Transactions on Edutainment 2

With great pleasure we present the second volume of the new journal Trans- tions on Edutainment. This journal, part of the Springer series Lecture Notes in ComputerScience, isdevotedtoresearchanddevelopmentinthe?eldofeduta- ment. Edutainment, also known as educational entertainment or entertainme- education, denotes all forms of entertainment designed to educate as well as to provide fun. This approach is motivated by the increasing demands on indivi- alsforlife-longlearningandtheneedtointegratee?ectivelearningopportunities throughout life. As such, edutainment has attracted increasing interest in the last few years. The ?rst ?ve articles of this issue represent a selection of outstanding cont- butionsfromGDTW2008, the6thInternationalConferenceinGameDesignand Technology held in the UK, in November 2008. The main aims of the workshop are: (1) To provide a forum to discuss state-of-the-art games design and current and future games technology with the specialists. (2) To enable academics and researchersincomputergametechnologyandcomputerentertainmenttopresent their work during the research sessions, and to seek opportunities for collabo- tion with industry and for academic researchpartners. (3) To facilitate relati- ships and collaboration between academics promoting computer games techn- ogy courses, the UK games industry and supporting organizations. These ?ve papers cover mainly the topic of edutainment platforms or methodology: "Co- dinating Heterogeneous Game-Based Learning Approaches in Online Learning Environments," "Networking Middleware and Online-Deployment Mechanisms for Java-Based Games," "A Testbed for P2P Gaming Using Time Warp, How to Steer Characters in Group Games," and "Time-Based Personalized Mobile Game Downloading. " The next six articles represent a selection of outstanding contributions from Cyberworlds 2008 held in Hangzhou, China, in September 2008.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It will cover aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design.

The second volume in this series contains a selection of outstanding contributions from GDTW 2008, the 6th International Conference in Game Design and Technology, which took place in the UK, in November 2008, and Cyberworlds 2008, held in Hangzhou, China, in September 2008. These papers are complemented by contributions from international experts in this field.