Applied games

In May 2019, A Night in the Forum videogame was published in the Sony PlayStation store, for PS VR. It was the final result of the REVEAL EU project, whose goal was to identify strategies, features, and tools to develop educational titles in a more efficient, cost-effective, and valuable way, exploiting their educational, cognitive, and engaging potential for schools and cultural tourism. Environmental Narrative videogames was chosen as a genre suited for this purposes. This article presents how known issues in the production of videogames have been faced, the solutions identified, and results obtained

This chapter will situate academia in relation to serious games commercial production and contextual adoption, and vice-versa. As a researcher it is critical to recognize that academic research of serious games does not occur in a vacuum. Direct partnerships between universities and commercial organizations are increasingly common, as well as between research institutes and the contexts that their serious games are deployed in. Commercial production of serious games and their increased adoption in non-commercial contexts will influence academic research through emerging impact pathways and funding opportunities. Adding further complexity is the emergence of commercial organizations that undertake their own research, and research institutes that have in-house commercial arms. To conclude, we explore how these issues affect the individual researcher , and offer considerations for future academic and industry serious games projects. Keywords: serious games · applied games · educational games · games for health · academia · commercial games · games for change · application domains · academic partnerships · research evaluation

This thesis positions games as a contemporary artifact of biopolitics, thereby constructing understandings about the ambiguity and power of video games in society. Through adopting the work of Michel Foucault on biopolitics, this thesis is set up as a critical and explorative research into the power relations of applied games in society. Multiple aspects of Foucault’s biopolitics are analyzed in order to specify the exercise of applied games and to inform contemporary scientists, developers and players about the power of games. This thesis reveals that there are similarities between the exercise of biopolitics and of games in society. Linking biopolitics with multiple applied games, game development methods and game research reveals that contemporary applied games can be used as instruments of modern governability and as mechanisms for security, regulation and economics within society. Therefore, this thesis gives explorative insight into how biopolitical games are developed and used to impact the population.

Games are increasingly used for purposes that stretch beyond their primary strength as medium for entertainment. The interactive nature of games provide players with various opportunity to deal with complex (societal) issues on a more involved and personal level, far more than any other medium affords. As such it is not surprising to see that games offer a great platform for persuading players to adopt a particular perspective on events that occur in the real, physical, world. Games for persuasion, or games for attitude-change, have been a topic of discussion over the past decade. Concrete design strategies however, to analyze persuasive gameplay or guide the designer in embedding persuasive messages in gameplay, are scarce. As such, to advance the discipline we have set our focus on the development of strategies that aid the persuasive game design process. In this paper we describe the Attitudinal Gameplay Model as foundation for the Persuasive Gameplay Experience. The model serves as an overview of what game elements can be utilized for persuasion, how they are interrelated and what mental processes of the player are important to take into account.

In May 2019, A Night in the Forum videogame was published in the Sony PlayStation store, for PS VR. It was the final result of the REVEAL EU project, whose goal was to identify strategies, features, and tools to develop educational titles in a more efficient, cost-effective, and valuable way, exploiting their educational, cognitive, and engaging potential for schools and cultural tourism. Environmental Narrative videogames was chosen as a genre suited for this purposes. This article presents how known issues in the production of videogames have been faced, the solutions identified, and results obtained

A Night in the Forum is a first person 3d videogame for Playstation VR developed starting from an educational scaffolding of 35 learning concepts that the player will face, while playing and interacting with the Forum of Augustus in Rome and the story of a tourist lost in the 1 century AD

Many research projects have assessed the possibility and effectiveness of implementing games as health interventions. Recent literature shows generally positive results in specific case studies. However we acknowledged that research projects in this field regularly seem to disregard the connection to possible effective game mechanics, design principles and behavior change theories to underpin such results. Evidently most of these studies were intended and designed solely as randomized controlled trials (rct’s) to validate effectiveness of health interventions. We propose a theoretical framework to assess whether and on what grounds certain behavioral effects may be attributed to particular game mechanics and game play aspects. Our model is founded on the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (ELM), which is quite appropriate to guide the evaluation structure for interventions that either aim at short term or long term attitude and behavior change. The scope of the research framework we have in mind is too extensive to elaborate here, since it stretches from gameplay principles & mechanics to psychological entertainment theories, to persuasive principles & behavioral theories and several UX-related evaluation methods as well. By means of an analysis of the working principles in the renowned game-based intervention Re-Mission we propose a small step towards such a framework. Since we consider the ELM an essential guiding model within our framework we need to clarify its working beforehand.

Many research projects have assessed the possibility and effectiveness of implementing games as health interventions. Recent literature shows generally positive results in specific case studies. However we acknowledged that research projects in this field regularly seem to disregard the connection to possible effective game mechanics, design principles and behavior change theories to underpin such results. Evidently most of these studies were intended and designed solely as randomized controlled trials (rct’s) to validate effectiveness of health interventions. We propose a theoretical framework to assess whether and on what grounds certain behavioral effects may be attributed to particular game mechanics and game play aspects. Our model is founded on the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (ELM), which is quite appropriate to guide the evaluation structure for interventions that either aim at short term or long term attitude and behavior change. The scope of the research fram...

