Dementia is a progressive syndrome affecting executive and motor functions. Serious gaming (SG) is an emerging treatment. However, its added benefit is difficult to establish since standardized usability evaluations are missing. We apply a recently developed observer-rated scale to determine the usability of two SG scenarios for people with dementia (PwD). Raters watched video recordings of a SG (MobiAssist) played by PwD and a virtual city through which healthy older adults walked. Raters completed the scale for both data sets and gave a prospective rating of VR city used by PwD. Usability was highest for MobiAssist, intermediate for VR city by healthy older persons, and lowest for the prospective rating of VR city used by PwD. The difference between the highest and the lowest data set was statistically significant with moderate magnitude but seems not substantial enough to exclude PwD from cognitively demanding training environments (e.g. VR city).
INTRODUCTION: Serious games is an effort to combine the engagement and motivation from games with some sort of utility beyond mere entertainment. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this paper is to revisit and analyse six projects to explore the design space for serious games and derive design guidelines for serious games. METHODS: We analysed our project portfolio to identify a set of projects which satisfied well-established guidelines for design science research. By analysing these projects as well as their outcomes we generated a set of design principles for serious games. RESULTS: The results from this study is a conceptualisation of the design space for serious games and seven design principles. CONCLUSION: By explicating the game design component in serious games and relating it to the utility dimension we add to the understanding of the serious games from a game perspective, which is relevant to any development effort intending to use the persuasive and motivational power of games.
INTRODUCTION: Recycling is not commonly perceived as hedonic, fun or experiential. While previous studies have emphasised the importance of functional attributes and solutions for improving waste recycling in bins, the potential for recycling as an experience has not been explored thoroughly. OBJECTIVES: This study employs the perspective of gamification, environmental psychology and sensory marketing to provide new perspectives on hedonic recycling. METHODS: A focus group design was used to explore how experiential cues may influence cognition, emotion and behaviour when recycling waste in bins. Four focus group discussions were employed and analysed thematically. RESULTS: Findings show that while utilitarian attributes were most critical for participants, there are solutions that can be experientially modified to not disturb the waste separation process. These modifications include digital feedback and information of one’s impact on the environment. Other sensory and gamified modifications were discussed with their potential effects on emotion and behaviour in mind. CONCLUSION: A new conceptual framework was developed, which combined mechanics from gamification and sensory cues as experiential cues. This framework was used to explore various different responses. The model indicates potential relationships between recycling and experiential cues that can be empirically investigated.
Citizens’ engagement in their neighbourhood community is pivotal for cities to effectively deal with future transitions. Knowing what is going on and having access to the neighbourhood network are important conditions for this. Although prior research has studied ways to foster information sharing
Dementia is a progressive syndrome affecting cognition, motor abilities and behavior. Serious games are an emerging treatment alternative but benefits have not been found for people with dementia yet. One reason may be that serious games were not well adapted. The purpose of this article is to give informed recommendations on the design and implementationof serious games for people with dementia that future studies can apply and thus may find significant effects. The methodology applied was deriving information from existing literature in combination with experience from personal work in the field. Main findings are: implementation of well-contrasting icons; first-person game perspective; gesture control; personalized game content; combination of only one cognitive and one motor skill; implementation as supervised groupactivity. In conclusion, the recommendations are a novelty and represent a profound guidance in the design and implementation of serious games for people with dementia.
This paper investigates the usability of the RAGE component-based software architecture (RCSA). Thisarchitecture was designed to support serious game development by enabling cross-platform reuse of gamesoftware components. While the architecture has been technically validated elsewhere, this paper studies theperceived usefulness and ease of use of the architecture in practice. An extensive questionnaire based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was administered to 23 software and game developers that have been creating RCSA-compliant game components or integrating these in actual serious games. The results show that developers are generally positive about the usability of the architecture and that the architecture helps them to do a better job in less time. It turns out that developers effectively use all communication modes that are offered by thearchitecture, most frequently those based on the component´s APIs and the bridge pattern. Some issues were reported, but could be easily addressed. Most developers reported that they have well understood the effectiveness of the architecture and indicated to keep using the architecture in future projects. The outcomes of this study show that the architecture opens up new opportunities to the cross-platform reuse of advanced game functionalities in serious game projects, to reduce production efforts and to advance the domain of serious games at large.
