Serious Games From Serious Fun to Serious Impact

Serious Games: From Serious Fun to Serious Impact Dr. Michael Katchabaw Department of Computer Science The University of Western Ontario E-mail: katchab@csd. uwo. ca

Outline What are Serious Games? n Serious Games in the Classroom n Developing Serious Games n Resources for Development n Programming n Content and Assets n Websites n n Concluding Remarks 2

What are Serious Games? n The premise is to apply game design, technologies, and skills to nonentertainment applications. This includes: Medical and scientific applications. n Educational applications. n Social and public policy applications. n Business and management applications. n Military applications. n Plus many other types of simulations and applications. n 3

What are Serious Games? n In the end, serious games are essentially participatory simulations capable of meeting a variety of objectives. They can educate and inform, investigate issues, provide commentary, disseminate messages, spread awareness, and so on. n They are interactive, requiring involvement and commitment from the player, who plays a direct role in affecting the outcome and experience delivered. n 4

What are Serious Games? The study of serious games is a rapidly growing and evolving field. n The serious games industry has similar research and development needs as the entertainment games industry. n It is in an earlier stage of development, but is attracting considerable attention. n There is a real need for professionals capable of designing and building serious games and appropriate supporting technologies. n 5

What are Serious Games? Screenshots from example serious games from the Serious Games Summit 6

Serious Games in the Classroom Serious games have the potential to provide interesting and challenging classroom projects to computer science classes. n These projects can both engage and educate students, while tackling realworld problems in unique and innovative ways. n 7

Serious Games in the Classroom n Studying the development of serious games gives students a chance to: Study challenging computing problems. n Investigate issues and problems not available elsewhere in existing curriculum. n Do so in interesting and engaging fashion. n Express their creativity and ingenuity. n Work in interdisciplinary and team settings. n Make an impact in something of interest and concern both to themselves and others. n 8

Serious Games in the Classroom n Our own experiences with serious games at Western have been quite positive. We have run several workshops for elementary and secondary students on serious games design. n Several serious games have been created in projects in our game development courses. n Senior students are currently developing an environmentally-themed serious game as their capstone project, for entry into the Xbox 360 Games for Change Challenge. n 9

Serious Games in the Classroom Screen shot from The Misadventures of State-Man. This action-adventure game was developed at Western in early 2005. Its environmental mechanics are now being used as a basis for a new environmentally-themed game under developed at Western for entry into the Xbox 360 Games for Change Challenge. 10

Developing Serious Games n Serious games are still games and so they share many of the same development considerations as entertainment games. Typically, development will require a large amount of programming effort. n Programming effort can be reduced, however, through the use of engines and middleware. n Either way, content and assets will need to be linked to this programming for ultimate presentation in the game. n 11

Developing Serious Games n In the end, though, since the goal is no longer entertainment, there are some differences as well to be aware of. n n These differences are most apparent during concept development and design. Keep this in mind: n “Don’t try and peel the icing off the video game cake and lay it over the liver of learning and expect it to taste the same. ” - David Thomas, of Buzzcut. com 12

Concept Development n Getting started in the process can be more difficult than one might think. n n Students might have a lot of experience with games as entertainment, but they have not likely had much exposure to serious games. Consequently, assistance might be necessary in getting the process started, and formulating the initial concept behind the game. 13

Concept Development n It might help to have students study serious games in general first. Wikipedia has many interesting articles. n seriousgames. org and gamesforchange. org are community sites with lots of information. n Having students play existing serious games might provide some ideas. n Design workshops and brainstorming sessions in groups might help too. n 14

Concept Development Screen shot from Food Force. Produced by the United Nation’s World Food Programme, this game examines humanitarian relief efforts. With millions of players from dozens of countries, this game has had quite an impact. 15 More information and downloads at: http: //www. food-force. com.

