BakeRE: A Serious Educational Game on the Specification and Analysis of User Stories

Abstract

Learning requirements engineering (RE) notations is a tedious task for most people, because this learning activity is all but engaging. As an alternative to traditional educational methods, we propose BakeRE, a serious educational game for RE. The game focuses on specific learning objectives: the specification and analysis of requirements with user stories. BakeRE is the first game proposed to address these learning objectives. It is a multilevel puzzle game that can complement courses (traditional or on-line), such as a general software engineering or a specialized RE course. The player assembles user stories for a specific system by combining building blocks (roles, actions, benefits) from a predefined collection. As the player progresses through the levels, the difficulty increases. At the end of each level, learning feedback is provided to the player. Besides describing the game and its learning objectives, we present the game design process and outline in-progress research that aims to extend BakeRE through its embedding within an RE course.