Diener, Holger (IGD), DE

Topic: "Playful Learning with "Winterfest" – An educational game for functionally illiterates"

Holger Diener has been working at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD) in Rostock since 1996. He received his diploma in mathematics from the Technical University Berlin in 1995. Diener started working on computer games in 1998, as the leader of a project on combining the strengths of production and entertainment industry in simulation and modeling. From 2000 to 2007 he was head of the department Entertainment Technologies at IGD and worked in the fields of Game Based Interfaces and Serious Games. Since 2007 he has been working in the competence center Interactive Document Engineering. His research interests are Games Engineering and Game Based Learning.

Summary of presentation

Functionally illiterate persons cannot read or write well enough to cope with the demands of everyday life. An estimated four million Germans are functionally illiterate. The educational game “Winterfest” has been developed within the Joint Research Project “Alphabit” to motivate these people to start courses at adult education centers and to enhance and strengthen their competence. The talk will present the project, the process of development with the challenge of four scientific partners and support from the game industry, as well as the game itself: A point-and-click adventure with integrated minigames, which provide tasks to read, write or calculate and allow a look into various work situations range from nursing practice and restaurant to handicraft. The protagonist Alex finds himself transported in a medieval village in which the inhabitants are about to prepare a feast. Only a witch can help Alex to come back to his own world, but she is about to be burned …