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Fig. 21.4
(continued)
to focus on the game during the gameplay sessions. The questionnaires were
administered in the classroom with a regular teacher of the children's, assisted by
an experimenter.
On the day of the user study, once the children entered the classroom, a common
presentation of the purpose of the study and an introduction to the game was given
in Portuguese. Two experimenters played through a shortened session of the game,
demonstrating the interface and the object of the game, completing quests. All
features of interaction were demonstrated in order to ensure the children knew all
forms of interaction with and through the game. This included demonstrating quest
management, resource collection, trading, and stealing. Children were allowed and
encouraged to ask questions during this demonstration session.
Following the introduction, the children were divided into groups by the exper-
imenters with the help of their regular teacher. Each session was conducted in a
round table arrangement with the children seated facing each other in order to
facilitate easy communication during gameplay. For the same reason, the game
was played on laptop computers allowing the children to simultaneously perceive
each other as well as the game. To ensure minimum technical complications, the
experimenters facilitated the start of game for all groups. In the case of technological
failure for one player, an experimenter would restart the session if the game had
recently begun, but would allow the session to finish if the game was almost over,
before including the child again. The decision of whether to restart or let the session
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