Concept Development Screen shot from Darfur is Dying. This game, developed by mtv. U, was inspired in part by the success of Food Force. The game provides a window into the experience of refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. More information and the game at: http: //www. darfurisdying. com. 16

Concept Development Ultimately, formulating the initial concept can be just a few questions away. n Ask students what is important to: n Themselves? n Friends and family? n Their school? n Their community? n Their country? n Humanity as a whole? n The world? n 17

Designing Serious Games From this initial concept, the students will need to figure out what their serious game is all about. n This starts with a basic description of the various elements of the game and several iterations of filling in details. n Once enough information has been provided, the game is ready to be produced. n 18

Designing Serious Games n Required information includes: n n n n Target sector of the game. (Medical, scientific, public policy, corporate, military …) Objectives. (What is the player expected to take away from the game when done? ) Gameplay. (What does the player do in the game? ) Story. (Plot, setting, characters, if any …) Structure. (How does the game progress? ) Puzzles and obstacles. (What gets in the player’s way of their goals in playing the game? ) Interface. (How does the player play the game? ) A title might be good too! 19

Designing Serious Games: Knowing the Subject Matter n In designing a serious game, it is of critical importance to know the subject matter very well. n You must know this at the start of the project and build the game around it, and not the other way around! Otherwise, how do you create the right experience and meet your objectives? n Doing a bad job here, in some cases, might be worse than doing nothing at all. n 20

Designing Serious Games: Knowing the Audience n A good designer always has an idea of what is going on in a player’s head. Know what they want and do not want. n Know what they expect and do not expect. n Know what they are capable of and what they are not capable of. n n A designer out of touch with the audience has a much harder time of ensuring the game’s objectives are met. 21

Designing Serious Games: Knowing the Audience On left, Captain Planet and the Planeteers. On the right, Captain Planet from a segment on Robot Chicken. It doesn’t take much to figure out which version might appeal better to today’s youth. That doesn’t make it better at conveying the message necessarily though … 22

Designing Serious Games: Consistency and Harmony n It is important to find a way to make every aspect of a serious game fit together into a coherent, integrated whole. n n n Consistency is important to this; out of place, illogical, nonsensical, or seemingly random elements disrupt harmony. Everything in a game must work in unison to support theme and objectives of the game. Without harmony, it can be quite difficult to achieve the objectives of the game and have the users take away the right things. 23

Designing Serious Games: Engaging the Player n Ideally, you want to engage the player emotionally and immerse them in the experience created within the game. n n Through story, characters, gameplay, and social interactions with other players, put them into the game and have them live it. Doing so enables a much richer and deeper experience than otherwise possible, and achieving objectives can become easier, depending on the game. 24

Designing Serious Games: Engaging the Player Screen shot from Darfur is Dying. In this part of this persuasive game, you must get water back into your refugee camp without coming into contact with militia. Otherwise, as you learn in the game, you can be beaten, raped, sold into slavery, or killed. With the player engaged emotionally in this fashion, the game’s message is very effectively conveyed. 25

Designing Serious Games: Reality Trumps Fun? In entertainment games, if there is a choice between fun and reality, fun should nearly always win. n In serious games, more often than not it works the other way, and realism should win out over fun. n n Precise, real-world effects might be of overwhelming importance, particularly in military, health, and emergency response applications where lives are at stake. 26

Designing Serious Games: Reality Trumps Fun? Screen shot from Hazmat: Hotzone. In a serious game like this, you want reality over fun, or else you could have dire consequences in the real world. 27

Designing Serious Games: Reality Trumps Fun? Screen shot from The Anatomy of Care. This game presents and simulates several patient care scenarios from a hospital … you want this realistic! 28

Designing Serious Games: Reality Trumps Fun? n The extent to which reality trumps fun depends on the target audience and theme of the game. Games aimed at children or adolescents, for example, may require simplifications or abstractions that sacrifice realism. n If the audience is turned off of the game before its objectives have been met, and do not complete the experience, this is ultimately a problem. n 29

Designing Serious Games: Reality Trumps Fun? Screen shot from Food Force. Since this game is targeted towards a younger audience and is more of a social/public policy game than an educational simulation, some realism and depth is sacrificed to preserve the message. 30

Designing Serious Games: Assumptions to Avoid n The latest and greatest hardware is available to players of the game. This might be true for entertainment games dominated by the hard core, but can be a bad assumption for serious games. n Some serious games will require the latest and greatest in hardware, but it is bad to assume it will be available for all serious games. n 31

Designing Serious Games: Assumptions to Avoid Screen shot from The Anatomy of Care. This game is based on simple web technologies, making it playable on both high and low-end hardware. 32

Designing Serious Games: Assumptions to Avoid Screen shot from Darfur is Dying. This game is Flash-based, allowing it to be played in web browsers with minimal hardware requirements. 33

