Right Opinion: Fidelity and Learning Design in a Food Poisoning Card Game

Abstract

This paper presents the design and development of "Right Opinion", a competitive two-player card game created to support Key Stage 3 learners' understanding of food poisoning. It is the first prototype in a wider doctoral study asking whether the fidelity of a serious game's delivery medium affects immediate knowledge acquisition and player experience. The planned comparison spans card, board, 2D digital, 3D digital, and virtual reality formats, representing increasing technological, audiovisual, spatial, and immersive possibilities without assuming that more technology produces better learning. With learner testing yet to take place, the paper addresses how two pages of static educational material can be transformed into a card game that aims to engage and educate in equal measure. Right Opinion converts the source into 12 patient cases. Players interpret food histories and symptoms, identify E. coli, Salmonella, or Listeria, and select suitable treatment and prevention responses. Correct decisions earn points, while the opponent can Challenge a response and optionally provide a Second Opinion. These mechanics make commitment, confidence, disagreement, and feedback visible. Bloom's original taxonomy informed four learning outcomes at the levels of Knowledge, Comprehension, and Application. The paper traces the design from an early handwritten speed-based version to the professionally printed prototype, then examines learning alignment and the affordances and limitations of cards. The physical format offers tactile, face-to-face play, low technical requirements, portability, and rapid setup, but relies on players to manage feedback and scoring. The resulting design findings concern content transformation, pacing, and the medium-specific affordances of cards as a physical baseline for later cross-format comparison across the five delivery conditions. The planned evaluation will combine matched knowledge tests at three points with a measure of player experience, enabling immediate acquisition and learners' perceptions of competition and engagement to be examined without treating competitive scores alone as learning evidence.