Bagamoyo Caravan: Pervasive learning game for a Tanzanian museum

Bagamoyo Caravan is a story-based pervasive learning game on Android mobile phones for a slavery museum in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. It was contextualised in Tanzania together with museum experts and local students. The game aims to distinguish pedagogy from entertainment to avoid overshadowing of the former by the latter. The division of pedagogy and entertainment also attempts to meet the need for rhythm in learning to keep the players interested and their concentration level high. The flexible architecture of Bagamoyo Caravan allows the game to be expanded to other locations and stories. An initial evaluation of the game prototype revealed several aspects: 1) controlling a novel technology can be a challenge; 2) children and adult emphasised different things in the game; 3) story related to the real life of a player; and 4) the game has potential outside the museum. Additionally, the overall impressions from the players suggested high interest towards the game. The next step is to finalise the game based on these results and run a full-scale evaluation to measure the educational value of the game in order to properly prove or disprove the overshadowing effect.