Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: Oct 28, 2023
Date Accepted: Dec 24, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Designing Effective Serious Games: A research study on the key design principles
ABSTRACT
Background:
Serious games, which are designed for purposes other than pure entertainment, have gained significant attention in recent years due to their potential to enhance learning and promote behavior change. However, the effectiveness of serious games depends on the quality of their design. Serious game design frameworks can guide designers and developers in creating effective and engaging games for different objectives, such as education, health, and social impact.
Objective:
The primary goal of this research study is to review and synthesize existing literature related to both entertainment (EGDFW) and serious game (SGDFW) design frameworks. It aims to further understanding of how game design frameworks can be effectively applied in creating serious games for various fields, including healthcare and education. The scoping review identifies commonalities and dependencies between EGDFW and SGDFW, gaps and limitations in the literature, and suggests areas like empathic design thinking application on serious game design, effective usage of artificial intelligence in serious game development and continuous improvements for future research. Ultimately, the objective of the study is to provide a SGDFW baseline with design phases and key principles for designers and developers in creating efficient, useful and engaging serious games that can have a positive impact on various aspects of society.
Methods:
A targeted literature search within seven databases (ACM, Scopus, Springer, IEEE, Elsevier, JMIR and SAGE) was performed on design frameworks of entertainment and serious games, following PRISMA guidelines. This study included research papers with specific inclusion criteria, which were academic or industry study papers that contain or evaluate entertainment and serious game design frameworks or models.
Results:
A number of 49 frameworks from 25 studies were identified and reviewed, of which 16 entertainment game design frameworks (EGDFW) and 33 serious game design frameworks (SGDFW). The review analyzed and compared these frameworks, highlighting commonalities and dependencies between them, gaps and opportunities like empathic design thinking approach that might be addressed in future research. Key considerations in serious game design were identified with the outcome of influencing and creating a SGDFW baseline with four design phases with visualizations as an original and efficient workflow on how to design serious games and what key design principles might be applied for an end-to-end process of designing and building future innovative solutions.
Conclusions:
The main benefits of using serious game design frameworks seem to be related to enhancing the effectiveness of serious games in achieving their intended objectives, such as learning, behavior change, and social impact. Limitations primarily seem to be related to constraints associated with the specific contexts in which the serious games are developed and used. Future directions should be aimed at refining and adapting existing frameworks to different contexts and purposes, as well as exploring new frameworks that incorporate emerging technologies and design principles. Clinical Trial: not applicable
Citation
