A Testbed For Fun And Effective Features In Spatial Skill Training Games

Certain digital games hold promise as interventions for training spatial skills, a subset of cognitive skills essential for success in STEM fields. However, not much is known about what features of these games are relevant to training spatial skills. Without such knowledge, it is impossible to design spatial skill training games with confidence that they will be effective. In addition, existing games for spatial skill training are not designed to appeal to those who stand the most to benefit from them: students with low spatial skill. In this work, we present a new and improved version of Homeworld Bound, a game designed as a testbed for studying spatially relevant game features. Our updated version is grounded in spatial skill theory and designed to appeal to low spatial skill university students. We present our future plans for analyzing the training effectiveness and player experience of this new game, Homeworld Bound: Redux.