This paper presents the findings from a study of advergame design elements paying particular attention to cross-cultural consumer attitudes towards advergames and sponsored brands. From a thorough literature review, an integrated framework for advergames across cultures (CAKE) has been designed, composed of game design elements, brand perspectives and cultural characteristics. Utilising the CAKE framework, 40 mobile advergames from Brazil and the UK were studied through a content analysis, followed by an interview of 22 game players from both countries. Our findings illustrate a cultural difference in the attitudes towards advergames and preferences regarding familiar and popular elements inside the advergame. It is felt that the CAKE framework may prove itself suitable for the development of cross-cultural design in advergaming and future research in the area. Implications for advertisers, designers and developers are discussed.
We present a game for training main mathematical operations for elementary school students, mainly for the third and fourth-grade. The learning mechanisms used in the game were included in the game mechanics. The target audience evaluated the game and the results were positive, both in the gameplay and in the learning. Three groups were used to evaluate the learning: one control group that did not play the game, another group that played it in the school and the third group that played at home. The last two groups were used to compare the use of the game in scholar and in the home contexts. The first group was used to compare to the groups that played the game. The results showed that the use of the game has a positive effect on the improvement of the mental calculus rapidness of the players. The statistical analysis of the data showed a significant reduction of the time from preto post-test and Cohen’s d value was used to evaluate the magnitude of the effect for each group analysed. Besides, we also observed that playing the game at school or at home has similar results. Therefore, the game can be an effective educational tool for students and teachers. Received on 04 October 2018; accepted on 20 June 2019; published on 11 July 2019
The use of games as tools for learning has been a paradigm of great interest for over fifty years. Several terms have emerged to describe disciplines that study and apply this paradigm. Many of these terms may be synonymous or have overlapping uses or have multiple definitions within different disciplines. The literature was surveyed for the definitions terms relating to this paradigm. Their working definitions and relationships are discussed. Through both a survey of the literature and a novel variant of sorting activity, the Item Definition Semantic Sort (IDSS). It is shown that individual item definitions do not semantically cluster together by corresponding term. This indicates both a lack of consensus on terms’ definitions, and of clarity between terms. The umbrella term Games in Learning (GiL) is coined to integrate the disciplines and products within this design paradigm. Games in Learning is defined, “Research and work involving the use of games, in whole or in part, as tools to improve motivation, engagement, and/or understanding in learning”. The rationale for the term is elaborated, and the major functional divisions found within.
Gamification has been recently proposed as a technique to improve user engagement in different activities, including visits to cultural sites and cultural tourism in general. We present the design, development and initial validation of the NEPTIS Poleis system, which consists of a mobile application and a Web interface for curators, allowing the definition, and subsequent fruition by users, of different minigames suitable for open-air assets.
The children use digital devices and begin to navigate on the Web when they are 10.3 years old (on average); furthermore, in each family, their preferences and needs are relevant in the choice of tourism destinations. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of studies on children travel and of websites, specifically designed for them, based on their own perspectives. In this work, we discuss the importance of conceiving and creating usable and accessible websites for children, and propose guidelines relative to the design, the structure, the navigation, the gamification and the language. We applied these guidelines two case studies: the first one is a dedicated section of the tourism website of a Naturalistic Oasis located close to Treviso, in Italy, the second one is a website for tourism activities dedicated to families that want to visit the city of Venice, Italy. In both cases, we present experimental results.
This paper describes "Following the Cuckoo Sound'', a responsive floor system designed to train blind children in walking straight. Its characteristics and potentialities are evaluated in the framework of the guidelines of instruction and assistance to blind children defined by two government agencies. Veering data analysis confirm the validity of the game in correcting both the initial orientation error and the errors in the step direction and provide further insights about veering and its relationship with walking speed and participants' clinical or experiential conditions. Moreover the system provides an engaging sensorial experience which fits not only the orientation and mobility programs but also other areas of the curriculum for blind children such as sensory efficiency, recreation and leisure, and education in the use of technology.
Dementia is an important public health priority. Caring for a person with dementia can be very challenging. A better understanding of dementia is important for both patients and carers. The main objective of this research was to help to improve the quality of interaction between dementia patients and carers. The aim of this research is to investigate how games could support dementia carers through, initially developing a conceptual framework. The research analysed 10 existing games within health education. Game content, such as Game play, Avatar portrayal, Gameworld graphics, Sound/Music and Storyline, were examined in order to help family members who may be carers. This paper discusses the different ways in which various aspects of games could be used to help and support dementia carers from their own perspectives.
