MIXED REALITY ESCAPE ROOM VIDEO GAME TO PROMOTE LEARNING IN INDOOR ENVIRONMENTS A. Gómez-Cambronero, A. González-Pérez, I. Miralles, S. Casteleyn Universitat Jaume I (SPAIN) Abstract This work presents a mixed reality escape room video game for mobile platforms, which’ development was guided by the framework of constructivist learning theory. The game is categorized as a serious game, and was developed to complement traditional learning activities and support educational events. The narrative is set inside a real building from which the player must escape. In the game, the real world is connected and expanded with the virtual world, and a challenge-award system is used to promote intrinsic motivation, real world exploration, and the use of logic and problem-solving strategies. The game was developed using the Unity Game Engine and uses Bluetooth beacons to locate the player in the real world. Keywords: Educational, Serious Game, Mixed Reality, Educational Events, Escape Room, Indoor Location. 1 INTRODUCTION The use of Serious Games has expanded to different areas such as training, medicine, psychology and education [1][2][3]. Specifically in the latter, multiple positive results were achieved, such as an improvement in the adherence of the students to teaching methodologies, their implication or even academic results, thanks to the fun and exploratory nature of serious games complemented with solid underlying pedagogical strategies. One subclass of serious games are mixed reality games, which can be characterised according to Milgram’s continuum from augmented reality to augmented virtuality [4], depending on the predominant presence of the virtual environment or the real world in the game. In our previous work, the explorative strategy of an escape room was used in a game to facilitate the teaching of character writing, with promising results [5]. Many different types of Escape Room games exist in various facilities around the world [6]. In real escape rooms, players must leave a place by finding clues and solving puzzles. In a virtual escape room the objective is the same, and although the realistic component of it is lost, more complex strategies and components can be incorporated in the game in a controlled way. The usual is to apply them for improve soft skills such as communication, teamwork and leadership [7][8]. Some of them have puzzles in which the player must apply his knowledge about a concrete subject [9][10], but the action are performed in the real world. Other projects use the virtual reality to simulate a escape room, yet without any relation with the real world [11]. In this article, we explore the combination of real and virtual escape rooms in a mixed reality game, in order to create a learning experience characterized by a high level of immersion and exploration. The educational mixed reality escape room envisioned in this work serves as an enjoyable complement to regular university courses, or to support university events. As example, the mixed reality escape room game was implemented to support the GIS day 1 , an event to promote geospatial technologies and their applications. The game simulates the (hypothetical) situation of being trapped in a building of the university campus from which the player needs to escape. He therefore is guided to different physical locations by the narrative presented on his smartphone, where various riddles and activities, both virtual (e.g., solve a math equation), physical (e.g., perform a science experiment) or mixed (e.g., use real- world objects/clues in game scenes in the mobile app), are key to escape. For example, through physical wayfinding via landmark-based directions in the mobile app, the player is guided to the basement, where the game presents him with an interactive floor map. Exploring the floor, and through spatial reasoning challenges, he must associate virtual with real world objects to find the next clue. The game concept, its mechanics, narrative and activities are designed according to constructivist learning theory [12]. Solving puzzles, in conjunction with the process of exploration to escape, requires an active student-centered learning process that fits the learning theory. This allows learners to construct 1 https://www.gisday.com/en-us/overview Proceedings of EDULEARN19 Conference 1st-3rd July 2019, Palma, Mallorca, Spain ISBN: 978-84-09-12031-4 5857