A Virus Infected Your Laptop. Let’s Play an Escape Game

• Main Authors: Araceli Queiruga-Dios, María Jesús Santos Sánchez, Marián Queiruga Dios, Víctor Gayoso Martínez, Ascensión Hernández Encinas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-01-01
• Series: Mathematics
• Subjects: breakout; escape room; game-based learning; engineering education
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/8/2/166

Have you ever thought what would happen if a ransomware infected your laptop? This type of virus kidnaps files and encrypts them, and the only way to recover the data is by paying in bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency. This situation is undoubtedly terrible. All of your work, projects, and personal files will not be available (unless you pay the ransom). The first time students watched a video that contextualizes this stressful situation, they thought that they had been attacked by a computer virus. Fortunately, the panic only lasted a few seconds. This is the way to start a game called breakout or escape room. The difference between these two words is that, in the first case, the goal is to open a padlocked box, while the objective of an escape room is to find the key that allows to get out of a room. Both games are similar, containing riddles, puzzles, problems and some clues that would help the players to find the solution. This study analyses the use of a breakout game for educational purposes, more specifically in a university context. The experiment conducted mixes game−based learning methodologies with engineering students learning Linear Algebra, Calculus or Cryptography, which has allowed us to obtain promising results about the usage of this methodology.