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Games designed for learning need to be enjoyable games with the learning content encoded in the game play mechanism. They also need to be designed in a user-centric way. In this paper we describe the design of a game to teach maths to UK primary school children (age 7-9). Our work follows on from an earlier requirements gathering study where we observed collaborative game play in a commercial game to determine key game characteristics that promote collaboration. This paper reports on the subsequent design steps and how children have been included in the design process to ensure that the user interface is age appropriate and engaging. The pedagogy and the game mechanic for the game design come from the learning outcomes and approaches used in the classroom. However, on their own these can easily lead to a design that the players find boring. By integrating challenge which adapts with player achievement the idea of "flow" can be maintained and thus player engagement sustained. This paper outlines our approach to the game design showing why choices were made about the game levels and how they are designed to achieve engagement and maintain flow while at the same time providing a game mechanic that enshrines the learning outcomes. User input to the design process has been maintained through the use of pilot testing in local primary schools. This testing has shown the game to be effective in the main aims of the design - being engaging and requiring the players to interact with the learning outcome and requiring the players to collaborate. Further longer term testing will be undertaken to evaluate the effect of the game in enhancing player learning of the game objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Minecraft as a tool for teaching has become increasingly popular recently. Game components can be linked together allowing their effect to be experimented with easily and thus offering great potential for investigating children's use of the tool in educational settings. The tool has been observed to attract children in their exploration of the game environments. The "creator" mode is most useful in developing ideas for game-play. However, to get the players to engage with more abstract learning concepts can be quite challenging. This is where the concept of developing "mods" becomes very valuable. Minecraft "mods" can be developed freely with a system development kit (SDK) that can be downloaded. The authors of Minecraft make the full source code available for download to enable off-line development and testing. It is thus possible to check the design fully before launch, including developing server based applications. This paper outlines the way in which we have been using a Minecraft mod to create a collaborative game for teaching maths to UK primary school children (age 7-9). Minecraft is very attractive for this design as a large proportion of children are familiar with the basic gameplay, the gameplay is attractive to both males and females and with the use of mods learning outcome specific tools can be created. The design practice has highlighted a number of issues that are of value when using Minecraft to teach any subject - specifically when trying to create mods. The solution is quite creative and uses game component development that is familiar to players of Minecraft. We have piloted the game with a number of children, without experience in using Minecraft as a game, as well as those with extensive experience. Both have enabled us to overcome pitfalls in our approach to designing the game that will give pointers to others wishing to make learning outcome specific mods. The game has been tested in a school situation on children of all levels with varying results. This has helped in refining the game and further longer term testing will take place with the target age group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]