Using UML to Model Educational Games

There has been a constant increase in the number of serious games. In recent years, they have become extremely important within the scientific community and their repercussions on industry have been reflected in exponential growth in terms of their economic impact. The term serious game covers an extremely wide range of video games all with very different purposes and with many different areas of application. One of the most prolific areas is the field of education and many research papers have highlighted the benefits of video games in the classroom. Despite the complexity of educational game development, however, mainly because of the communication difficulties that exist between the technical team and the teaching team, very little research has been conducted to find a suitable design language for both parties. This article proposes the use of formall software planning within the educational games community, concretely an adaptation of UML (Unified Modeling Language) to educational games. This proposal is illustrated with a graphic adventure that the authors are developing to help second grade primary school students with their reading comprehension.