Design and implementation of a gamification tool (GaToo) for professional virtual training

Abstract Gamification is increasingly used to make non-game contexts more engaging, yet integrating its elements into professional training applications often requires significant development effort. This work introduces GaToo (from “Gamification Tool”), a modular and reusable gamification plugin built for the Unity engine, designed to simplify this process and reduce the need for custom implementation. The plugin provides a structured set of components, including missions, steps, challenges and achievements, together with a base editor interface that facilitates configuration and management. To ensure broad applicability, it also includes complementary mechanisms that enable integration both in applications still under development and in existing applications, depending on the level of access to their source code. A preliminary study with 15 experienced Unity users was conducted to assess the usability of the plugin interface. The results indicated a score of 82 on the System Usability Scale, considered ’Excellent,’ supporting the ease of use of the plugin editor. By offering a flexible and extensible solution, the plugin allows developers and researchers to concentrate on the design and evaluation of gamification strategies, while minimizing the technical overhead of implementation.