to work with complex numbers and make an entertaining but also educational game out of it. Since mathematics and guessing coordinates, even if done strategically, don’t really go together, we made some modifications. The targets aka asteroids or spaceships are already known in our game, these are eliminated step by step by solving mathematical tasks. With each level, more knowledge about complex numbers will be involved. From simple drag and drop, to calculating the length and angle of a vector/complex number, to practicing the transition between different forms of representation. For this we have developed several functions:

Bozee is an alien who accompanies you through the story. He helps you complete tasks, supports you when you don’t know the answer, and motivates you when necessary. Bozee is the guide in our game. To make the game engaging and fun, Bozee has been given his own personality. He is very intelligent, can turn back time and sometimes tells a joke. Most students love courses taught by their favorite lecturers. Bozee is meant to be just that: a good professor and at the same time someone who supports you and is a friend to you.

The level selection offers a glimpse into the game universe. The player can fly to different planets with the spaceship. The planets build on each other didactically in their complexity of tasks. In the level overview, the player can always determine the exact learning goal and what he can do afterwards. So it is possible for him to always choose the appropriate level.

As mentioned earlier, the game is designed to build upstep by step. It guides the player through different learning objectives in the area of complex numbers. The player can start with little knowledge on the topic of complex numbers and reach a basic understanding of how complex numbers are represented and used by the end of the game.

On the process side, we’ll dive deeper into what we’ve learned about feedback in game-based learning. Feedback is one of the most important components in our game. It provides an opportunity to engage the player, motivate them, and keep them interested in the game and the learning process. Feedback is not only used to tell the player if they did something right or wrong, but rather to motivate them, make them laugh, and thus promote a deeper cognitive learning process.

Our target audience are students. A few minutes on the train should be enough to deepen one’s own knowledge about complex numbers. That’s why we decided to develop a prototype for a mobile game that can be played anywhere. A laptop is not necessary to learn something new. It is possible to play the game on a computer during a lecture, for example, but we still focused on using it on a cell phone or tablet. This is because we wanted to make the game as easily accessible as possible.

Whenever you learn something new, you need a guide and the opportunity to try things out. Besides being able to play the levels as many times as needed, the player can also use as many hints as possible. If the player didn’t understand something in the tutorial, there is no barrier to check or expand his knowledge. With the help of the explanations, it is possible for the player to successfully complete a level. In the help section, basic principles are explained once again and old knowledge is refreshed.