Designing Serious Games: Assumptions to Avoid n Players have prior gameplay experience. Again, true in entertainment, but in serious applications a lot of users will have little or no gameplay experience. n Interfaces and other assumptions must be re -examined to ensure that games remain accessible to the target audience. n 34

Designing Serious Games: Assumptions to Avoid Screen shot from Hazmat: Hotzone. The interface is kept simple to assist non gamers in playing the game. 35

Designing Serious Games: Assumptions to Avoid n Bigger is better. In entertainment games, players play for fun, and so providing as much fun as possible is a good thing. n In a serious game, the intent must be kept in mind addressed without going too overboard in the process. n n Stay focused on the objectives of the game. n Avoid complicating the experience. n Attempting to capture too much in a simulation will lead to schedule misses and cost overruns. 36

Designing Serious Games: Assumptions to Avoid n Provide short-cuts to fun. n In entertainment games, shortcuts are a good thing to get players into fun quicker: n Includes the use of randomness, time compression, process simplification, headache removal, and perfect communication. n All of these short-cuts, however, introduce deviations from reality, with potentially harmful consequences depending on the nature of the serious game and its overall objectives. 37

Designing Serious Games: Assumptions to Avoid Screen shot from Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps. Military strategy games like this one have to employ several short-cuts to keep the game flowing nicely. Such short-cuts in a real military simulation could be bad though. 38

Designing Serious Games: Assumptions to Avoid Screen shot from Food Force. Since this game is targeted towards a younger audience and is more of a social/public policy game than an educational simulation, some short-cuts are still acceptable or even necessary. 39

Designing Serious Games: Other Considerations n Testing and progression tracking tends to be important to serious games. n n Are the game players getting what they should be getting out of the game? Does the serious game integrate well within the environment in which it is going to be used? n They should assist existing processes (for education, training, and so on), and not replace them. 40

Designing Serious Games: Other Considerations n How do you get players to play serious games? Ideally, players should want to play without being compelled to play by their teachers, parents, employers, and so on. n Want to focus on intrinsic motivations, not just extrinsic motivations! n Usually, this requires relating the experience to the player and their world, and show this can positively affect their lives. n 41

Resources for Development Once a serious game has been designed, it is time to go into production. n Instead of having to go it alone and do everything on your own, there a lot of resources to help out on the subject. n Here are but a few … n 42

Resources for Development: Programming There is a wide variety of development tools, engines, and middleware of potential use in student projects. n There a lot of choices available depending on various factors: n Programming vs. scripting vs. tools alone n Choice of programming language n 2 D vs. 3 D game n Freeware vs. shareware vs. $$$ n 43

Resources for Development: Programming There are far too many options to list. n Fortunately, there are many places with lists that allow an easy selection based on course and student needs: n n n http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/List_of_game_engines http: //www. devmaster. net/engines http: //gpwiki. org/index. php/Game_Engines http: //www. ambrosine. com/resource. html http: //www. csd. uwo. ca/~katchab/pubs/ecoo 2006. ppt 44 (my ECOO 2006 talk on game development)

Resources for Development: Content and Assets n Game content and assets are necessary to complete a game and create the overall player experience. n n This includes artwork, sound effects, music, voiceovers, and so on. If development is largely occurring in a computer science classroom, you do not want to distract students by having them develop their own content and assets. 45

Resources for Development: Content and Assets n So, where can they come from? Visual arts, music, drama, and other courses within the school can be a good option. n Local content producers and/or game companies that are willing to help out. n And, of course, the Internet: n n http: //www. ambrosine. com/resource. html n http: //reinerstileset. 4 players. de/englisch. htm n http: //freesound. iua. upf. edu n My ECOO 2006 talk had other links too! 46

Resources for Development: Websites n Industry-oriented Entertainment Software Association (http: //www. theesa. com) n ESRB (http: //www. esrb. org) n IGDA (http: //www. igda. org) n n Game development news Game. Dev. net (http: //www. gamedev. net) n Gamasutra (http: //www. gamasutra. com) n Slashdot (http: //games. slashdot. org) n n And do not forget google and wikipedia! 47

Concluding Remarks Serious games provide a new and exciting way to provide engaging experiences in an immersive and interactive fashion for a variety of purposes. n There are many potential application areas, and work is only in its infancy. n Consequently, serious games represent interesting new opportunities for the computer science classroom! n 48