Abstract
Most educational or training games, also referred to as serious games, have been developed without an underlying design theory. In order to make a contribution to the development of such a theory, we present the underlying design philosophy of Levee Patroller, a 3D first-person game used to train levee patrollers in the Netherlands. This approach stipulates that the design of a serious game is a multi-objective problem where trade-offs need to be made. Making these trade-offs takes place in a ’design space’ defined by three general boundary criteria: 1. fun (game), 2. learning (pedagogy), and 3. validity (reality). The various tensions between these three criteria make it difficult to ’balance’ or create harmony in a serious game. We illustrate this process with a discussion on the design of Levee Patroller. In addition, we translate the aforementioned general design criteria into a number of concrete design requirements for serious games.
Keywords
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bergeron, B.P.: Developing Serious Games. Charles River Media, Hingham (2006)
ten Brinke, W.B.M., Bannink, B.A.: Risico’s in Bedijkte Termen: Een Thematische Evaluatie van het Nederlandse Veiligheidsbeleid tegen Overstromen [Dutch Hikes and Risk Hikes: A Thematic Policy Evaluation of Risks of Flooding in the Netherlands]. National Institute for Public Health and Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands, Tech.Rep. 500799002 (2004)
Crawford, C.: The Art of Computer Game Design (September 2006) (1982), http://www.vancouver. wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html
Csikszentmihalyi, M.: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper Perennial, New York (1991)
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S.: Beyond Edutainment: Exploring the Educational Potential of Computer Games. Doctoral dissertation, IT-University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark (2005)
Gee, J.P.: What Video Games have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York (2004)
Malone, T.W.: Toward a Theory of Intrinsically Motivating Instruction. Cognitive Science 5, 333–369 (1981)
Moser, R.B.: A Methodology for the Design of Educational Computer Adventure Games. Doctoral Dissertation, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2000)
Salen, K., Zimmerman, E.: Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2004)
Shaffer, D.W., Squire, K.A., Halverson, R., Gee, J.P.: Video games and the future of learning. Phi Delta Kappan 87, 104–111 (2005)
Adviescommisie Water: Advies Veiligheid tegen Overstromen (in Dutch). Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, The Hague, The Netherlands, Tech.Rep. AcW-2006/103 (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Harteveld, C., Guimarães, R., Mayer, I., Bidarra, R. (2007). Balancing Pedagogy, Game and Reality Components Within a Unique Serious Game for Training Levee Inspection. In: Hui, Kc., et al. Technologies for E-Learning and Digital Entertainment. Edutainment 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4469. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73011-8_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73011-8_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-73010-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-73011-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)