O n f e r e n c e

Results 
The results of the game-experience were in general very positive as students got very 
enthusiastic about the game and the idea of learning German through gamificated apps. 
Nonetheless, there were some problems caused by external factors such as the data 
connection of one of the two academic institutions we tested the game at. We used a 
server in a cloud hosting service, so students needed Internet access to play the 4th 
level of the game. Internet wireless access was limited by the fire-wall of the institution 
itself (in particular, the 7222 Internet port used for Open Fire communications). As a 

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2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be 
result, some students could not activate the chat-room needed to participate in the 
collaborative murder-game. 
In contrast all students were able to enroll in the first part of the game and thus to test 
levels 1 to 3. 
More than half of the participating learners were able to fulfill the 9 mini-games 
successfully in only one game-session, which lasted around 90 minutes. The remaining 
students played at least 8 of the mini-games successfully.
Only one of the participating students could not pass level 3 since it took him the entire 
game session of 90 minutes to complete level 1 and 2. However, in general students got 
very quickly through part 1 and 2 of each game level, as these were based on simple 
tasks such as matching photos with their corresponding audio-files or texts. In contrast 
learners took much longer to complete part 3 of each game-level since this requires them 
to focus on their writing. Nonetheless, as foreign language students usually have more 
difficulties with speaking and writing than with reading and listening, they considered 
part 3 not only the most challenging, but also the most useful part of the mini-games, as 
they felt obliged to focus more on their writing. 
Survey 
Once students had finished participating in the game we asked them to report their 
game-experience by describing their feelings and difficulties they had when using the 
App. Students’ feedback was
vital for improving the App-design and making it more user-
friendly and efficient. Amongst the feedback and suggestions we received from the 
players these were the most common: 
Some students reported problems related to their personal keypad which did not allow 
them to use German vowel mutation such as “ä”, ö” and “ü” and thus to fulfill some of 
the written game-tasks successfully. This can be easily solved by installing one of the 
many freely available multi-language extensions for the Android smartphone keyboard. 
From this we can conclude that students have never used their smartphones to 
communicate in German, this game being their first time. Other students reported 
problems when using the wireless connection at their university or school. Problems were 
reported especially by school students since access to the internet is usually restricted at 
schools in order to prevent students from accessing social-networks (Facebook, twitter) 
or chat-rooms (whatsApp) during school time.