Guest talk by Pratama Wirya Atmaja , Lecturer at the Faculty of Computer Science, University of Pembangunan Nasional Veteran Jawa Timur
Speaker Bio
Pratama Wirya Atmaja is a lecturer in the Faculty of Computer Science of the University of Pembangunan Nasional Veteran Jawa Timur, Indonesia, with a background in games and software engineering. His research focuses on educational games, interactive digital narratives, and gamification. He leads his faculty’s Game Research Group and is a member of the “IDN in education” committee of ARDIN (Association for Research in Digital Interactive Narratives). He also mentors the “Game and Interactive Narrative Development” (GIND) student research community in his faculty. Before serving as a lecturer, he also contributed stories and world-building ideas to Vandaria Saga, an Indonesian high-fantasy shared universe franchise.
Talk Abstract
The talk is about Pratama’s Game Research Group’s research and its applications. Operating under the Faculty of Computer Science in the University of Pembangunan Nasional “Veteran” Jawa Timur, the Game Research Group’s roadmap revolves around a two-part theory of “ludonarratification,” which explains how ludonarrative media like narrative games can potentially be used to “ludonarratify” activities in society. The theory comprehensively gathers and blends established theories from learning science, cognitive science, game science, and other fields. After introducing the theory, the talk will cover the recent applications of one part of the theory, which is a learning domains- and blending-based model of ludonarrative media. Firstly, the group has applied the model to co-design several educational ludonarrative media at a local school. Its learning domains-based structure has allowed the team to translate lessons and learning goals from textbooks into narrative games and gamification software, and its support for conceptual blending has helped teachers understand how ludonarrative elements, such as game mechanics and narrative patterns, blend together to form the media’s designs. Secondly, the team has begun to explore how best to apply the model in game software engineering, particularly in the context of Indonesia’s game industry. This exploration covers a game design process model, which they have applied in the co-design process, and a narrative game applications syllabus, which accommodates the needs of Indonesian independent game developers.