Abstract

The goal of this bachelor thesis is to find out whether a Serious Game really can support the learning of the Latin language. Therefore we developed a game, which is based on exactly one chapter of an official learning book for Latin. When the game was finished we started a study at my homeschool to test out whether the students who learned the grammar, the vocabularies and the history of Rome supported by the game better than the students without the support of the game. To get enough students we managed to come into two classes and divided each of the classes into two groups – the player group and the control group. After the study was finished, we evaluated the study results according to my thesis. We got some promising results and the potential for a game to support the Latin language is definitely.

Results

Above two mechanics of the game are shown. One time the photo mode: the player is able to take photos of objects in the world with the Latin word and its German translation above. In the end the player has to play a memory against the Computer with all of the objects he was able to shoot in the world. The second video shows a cinematic of the Roman house voiced over by a narrator. WIth the 3D immersion the student should be able to remember each Latin word for the rooms easier than by reading it on a paper. The world consists of even more excercises, like filling out a latter with the missing grammatically correct pronouns or playing round mill against the KI and watch more cinematics explaining Roman history. The whole world is designed to look realistic as possible and everything is handmade placed. The environment can completely free discovered by the player and a Quest system, Minimap and dialogue system are also implemented in the game.

The results in general were positive and in nearly every department the students improved or got better results than the students who haven't played the game. Especially in the department of the Roman house and the vocabularies the results of the gamer were significantly better than the ones of the control group. Also the interest in Roman history of students who weren't interested in Roman history before playing the game have increased interest. 

Conclusion

So if we want to summarize the study whether a serious game can support learning the Latin language, we can make a positive conclusion. Our evaluation showed, that in specific points the player group really got better results than the control group. Especially the result of the improved interest in Roman history is a great success for us. But the success in learning vocabularies and grammar is as well a great result and motivates us to continue with this project. We started the project with some big question marks. Will we be able to create a good and realistic open world in such a short time? How should we include the exercises into the game? How will we be able to test the game in school and will we get enough students that are willing to play the game? In the end, we, fortunately, are able to answer all questions with yes. We were able to create the open world since we used existing technology and put much effort into the game. The exercises with their corresponding mechanics worked well and the students learned something. And yes, the test went well at the school and all the students wanted to play the game. The mood and the acceptance of the students of playing a serious game were great. Surely during the development of the game, we had some concerns if everything works out as we want to and even if it might not work everything perfectly, but in the end, all of the main features we wanted to include, worked. Also, some delays at the school made it not easy to plan. During the winter period, the school had to close due to too much snow. That delayed the class by one week, which made the time plan, in the end, busier than we thought. Also, the collaboration with the school and the teacher was great and we communicated the exact plan many times so everything went fine. So our final conclusion is that we don’t regret to take the risk of developing such a complex game and the results show us, that the graphics style and the overall look was pleasing to the players and they learned the learning material easier by exploring the open world with the exercises set-in the world.

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