door.donau-uni.ac.at o:5805 DOI 10.48341/5ry2-t630 The Power of Unhappy Endings This case study examines the integration of a teacher-created digital game into the elementary music curriculum on several campuses in two countries, exploring its impact on student engagement, learning outcomes, and classroom culture. Originally developed as an extension of a traditional music lesson featuring a puppet, the game was designed to reinforce the learning of a target melody by incorporating the melody as background music within gameplay. Using an autoethnographic reflection and case study approach, this paper analyzes the evolution of the puppet’s story that forms the base of the lesson, how students responded to the digital adaptation of the story in game form, and how the addition of the game affected instructional time dedicated to the melodic acquisition of the target melody. The findings suggest that embedding musical concepts within a digital game environment may enhance student engagement and efficiency in learning. Additionally, the use of a puppet, structured narrative, and digital game increased the ability of the teacher to integrate Social Emotional Learning (SEL) concepts naturally into the lesson. eng Music education digital games puppets melody story 2025-11-27T08:19:28.958Z LOMv1.0 Author BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Fimbel;Mary Eleanora; FN:Mary Eleanora Fimbel END:VCARD https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/scheme https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/text Textdokument Text LOMv1.0 yes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 application/pdf 313309 https://door.donau-uni.ac.at/o:5805 https://door.donau-uni.ac.at/api/object/o:5805/thumbnail LOMv1.0 discipline