Abstract. Educational games are a class of serious games whose main purpose is to teach some subject to their players. Despite the many existing design frameworks, these games are too often created in an ad-hoc manner, and typically without the use of a game design document (GDD). We argue that a reason for this phenomenon is that current ways to structure, create and update GDDs do not increase the value of the artifact in the design and development process. As a solution, we propose a model-driven, web-based knowledge management environment that supports game designers in the creation of a GDD that accounts for and relates educational and entertainment game elements. The foundation of our approach is our devised conceptual model for educational games, which also defines the structure of the design environment. We present promising results from an evaluation of our environment with eight experts in serious games.

Educational games are a class of serious games whose main purpose is to teach some subject to their players. Despite the many existing design frameworks, these games are too often created in an ad-hoc manner, and typically without the use of a game design document (GDD). We argue that a reason for this phenomenon is that current ways to structure, create and update GDDs do not increase the value of the artifact in the design and development process. As a solution, we propose a model-driven, web-based knowledge management environment that supports game designers in the creation of a GDD that accounts for and relates educational and entertainment game elements. The foundation of our approach is our devised conceptual model for educational games, which also defines the structure of the design environment. We present promising results from an evaluation of our environment with eight experts in serious games.

Background. The abstraction of complex systems, which is required by default when modelling gaming simulations, is a convoluted and time-consuming process. For gaming simulations to be efficient and effective, the problem of the real system they imitate needs to be narrowed down and simplified as much as possible. Additionally, even after abstraction of the real system, multiple design decisions need to be made and these may differ depending on the gaming simulation. Aim. This article proposes a framework for formalizing, and consequently standardizing, expediting and simplifying, the modelling of gaming simulations. Method. The proposed framework applies game concepts pertaining to game theory in the abstraction of the real system and the game design decisions. Results. Application of the framework in three case studies reveals several advantages of incorporating game theory into game design, such as formally defining the game design elements and identifying the worst-case scenarios in the real-systems, to name but two. Conclusions. Given the framework’s advantages in general, and the game design recommendations it offers in particular, it is safe to conclude that, for the cases presented in this article, the framework make positive contributions towards the development of gaming simulations.

Debriefing is considered, by many scholars, to be a fundamental part of learning through games and simulations. Despite its significance, there is a lack of research in the area of debriefing, which results in unaddressed factors that inhibit debriefing. Research in the field is complicated by many influencing factors varying from context to game, the purpose of the game, conditions and player specifics, facilitators etc. Insight in the role of these influencing factors can aid in understanding how debriefing can be optimized. In doing this research so far two viewpoints are relevant, the first is the design of debriefing and the second one is the actual execution of the debriefing. The aim of this study is to identify, on the basis of literature, the influence of factors and their interrelation, and subsequently, to categorize them based on expert opinions, so as to determine which pitfalls have the highest influence on inefficiency and ineffectiveness of debriefing. Based on 12 pitfalls identified in literature, and through the use of an online questionnaire, facilitation experts evaluated the extent to which these pitfalls occur due to the design or the execution of the debriefing, and the extent to which they are influenced by the rules of games and simulations. All 12 pitfalls seem to occur in practice, to some extent, due to both the design and the execution of the debriefing. Nevertheless, some pitfalls appear to be more influenced either by design or by execution. Moreover, the results on the extent to which the pitfalls are influenced by the rules of games and simulations are inconclusive, due to the contradiction between the answers on the pre-defined questions and the comments of the experts. A method for further extending the list of pitfalls and verifying the results, hence minimizing the threat to the internal validity of the study, is proposed, which includes a more extensive literature review, interviews, and case studies.