The study of mapping mechanism between game rules and knowledge in educational games: A case of agricultural game design

Knowledge plays very important role in educational game. The paper is aimed to investigate a mapping mechanism for knowledge combination with game. The main achievements include: a new system of classification for educational game based on learning objectives and characters of knowledge in it is proposed, based on which, a general-element model of game and its formal representation is given; knowledge is classified into eleven categories according to the characters of game to be combined; relation between knowledge and game rules are analysis and a mapping mechanism is proposed; With the mapping from knowledge to game rules, a general knowledge model for integrating with game is constructed using senary expression which involves domain, entities, relation, sequence, theorem and skills. Finally, an application of agricultural game, Virtual Farm, is introduced to validate the mapping scheme. The experiences of game playing show the combination are effective accordingly making player learn much agricultural knowledge in an unconscious way during game playing.