Game-Based Learning Guidelines: Designing for Learning and Fun

Currently, games have an important impact on areas other than entertainment. Researchers have demonstrated that games have the potential for creating learning environments toward the improved attainment of educational and training goals. Suitable, clear and easy-to-follow guidelines need to be implemented, especially for the creation of e-learning games for children, to increase the expected benefits of game-based learning (GBL). In this paper, a comprehensive set of guidelines is proposed along with a detailed explanation of each guideline. The proposed set of GBL guidelines can be used with an expert evaluation method to identify possible problems in learning objectives, game designs, user interfaces, and child requirements in the early phases of a game project. This set of guidelines, though mainly targeted at the pre-production of a GBL, can be utilized in post-production phases.