Evert Hoogendoorn has a background in both game design and education. Trained as a educator, he began his career as a teacher and consultant for language development and creative writing for various target groups. Later, he became a lecturer and then the head of the first game design program in Europe.

After ten years in higher education, he transitioned to IJsfontein, a game studio that primarily develops serious games. As game designer and strategist, he was responsible for designing games for education and healthcare, with crossovers into business and the museum sector. Especially for the games in the healthcare sector his games had to deal with complex content and highstake learning. Clinical rigour and validation where key factors in his design process.

The combination of game design and education led to the development of Ludodidactics, a vision for designing education that he co-developed with colleague Willem Jan Renger starting in 2005. Ludodidactics focuses on developing learning situations from a game designer’s perspective. The primary focus is always on learning itself, using principles and mechanisms derived from game design and its related fields. This approach considers not only the medium itself but also the design processes involved.