No abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce an overall classification system for Serious Games. ?The intention of this classification is to guide people through the vast field of Serious Games by providing them with a general overview. For example, it may appeal to teachers who wish to find games with strong educational potential though they may be outside the “edugames” field. This chapter will start by discussing the definition of Serious Games, and define them as having a combination of “serious” and “game” aspects. This theoretical framework will be used to review previous classification systems and discuss their limitations. It will then introduce a new classification that addresses a number of these limitations: the G/P/S model. This classifies games according to both their “serious-related” and “game-related” characteristics, and combines the strengths of several previous classification systems.

This paper is part of an experimental approach aimed to raise a videogames classification. Being inspired by the methodology that Propp used for the classification of Russian fairy tales, we have identified recurrent diagrams within rules of videogames, that we called “Gameplay Bricks”. The combinations of these different bricks should allow us to represent a classification of all videogames in accordance with their rules. In this article, we will study the nature of these bricks, especially the link they seem to have with two types of game rules: the rules that allow the player to “manipulate” the elements of the game, and the rules defining the “goal” of the game. This study will lead to an hypothesis about the nature of gameplay.