What makes a serious game engaging

Center for Studies in Communication SciencesCenter for Studies in Communication Sciences

WHAT MAKES A SERIOUS GAME ENGAGING?

Serious games create user engagement, getting him in a state of flow!

Being in the state of flow is being in a state of optimal experience,and is described as:

‘‘the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience it self is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it‘’

Csikszentmihalyi


WHAT DOES IT MEANS TO BE IN A STATE OF FLOW?

Eight major components of Flow:

• A challenging activity requiring skill• A merging of action and awareness• Clear goals• Direct, immediate feedback;• Concentration on the task at hand• A sense of control• A loss of self-consciousness• An altered sense of time


DURING THE FLOW EXPERIENCE, WE LOSE TRACK OF TIME AND WORRIES.

Not all of them are needed, however, for an activity or technology to give users the experience of Flow

In order to maintain a user’s Flow experience, the activity must balance the inherent challenge of the game and the player’s ability to address and overcome it.


If the challenge is beyond that ability, the activity becomes so overwhelming that it generates anxiety.

If the challenge fails to engage the player, the player quickly loses interest and tends to leave the game. What the player feels it’s boredom

Fortunately, we have tolerance for a temporary lack of stimulation, a fuzzy safe Zone, where the activity is not too challenging or boring

But how does we can induce a state of flow in a Serious Game?

Serious Games are a way to learn something but they are also a form of FUN and so FUN can be a way to induce flow


Fun and learning? It’s impossible. No pain, no gain. All learning is painful, knowledge is sin, and learning is merely a form of suffering.

People, starting as babies, learn all the time without suffering. Enjoyment and fun as part of the learning process are important because more the learner is relaxed and motivated more willing to learn.


Fun in the learning process create relaxation and motivation.


AND THEREFORE IN THE LEARNING WHEN WE ENJOY LEARN WE LEARN BETTER ?!

Relaxation enable learner to takethings in more

esasily way

Motivation enable learner to put forth effort without resentment, and promote also the desire for recurrence of the experience.


FUN IT’S GREAT! BUT THERE IS A MAP THAT CAN HELP YOU TO INDUCE THE STATE OF FLOW IN A SERIOUS GAME!

Story

Interaction

Challenge

Feedback

Goals

Rules

FLOW

RULES make the game fair and exciting. They force to take specific

paths to reach goals and ensure that all players take similar paths. They put

the player inside the game world, by letting it know what is in and out of bounds.


GOALS contribute to create the motivation. Goals should be, compelling and adaptable, coupled with an uncertainty by the player of

whether these goals can be met.Short-term goals are more motivating than

long-term and fixed goals (e.g. winning a game) are more motivating than emergent

goals (e.g. painting a picture).

FEEDBACK: Providing feedback in a game isextremely important and complex because either too little or too much can lead quickly to frustration for the player and to break the flow magic.

CHALLENGE are what gets adrenaline and creative

juices flowing, and makes people excited about playing

the game. A good level of challenge is gotten with an

appropriate use of the goals.


INTERACTION: is the inherently social aspect of games. While you can play alone, it is much more fun to play with others. The tendency of all computer games today is to become multi-player. Computer games are actually bringing people into closer social interaction - although not necessarily face-to-face.

STORY: starting from real data, we must build a Main Story giving

a description of a situation plausible, relevant, and engaging in the training plan.

To the beginning of the game the history can be also a brief introduction. Most players

are not patient enough to watch a fiveor ten minute text-based introduction

before playing a new game. They want to play now!


A good engaging Serious Game isBalanced. Balance leaves the player feeling that the game is challenging but fair, and neither too hard nor too easy at any pointCreative. Good games are not merely clones of other games, but add something original.Focused. Focus is figuring out what is fun about your game and giving the player as much of it as possible, without distraction.

A good engaging Serious Game hasEnergy. This comes from things like movement, momentum and pacing. The game’s energy is what keeps you playing all night or rejuvenates you after a hard day.Tension. Every good game does it in its own way. The classic way is to make the player care about the goal of the game, and then make it hard to achieve.Character. A character in a Serious game, if is fully developed, are what is memorable


PeaceMaker have as focus:

-develop a broader appreciation of Middle East politics -a deeper understanding of the complexities of conflict resolution

Eric Brown, Asi Burak, Carnegie Mellon University


A GOOD EXAMPLE OF ENGAGING SERIOUS GAME IS PEACE MAKER

PeaceMaker, requires at the players to take on the role of either the Israeli Prime Minister or Palestinian President.Each player’s objective in the game is to achieve a solution to the Israeli–Palestinian dispute.

Within the game there is a historical timeline that provides a basic

overview of the development of the Israeli–Palestinian debate.

Players who used it during a trial session found it very useful.


Peace Maker is a social game, with a complex level of interaction between players

Simulations have been used as a form of real-time assessment in the past. For example at level two there is the EU Council of Ministers simulation, that has the following elements:

•A day-long assessment, where students are split into groups and asked to devise a negotiating strategy for a series of discussions around a contemporary theme of European integration. •Then each group prepare a strategy, and enables each delegate to post a report on a particular aspect of their group’s overall strategy; these are accessible by members of other delegations, and enable students to identify potential negotiating partners or barriers to agreement.•The reports reflect the permanent representative stage of European Union policy negotiations and form 15 per cent of the overall simulation grade, and submission is an entry criterion to the group marks awarded on the day of the simulation itself. The remaining 85 per cent is based on group performance.



Feedback showed that the game is particularly useful in the way that players gained a deeper appreciation of the asymmetries of the specific problem. The strategies that work playing the game as the Israeli Prime Minister are completely impractical when you are Palestinian President, so they began to understand the different pressures on the two sides.

Players also demonstrated emotional responses to the game, for example, anger at terrorist acts or Israeli incursions or frustration at the seeming intractability of the problems. This enabled them to gain added insights into the conflict-resolution process.

Players generally enjoyed playing the game, although some hardened gamers were rather scathing about the graphics, they certainly appreciated the insights that they gained from looking at the process from both sides.

Playable Demo: http://www.peacemakergame.com/demo.php

http://www.peacemakergame.com/demo.php

Education

What makes a serious game engaging