Conference Agenda

This study examines the integration of serious game development within an undergraduate systems and software engineering curriculum using a Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach. Engineering students engage in the design and implementation of a narrative-driven serious game addressing the armed conflict in Colombia as a socially grounded application context. The development activity is framed as a system-oriented engineering task, involving architectural design, modular software development, interaction modeling, system integration, and iterative refinement under realistic technical and organizational constraints. The work focuses on engineering learning processes associated with sustained engagement in the development of a complex software system. It is organized around multiple development phases, including system analysis, architectural definition, component implementation, and integration activities. These phases provide a structured context in which students engage with system decomposition, interface definition, state management, and technical trade-offs across the software development lifecycle. By embedding the development task within the formal curriculum, the project supports extended engagement with open-ended engineering problems that require coordination among interdependent system components and adaptation to evolving requirements. The socially grounded narrative context introduces additional design considerations related to representation, interaction sequencing, and system behavior, which must be addressed through architectural and software engineering decisions. This paper contributes to understanding how complex, system-level software development projects situated within undergraduate engineering education can support systems thinking and the development of core engineering competencies.