Serious Games The Challenge

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Joint Conference of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Technology, Education, Communication, and the Scientific Network on Critical and Flexible Thinking, held in Ghent, Belgium, in October 2011. The 12 papers in this volume represent extended versions of the 20 papers presented at the conference and selected from numerous submissions. The conference brought together scholars and researchers who study the use of serious games in educational settings from different perspectives, such as instructional design, domain specific didactics, cognitive and computer science.

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 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”.

"This book explains how digital environments can easily become familiar and beneficial for educational and professional development, with the implementation of games into various aspects of our environment"--Provided by publisher.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the Second Joint International Conference on Serious Games, JCSG 2016, held in Brisbane, QLD, Australia, in September 2016. This conference bundles the activities of the International Conference on Serious Games Development and Applications, SGDA, and the Conference on Serious Games, GameDays. The total of 36 full papers and 5 short papers was carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections named: health, well-being and accessibility; education, learning and training; science, nature and heritage; design, development and analysis; poster papers; exhibits.

The book introduces techniques to improve the effectiveness of serious games in relation to cognition and motivation. These techniques include ways to improve motivation, collaboration, reflection, and the integration of gameplay into various contexts. The contributing authors expand upon this broad range of techniques, show recent empirical research on each of these techniques that discuss their promise and effectiveness, then present general implications or guidelines that the techniques bring forth. They then suggest how serious games can be improved by implementing the respective technique into a particular game.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Serious Games, JCSG 2018, held in Darmstadt, Germany, in November 2018. The 15 full and 12 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: serious games studies; game-based learning and teaching; game development - serious games design, models, tools and emerging technologies; and serious games for health.

Computer technologies are forever evolving and it is vital that computer science educators find new methods of teaching programming in order to maintain the rapid changes occurring in the field. One of the ways to increase student engagement and retention is by integrating games into the curriculum. Gamification-Based E-Learning Strategies for Computer Programming Education evaluates the different approaches and issues faced in integrating games into computer education settings. Featuring emergent trends on the application of gaming to pedagogical strategies and technological tactics, as well as new methodologies and approaches being utilized in computer programming courses, this book is an essential reference source for practitioners, researchers, computer science teachers, and students pursuing computer science.