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fantasy story (
M
= 0.097 versus
M
= 0.57 respectively). There was no significant
main effect of Visual condition (
F
(1,54) < 1) and no significant interaction effect
(
F
(1,54) < 1). If the outlier was not removed, the main effect of Story would have
shown a trend: (
F
(1,55) = 2.84,
p
= 0.098, η
p
2
= .049).
4.2
Game Experience
A 2x2 MANOVA with the fourteen factors of the Game Experience Questionnaire
(see section 3.2) as dependent variables and the conditions Story and Visuals as fixed
factors, shows a significant main effect of Story on Game Experience Questionnaire
(Wilk's
λ
= 0.52,
F
(3,43) = 2.84,
p
< 0.005, multivariate η
2
= 0.48). Separate ANO-
VAs reveal that this is due to significant effects of condition on Negative Feelings
(
F
(1,56) = 6.67,
p
< 0.05), Positive Experience (
F
(1,56) = 8.18,
p
< 0.01), Tiredness
(
F
(1,56) = 9.10,
p
< 0.005) and Returning to Reality (
F
(1,56) = 5.28,
p
< 0.05). In all
cases, ratings were higher in the fantasy story condition than in the familiar story
condition. No significant main effect was found for the visual conditions, nor a signif-
icant interaction effect.
5
Discussion and Future Work
The results of the experiment indicate a catch 22 between learning and game expe-
rience in serious games, at least when it comes to the aesthetics of the game. Games
with a fantasy environment offer a stronger game experience, but this is achieved at
the cost of lower learning gains. If the learning goals of a serious game are the most
important aspect, a more familiar setting should be used, but at the cost of a subdued
game experience. This could give some explanation why serious games are effica-
cious though not very engaging [3]. Research on ways to circumvent this problem is
therefore paramount.
It is also possible that fantasy aesthetics have an interaction effect with game me-
chanics, where a higher engagement could lead to a stronger will to engage with the
game mechanics, i.e. gaming the system, but less to learning the information. This
relationship should be scrutinized.
There are a number of other limitations to the research, which should also be clari-
fied in future work. The learning in this game is very verbally focused, and less pro-
cedural. This could have an effect on the visual aesthetics conditions and pertaining
results, where learning (and knowledge assessment) in our experiment was mostly on
verbal knowledge, and subsequently the participants could have paid less attention to
the visuals, leading to non-significant effects in the visual condition.
Furthermore, it could be argued that the setting and difficult task in the game were
simply too alien for the players, that they needed some recognizable elements in order
to engage with the game. Research by Kintsch and Mandler among others has hig-
hlighted that topics that are completely new for the learner will not lead to more cog-
nitive interest [8]. This however seems at odds with the totally new fantasy offered by
games. Future research will need to determine whether and where there is a middle
ground of offering the right amount of fantasy, while tapping into the prior knowledge
of the learner.
