With great pleasure we would like to present the ?rst volume of a new journal, Transactions on Edutainment. This journal, part of the Springer series L- tureNotesinComputerScience, is devoted to research and development in the ?eld of edutainment. Edutainment, also known as educational entertainment or entertainment-education,denotes allforms ofentertainmentdesignedto educate as well as to provide fun. This approachis motivated by the increasing demands on individuals for life-long learning and the need to integrate e?ective learning opportunities throughout life. As such, edutainment has attracted increasing interest in the last few years. The ?rst 12 articles of this ?rst issue represent a selection of outstanding contributions from Edutainment 2008, the Third International Conference on E-Learning and Games held in Nanjing, China, in June 2008. These papers are complemented by individual contributions from international experts in this ?eld. The ?rst six articles provide an introduction into the ?eld of edutainment by presenting di?erent application examples. In their article "Designing an Ed- ? ucational Game: Case Study of Euope 2045," Sisler and Brom discuss their experiences in the design of an on-line multi-player strategy game on political, economic, and social issues in contemporary Europe.
The following examples point out the crucial role of interaction design and technolgies in the devel- ment of a successful edutainment application.
Papers from Edutainment 2008.- Designing an Educational Game: Case Study of 'Europe 2045'.- Timed Automata-Based Rehabilitation Training Game Design for the Affected Lower Extremity of Hemiparetic Patient.- A Haptic Virtual Environment for Molecular Chemistry Education.- ARGarden: Augmented Edutainment System with a Learning Companion.- Developing a Digital Game-Based Situated Learning System for Ocean Ecology.- A Pen-Based 3D Role Modeling Tool for Children.- A Reusable Eduventure Game Framework.- Construction and Evaluation of a Robot Dance System.- TMAR: Extension of a Tabletop Interface Using Mobile Augmented Reality.- Interacting with Augmented Assets in Cultural Tourism.- Interactive Storytelling: Approaches and Techniques to Achieve Dynamic Stories.- Behavioural Reactive Agents to Define Personality Traits in the Videogame Überpong.- Regular Papers.- 'Killer Phrases': Design Steps for a Game with Digital Role-Playing Agents.- From Pencil to Magic Wand: Tangibles as Gateways to Virtual Stories.- Game-Based Learning with Computers - Learning, Simulations, and Games.- Core Attributes of Interactive Computer Games and Adaptive Use for Edutainment.- Interactive Media Authoring Systems.- A Review of Using Virtual Reality for Learning.- The Mental Vision Framework - A Platform for Teaching, Practicing and Researching with Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality.- Making the Real World as a Game World to Learners by Applying Game-Based Learning Scenes into Ubiquitous Learning Environment.- VR Bio X Games.- Online Learning and Clinical Procedures: Rapid Development and Effective Deployment of Game-Like Interactive Simulations.
