Many designers, policy makers, teachers, and other practitioners are beginning to understand the usefulness of using digital games beyond entertainment. Games have been developed for teaching, recruiting and to collect data to improve search engines. This book examines the fundamentals of designing any game with a serious purpose and provides a way of thinking on how to design one successfully. The reader will be introduced to a design philosophy called “Triadic Game Design.”; a theory that all games involve three worlds: the worlds of Reality, Meaning, and Play. Each world is affiliated with aspects. A balance needs to be found within and between the three worlds. Such a balance is difficult to achieve, during the design many tensions will arise, forcing designers to make trade-offs. To deal with these tensions and to ensure that the right decisions are made to create a harmonic game, a frame of reference is needed. This is what Triadic Game Design offers.

Along with the rise of digital games over the past decades came an increased interest for using games for other purposes than entertainment. Although a few successes are known, much research seems to suggest little evidence for games' advantages. Existing literature claims that more studies are needed that investigate the effective design and use of games and especially studies that are comprehensive, rigorous, and innovative. To contribute to this emerging field, the author investigated the case of Levee Patroller. The target audience of the game, levee patrollers, are considered the "eyes and ears" of the Dutch water authorities. They inspect levees and report any risks they encounter. Similarly, in the game players have to find all virtual failures in a region and report these. If they do not find the failures in time or report them incorrectly, it could result in a levee breach that floods the whole virtual region.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Games and Learning Alliance, GALA 2018, held in Palermo, Italy, in December 2018.The 38 revised regular papers presented together with 9 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 68 submissions. The papers cover the following topics: games for skills training; game design; methods and tools; gamification and innovative game approaches.

Create the Digital Games You Love to Play Discover an exercise-driven, non-technical approach to game design without the need for programming or artistic expertise using Game Design Workshop, Third Edition. Author Tracy Fullerton demystifies the creative process with a clear and accessible analysis of the formal and dramatic systems of game design. Examples of popular games, illustrations of design techniques, and refined exercises strengthen your understanding of how game systems function and give you the skills and tools necessary to create a compelling and engaging game. The book puts you to work prototyping, playtesting, and revising your own games with time-tested methods and tools. It provides you with the foundation to advance your career in any facet of the game industry, including design, producing, programming, and visual design.

Featuring contributions from leading experts in software engineering, this edited book provides a comprehensive introduction to computer game software development. It is a complex, interdisciplinary field that relies on contributions from a wide variety of disciplines including arts and humanities, behavioural sciences, business, engineering, physical sciences, mathematics, etc. The book focuses on the emerging research at the intersection of game and software engineering communities. A brief history of game development is presented, which considers the shift from the development of rare games in isolated research environments in the 1950s to their ubiquitous presence in popular culture today. A summary is provided of the latest peer-reviewed research results in computer game development that have been reported at multiple levels of maturity (workshops, conferences, and journals). The core chapters of the book are devoted to sharing emerging research at the intersection of game development and software engineering. In addition, future research opportunities on new software engineering methods for games and serious educational games for software engineering education are highlighted. As an ideal reference for software engineers, developers, educators, and researchers, this book explores game development topics from software engineering and education perspectives. Key Features: Includes contributions from leading academic experts in the community Presents a current collection of emerging research at the intersection of games and software engineering Considers the interdisciplinary field from two broad perspectives: software engineering methods for game development and serious games for software engineering education Provides a snapshot of the recent literature (i.e., 2015-2020) on game development from software engineering perspectives

Master the craft of game design so you can create that elusive combination of challenge, competition, and interaction that players seek. This design workshop begins with an examination of the fundamental elements of game design; then puts you to work in prototyping, playtesting and redesigning your own games with exercises that teach essential design skills. Workshop exercises require no background in programming or artwork, releasing you from the intricacies of electronic game production, so you can develop a working understanding of the essentials of game design.