Talking Wildfire: How Discourse in Serious Games Shapes Collaborative Learning and Preparedness

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Abstract
Wildfire preparedness is a deeply social challenge that depends on shared understanding, coordinated action, and community-level decision-making. Serious games have emerged as promising tools for supporting preparedness learning, yet their evaluation often relies on individual outcomes or surveys, leaving interactional learning processes underexplored. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing how players from wildfire-affected communities collaboratively constructed preparedness knowledge while playing Firesafe Friends, a two-player serious game. Using a Discourse Acts approach, we analyzed dialogue from onsite and remote sessions (n = 20) and triangulated the findings with pre/post surveys and observational notes. Our analysis reveals distinct phases of collaborative learning – orientation, strategy formation, collaboration, and reflection – marked by shifts in cognitive, social, and integrated discourse acts. Budget constraints prompted negotiation, contested upgrades supported collective reasoning, and reflective dialogue helped players connect in-game decisions to real-world preparedness. We contribute (1) an empirical analysis of discourse as a mechanism for resilience learning, (2) a discourse-centered triangulated evaluation method, and (3) design implications for resilience games that scaffold negotiation and reflection to strengthen community preparedness.

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