Our augmented reality learning game “Tower Learn” by Benedikt Hensen, Anna Perret, Yanxi Liu, Emilie Hastrup-Kiil, Julian Staab and Ralf Klamma has won the second place in the student category of the GALA 2022 Serious Games Competition out of 45 submissions. We presented the serious game at the GALA conference in Tampere, Finland.
The learning application allows users to study knowledge questions while playing a tower defense game in augmented reality. When starting the application, students can choose from different levels. These levels are created with an editor and can focus on a particular topic like astronomy or literacy learning. Users can import self-made levels onto their phone directly from the PC-based editor or they can select pre-made quizzes from our curated repository. Hence, the application is suitable for many different fields of application and can target different groups like K12 students and university students as it can be adjusted to the learning contents for each use case. The learning tasks are integrated into the tower defense game as users need to answer questions before they can continue building defenses. Both multiple choice questions and free text fields are possible. Authors can show textual questions and they can also add auxiliary images which are shown alongside the question. The integration of the questions into the game mechanics as a hurdle motivates the casual repetition of knowledge questions so that learners can acquire confidence with the learning material. The tower defense game can be played on a virtual board which is placed on a real surface, e.g., the student’s table. Printed out cards can be used as markers to place down defenses in the game or to play cards that apply modifiers to the game. The implemented serious game is open-source and is available on GitHub.