Serious Games Development And Applications

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Serious Games Development and Applications, SGDA 2013, held in Trondheim, Norway, in September 2013. The 32 papers (23 full papers, 9 short papers/posters and 2 invited keynotes) presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on games for health, games for education and training, games for other purposes, game design and theories, gaming interface, policy matters.

With the continued application of gaming for training and education, which has seen exponential growth over the past two decades, this book offers an insightful introduction to the current developments and applications of game technologies within educational settings, with cutting-edge academic research and industry insights, providing a greater understanding into current and future developments and advances within this field. Following on from the success of the first volume in 2011, researchers from around the world presents up-to-date research on a broad range of new and emerging topics such as serious games and emotion, games for music education and games for medical training, to gamification, bespoke serious games, and adaptation of commercial off-the shelf games for education and narrative design, giving readers a thorough understanding of the advances and current issues facing developers and designers regarding games for training and education. This second volume of Serious Games and Edutainment Applications offers further insights for researchers, designers and educators who are interested in using serious games for training and educational purposes, and gives game developers with detailed information on current topics and developments within this growing area.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Serious Games Development and Applications, SGDA 2014, held in Berlin, Germany, in October 2014. The 14 revised full papers presented together with 4 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 31 submissions. The focus of the papers was on the following: games for health, games for medical training, serious games for children, music and sound effects, games for other purposes, and game design and theories.

This textbook provides an introduction to the fundamentals of serious games, which differ considerably from computer games that are meant for pure entertainment. Undergraduate and graduate students from various disciplines who want to learn about serious games are one target group of this book. Prospective developers of serious games are another, as they can use the book for self-study in order to learn about the distinctive features of serious game design and development. And ultimately, the book also addresses prospective users of serious game technologies by providing them with a solid basis for judging the advantages and limitations of serious games in different application areas such as game-based learning, training and simulation or games for health. To cater to this heterogeneous readership and wide range of interests, every effort was made to make the book flexible to use. All readers are expected to study Chapter 1, as it provides the necessary basics and terminology that will be used in all subsequent chapters. The eleven chapters that follow cover the creation of serious games (design, authoring processes and tools, content production), the runtime context of serious games (game engines, adaptation mechanisms, game balancing, game mastering, multi-player serious games), the effects of serious games and their evaluation (player experience, assessment techniques, performance indicators), and serious games in practice (economic aspects, cost-benefit analysis, serious game distribution). To familiarize the readers with best practice in this field, the final chapter presents more than 30 selected examples of serious games illustrating their characteristics and showcasing their practical use. Lecturers can select chapters in a sequence that is most suitable for their specific course or seminar. The book includes specific suggestions for courses such as “Introduction to Serious Games”, “Entertainment Technology”, “Serious Game Design”, “Game-based Learning”, and “Applications of Serious Games”.

With advances in technologies and revolutions in patient, trainee, and public expectations, the global healthcare sector is increasingly turning to serious games to solve problems. Serious games are applications with serious purposes, developed using computer game technologies more often associated with entertainment. Serious Games for Healthcare: Applications and Implications will introduce the development and application of game technologies for health-related serious games. Further, it provides cutting-edge academic research and industry updates which will inform readers about the current and future advances in the area. Encapsulating the knowledge of commercial and noncommercial researchers, developers, and practitioners in a single volume will benefit not only the research and development community within this field, but could also serve public health interests by improving awareness and outcomes.

Games have been part of the entertainment industry for decades. Once only considered viable for personal entertainment, virtual gaming media is now being explored as a useful tool for learning and student engagement. The Handbook of Research on Serious Games for Educational Applications presents a comprehensive examination of the implementation of gaming in classroom settings and the cognitive benefits this integration presents. Highlighting theoretical, psychological, instructional design, and teaching perspectives, this book is a pivotal reference source for researchers, educators, professionals, and academics interested in the innovative opportunities of game-based learning.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Serious Games Development and Applications, SGDA 2011, held in Lisbon, Portugal in September 2011. The 13 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for publication. Among the topics addressed are virtual reality, computer assisted learning, computer graphics, tutoring systems, e-learning, e-culture, and guiding systems.

The recent re-emergence of serious games as a branch of video games and as a promising frontier of education has introduced the concept of games designed for a serious purpose other than pure entertainment. To date the major applications of serious games include education and training, engineering, medicine and healthcare, military applications, city planning, production, crisis response, to name just a few. If utilised alongside, or combined with conventional training and educational approaches, serious games could provide a more powerful means of knowledge transfer in almost every application domain. Serious Games and Edutainment Applications offers an insightful introduction to the development and applications of games technologies in educational settings. It includes cutting-edge academic research and industry updates that will inform readers of current and future advances in the area. The book is suitable for both researchers and educators who are interested in using games for educational purposes, as well as game professionals requiring a thorough understanding of issues involved in the application of video games technology into educational settings. It is also applicable to programmers, game artists, and management contemplating or involved in the development of serious games for educational or training purposes.