This work presents the “Blexer” (Blender Exergames) system for therapeutic exergames designed for people with physical dysfunctionalities. The users control the games with corporal movements, captured by the Kinect® sensor. Games incorporate an amplifying functionality that enhances the immersive feeling. Via the medical platform “Blexer-med”, clinicians configure the games individually for each patient. On the user’s PC, the middleware “Chiro” is used to transmit configuration data and results between the games and the web platform. Opposed to similar approaches found in literature, our system does not rely on pathology specific mini-games but focus on the design of generic “Full-Play” games, with a complete and compelling gaming environment. The principles of eight Core Drives defined in the Octalysis framework have been applied in the design of the first prototype game “Phiby’s Adventure” presented here. It contains four generic exercises useful for daily training.
This paper proposes a design pattern that combines gamification dynamics along with blockchains for the purpose of using blockchain technology in a business-savvy fashion as support to a framework for collaborative problem solving, i.e., leveraging gamification to incentivize people to produce efficient, freely available and easily accessible solutions in the optimisation research and the potentiality of blockchain technology to safekeep the intellectual property on such solutions, marking the progress of problem solving as intellectual capital. The proposed gamification design pattern is then instantiated in the context of optimisation.
Since a Pervasive Games Based Learning System (PGBLSs) is considered as technology enhanced learning system, it becomes important to enhance the development process. Despite the growing presence of mobile devices and the wireless network communication technologies, users needs satisfaction is particularly challenging due to problems arising from the highly dynamic environments in which services will operate. We propose, in this paper, a semantic model driven requirements engineering process in order to improve the development of PGBLSs. This model is based on an ontology of requirements (RO) as a powerful formalism to assist requirements' analysts for fulfilling changing requirements in PGBLSs dynamic contexts. In such environments, analysts have to establish the relative priorities of requirements for resolving conflicting requests. For this issue, a requirements analysis technique is also proposed.
Game Based Learning Systems (GBLSs) constitute motivating learning environments. However, despite of many years of research in the area, this kind of system has been used only in a few real learning situations since, its design, development and adaptation still face several barriers. In fact, GBLS design is a complex process. It requires the intervention of actors with specific skills and expertise. Unfortunately, novice game designers, who do not have enough skills inspired from both, educational systems and video games, cannot create relevant and successful GBLSs. To tackle this issue, we propose to assist designers through an Intelligent Tutoring System with good pedagogical practices where learning theories, game designers profiles and skills evaluation are taken into account. This paper, presents an approach that aims to enhance expertise knowledge acquisition for and during the gameplay design. The proposed approach is based on Project Based Learning (PBL) as well as IMS LD specifications.
The introduction of serious games as pedagogical supports in the field of education is a process gaining in popularity amongst the teaching community. This article creates a link between the integration of new pedagogical solutions in first-year primary class and the fundamental research on the motivation of the players/learners, detailing an experiment based on a game specifically developed, named QCM. QCM considers the learning worksheets issued from the Freinet pedagogy using various gameplay mechanisms. The main contribution of QCM in relation to more traditional games is the dissociation of immersion mechanisms, in order to improve the understanding of the user experience. This game also contains a system of gameplay metrics, the analysis of which shows a relative increase in the motivation of students using QCM instead of paper worksheets, while revealing large differences in students behavior in conjunction with the mechanisms of gamification employed. Received on 12 September 2017; accepted on 30 October 2017; published on 4 January 2018
Nowadays, serious games are one of the biggest existing industries and it is still growing steadily in many sectors. Particularly, the use of virtual worlds and serious games in education is growing. This paper introduces the development of a serious game in an immersive learning environment for teaching Civics. The work’s idea is to develop a game to motivate, educate and train learners on civic rules by placing users in different civic roles and giving them agency to address real-world problems and issues. In order to improve the user’s experience, the game was developed to work in a cave-like immersive environment by using a conversational character for a new kind of Human-Computer Interface. The game includes static and dynamic 3D environments, allowing players to share the experience of navigation in the scene among the users, even geographically distributed. In order to evaluate the game’s performance, a between groups experiment with thirty participants was designed. Received on 10 November 2016; accepted on 13 July 2017; published on 5 January 2018
Africa holds 15 % of world’s population with an across sector infrastructure investments average returns of 15 to 20%. The diverse location of people living within the continent makes intercity, interstate, or inter-country transactions difficult and where it does happens, comes with huge transaction cost. This creates a wide gap in Africa’s regional economy, resulting in wide spread of poverty, intra and inter regional conflicts within the continent. E-commerce provides a viable platform for bridging the gap in African economies. However, its adaptability and sustainability becomes a major concern. The level of development of e-commerce and its impact on the economy are analysed. Results show that e-commerce has made positive impact on the African economies but lack of trust on transactions within and from the continent is major challenge. Therefore, investment in e-commerce infrastructure in Africa (with more emphasis on Nigeria) will lead to rapid economic development within the continent.
