Processes and Models for Serious Game Design and Development

Abstract

Abstract.A serious game needs to combine a number of different aspects to help the end user in reaching the desired effects. This requires incorporating a broad range of different aspects in the design, stemming from a broad range of different fields of expertise. For designers, developers, researchers, and other stakeholders it is not straightforward how to organize the design and development process, to make sure that these aspects are properly addressed. In this chapter we will discuss a number of ways of organizing the design and development process and various models that support specific design decisions during this process, concluding with a discussion of design patterns for serious games.Keywords: serious game design, game development process, design science research. IntroductionA serious game incorporates play as well as a myriad of other aspects: motivation, learning content, feedback. For designers, developers, but also researchers and other stakeholders, it is not straightforward what steps to take from a problem statement towards a game that can be played by the intended users. This chapter provides an overview of various approaches, models, and frameworks that can be used to support the design and development of serious games. This chapter is organized into four main sections. In the first section, we will discuss a number of important aspects pertaining to the context in which a serious game is designed and the context in which the game is intended to be used. Subsequently, we will take on a high level perspective and discuss a number of processes that are being used to design and develop serious games. In the third section, we will present a number of design models that assist in making design choices to achieve particular effects with the resulting game. This approach is becoming more and more formalized using a design patterns approach, which are discussed in the final section.At the end of the chapter, a number of future research questions and suggested reading material are included. ContextA serious game only becomes an effective tool to foster learning, promote healthy behavior, or change behavior, when it is played by players. Necessarily, playing takes place in a specific context and it is often hard for a game designer to foresee the time, place, culture, and other contextual aspects that affect the player experience. Considering this context for which a serious game is designed is therefore an important step of the design process: from this context stems an important set of specific design requirements for the serious game.Before we can discuss particular development process frameworks or more detailed design models to support design decisions, we will first explore the context. We will do so by pointing out a number of different, and often opposing, perspectives. From a user perspective, we will start with the different views that designers and users have of the game. From a game perspective, we emphasize that they differ a large amount in the audience and purposes that they address. F...

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“…However, moving beyond medium focused proof of concept arguments to game characteristics that affect cognitive consequences is recommended [92]. As such it is necessary to focus on design decisions which optimise learning effectiveness, but game design as a second order design problem demonstrates how complex it is to predict the effect of design decisions on player experience [93].…”

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