Aaron’s Capstone Project

What is a Serious Game? A game that is not purely for entertainment it will also be explicitly made to do one or more of the following: Teach Advertise Train Editorialize Burn Calories

A game that is not purely for entertainment it will also be explicitly made to do one or more of the following:

Teach

Advertise

Train

Editorialize

Burn Calories

Why bother? ‘ cause I want to It’s interesting Americans spend more on games than music now Games are the #1 activity online now Serious games are getting more and more money thrown at them by big orgs like DoD & DoE and corps.

‘ cause I want to

It’s interesting

Americans spend more on games than music now

Games are the #1 activity online now

Serious games are getting more and more money thrown at them by big orgs like DoD & DoE and corps.

Who will use it? Me This is in uncharted territory, so maybe no one else Perhaps it will become one more academic paper that no “real world” designer will actually use Maybe it will make a small contribution to the growing body of ludology

Me

This is in uncharted territory, so maybe no one else

Perhaps it will become one more academic paper that no “real world” designer will actually use

Maybe it will make a small contribution to the growing body of ludology

Situating the Problem

Possible Components of Framework

So what will I actually do? Look at the applicability of the possible components of the framework Choose N powerful, interesting, or unexplored concepts from those components Learner-Centered Design, Contextual Inquiry, present-to-hand, Choose N specific Serious Games Incident Commander, A Force More Powerful, America’s Army Play said games, but make notes and reflect on gameplay Use those concepts to analyze those games to get some data Upon playing I note that in A Force More Powerful that it seems to be more teacher-centered, rather than learner-centered because of X &Y I conduct contextual inquiry with potential player, or talk to designers to see what HCI methods they use, if any. Ask something like: If constructivist notions of learning have been so popular in the last decades, why are almost all serious games linear and rationalist in their presentation?

Look at the applicability of the possible components of the framework

Choose N powerful, interesting, or unexplored concepts from those components

Learner-Centered Design, Contextual Inquiry, present-to-hand,

Choose N specific Serious Games

Incident Commander, A Force More Powerful, America’s Army

Play said games, but make notes and reflect on gameplay

Use those concepts to analyze those games to get some data

Upon playing I note that in A Force More Powerful that it seems to be more teacher-centered, rather than learner-centered because of X &Y

I conduct contextual inquiry with potential player, or talk to designers to see what HCI methods they use, if any.

Ask something like: If constructivist notions of learning have been so popular in the last decades, why are almost all serious games linear and rationalist in their presentation?

I have my data then what? Summarzie & Analyze data Hope & Pray 

Summarzie & Analyze data

Hope & Pray 

Future Work Use this as a jumping off point for a much larger question: Create the first serious game design framework that is systematic and firmly grounded in theory This will almost certainly be descriptive, not prescriptive in nature. Could be used as the basis of practice and curricula in SGD

Use this as a jumping off point for a much larger question:

Create the first serious game design framework that is systematic and firmly grounded in theory

This will almost certainly be descriptive, not prescriptive in nature.

Could be used as the basis of practice and curricula in SGD