Wat leren jongeren van het spelen van games (informele educatie) en hoe kunnen games voor de formele educatie (scholen) van waarde zijn voor openbare bibliotheken? Scholen, ondersteund door bibliotheken, moeten games op waarde schatten en voor informele en formele educatie hier hun slag mee slaan. Games zijn informeeleducatief door de goede  hersenprocessen die het stimuleert, zoals de informatieverwerking via meerdere kanalen. Content moet worden aangepast wil het ook formeeleducatief zijn. Er zijn uitzonderingen waar entertainmentgames al formeeleducatieve elementen bevatten. Formeeleducatieve games moeten echter meer van entertainmentgames overnemen om effectief te zijn: fun factor helpt bij leren, goede games zijn 'hard fun', bieden motivatie voor moeizaam plezier, uitdagingen.

Entertainment game genres provide game designers with a
taxonomy of known sets of mechanics, which are used as a foundation
to design games. Serious games taxonomy in comparison do not
provide the same kind of design knowledge. For this reason, we
adopted a way of classifying serious games into four categories by
tactical form, or the way the game is deployed in a certain context to
achieve its primary purpose. Central to this paper is the discussion of
our extended tactical from termed adaptive. DJ Fiero, a game designed
to rehabilitate children with ABI (Acquired Brain Injury), is used as a
case study to examine how the adaptive form fits the current
sociopolitical and economic design challenges of the Dutch healthcare
domain.

In designing De BurgemeesterGame—The Mayor Game—we aimed to develop a game that would be used and appreciated by a target population that was hardly used to being trained and had little affinity with applied gaming: mayors. To make sure that the (learning) goals, the context, the characteristics of the target population, and the creative design were all integrated into the game, we chose to work in a consortium with a focus group. We included engaging elements like simple gameplay based on actual processes, authentic scenarios presented in the way of dilemmas, time pressure, and collaboration. This resulted in a game that was accepted by the target population and has been played by more than half of all mayors in The Netherlands. Mayors feel the game challenges them to explore their decision making during crisis management and stimulates them to discuss this with other mayors.

Background: Physical activity is linked to benefits such as increased physical fitness, cognition, emotional and social functioning, general health and well-being in older people. Some evidence suggests that this also applies to people living with dementia. However, it can be harder for them to perform physical activities, due to several barriers, such as issues with orientation and balance problems. A relatively new type of physical activity called exergaming may help them overcome these barriers. Exergaming is "physical exercise interactively combined with cognitive stimulation in a gaming environment". The aim of our study is to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of exergaming compared to regular activities in people living with dementia, who attend day-care centres. Additionally, we want to investigate whether the exergaming activity for the person living with dementia, also (indirectly) affects the informal caregiver, as well as which facilitators and barriers to implementation of exergames for this target group exist. Methods: A cluster Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT), with economic and process evaluations alongside will be carried out. In the Netherlands, 24 day-care centres are randomized in the experimental or control group. The study group will consist of 224 dyads (community-dwelling participants with dementia and their informal caregivers), who are interviewed at baseline, and at 3 and 6 months of follow-up. The participant with dementia has to visit the day-care centre for at least two days per week, have a diagnosis of mild to moderate dementia and have an informal caregiver present, who is willing to participate. Societal cost data will be collected during interviews, using healthcare utilization diaries, and from day-care centres. The process evaluation will only involve the experimental group, and will include an online survey, qualitative interviews and focus groups. Discussion: This study will contribute to the evidence base that more effective exercise among people with dementia will result in positive effects on their wellbeing and quality of life. This will motivate people with dementia to be physically active. We also envision that there might be a positive effect on the burden of care experienced by their informal caregivers.

ABSTRACT De Burgemeestergame - The Mayor Game - is the result of the research project “GATE Pilot Safety (http://gate.gameresearch.nl/)” (2009–2012). The game provides strategic dilemma training for crisis management scenarios using a serious game format. Since there were no games available that could be used for training policy makers, the valid question at that point was how to develop a serious game that would be used and useful for policy makers. What exactly would such a game look like? This article explains in more detail the establishment of the learning goals (expert group), the didactic background (self-directed learning) and the development process (AGD Framework) of the Mayor Game.

The design of an applied game is complicated by needing to balance its usefulness, game- play experience, and sustainability. In the applied design process, game designers occupy a pivotal position between game design knowledge, development team, co-designers, and players. From this complex web of interaction, the designer is still expected to invent a new game. From a design investigation perspective, there is an opportunity to expand our general knowledge of game design by exploring first-hand the design and development of an applied game. The aim of this practice-led PhD research was to design and develop a pervasive multi- player applied video game as a tool for psychiatric healthcare workers treating patients suffering from depression and psychosis. The applied game Moodbot was co-designed during an intensive iterative process with healthcare experts and patients from Altrecht Mental Healthcare Institute and developers from the HKU University of the Arts. The following exegesis highlights game design knowledge gained from the development of the applied game Moodbot co-created with psychiatric healthcare workers, psychiatric patients, game artists, programmers, audio designers, and game designers. A design decision tool based on epistemic frameworks is used in this dissertation to structure and explore the applied game decision-making that shaped Moodbot and specifically examines a critical design decision moment, which looks at the influences from technology and co-designers on the design and designer.