New Forms of Interaction in Serious Games for Rehabilitation

This chapter addresses up-to-date research development regarding the adoption of more natural forms of interaction in the Serious Games for Rehabilitation domain of application. The chapter starts by presenting fundamental concepts on Serious Games illustrated by relevant applications. It describes the main problems involved and how Serious Games can benefit the process of rehabilitation. A comprehensive literature survey is presented and accompanied by a proposed set of classification criteria towards a taxonomy. From this study, a main research opportunity the authors identified is the potential benefits of the adoption of natural interaction modalities. The remainder of the chapter presents the authors’ recent work on this subject, including the description and design of game prototypes using alternative and natural interaction modalities. The chapter presents experiments and the results of a user study in order to make it possible to conclude about the benefits of the newer forms of interaction. From this study, it was concluded that the introduction of the natural interaction modalities has increased the attractiveness and intuitiveness of the prototyped Serious Game. This important result is a motivating factor to improve the interaction mechanisms and conduct studies with distinct tasks and larger samples of users/patients. Lastly, the authors report identified research opportunities and open problems.

An Overview on the Use of Serious Games in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation

As a significant number of individuals have severe motor disabilities due to neurological and musculoskeletal conditions, it is important to provide them with an appropriate rehabilitation program in order to improve their quality of life. Several study results suggest that many elements of the interactive games have tremendous potential as rehabilitation tools. Serious games can entertain the players, while rewarding and reinforcing healthy movements. As these technologies create a pleasant environment, they motivate the patients to perform the necessary exercises with satisfaction and total relaxation, even forgetting that they are conducting therapy. In this sense, various serious games are being applied in healthcare settings, namely in many physical therapy and rehabilitation situations. This chapter discusses the different potentialities of several serious games when used in physical therapy and rehabilitation of patients with problems in motor skills.

Immersion, Narrative, and Replayability as the Motivational and Attractiveness Factors in Serious Games

Serious games, electronic games whose purpose is work educational elements, often do not reach this goal because by being included the content and teaching strategies, the fun’s dimension and motivation to interact are reduced. In this sense, this chapter presents a proposal for the use of immersion, narrative, and replayability as devices to make serious games more attractive to the student in general. These three elements are explored theoretically and then analyzed and aligned with proposals for instructional design and learning theories. As a result, a development proposal for Serious Game Development Document (SGDD) and a rubric for evaluation of use are presented. With this, it is expected to contribute and assist not only with development, but also with in the analysis of serious games.

Stalin’s Dilemma

Stalin’s Dilemma is an educational game that simulates the industrialization of the Soviet Union during the three Five Year Plans between 1928 and 1942 (Bever, 2000). The goal of the game is to reach or exceed the historical levels of industrial capacity, military effectiveness, and political stability in order to prepare the country to repel an attack by Nazi Germany, but with less human cost than was inflicted by Josef Stalin. This chapter describes the game and discusses its design, development, and use in various educational settings and structures. Its goal is to convey insights and lessons that can be applied to future development and employment of other instructional simulation games. The primary conclusions are the need to support a complex design with extensive player aids and to harness students’ competitiveness and ambition by directly connecting performance in the game to performance in the course.

Challenges of Serious Games for Improving Students’ Management Skills on Decision Making

Serious Games have been used in civil education since the 1950s. The first serious games were business games aiming to improve the skills required for decision making processes. In 1964, the INTOP simulation game was the first game representing a complete enterprise operating in different markets (Rohn, 1995). Management games as a subgroup of serious games are still widely in use, especially within vocational training of managers. Since that time, a variety of games have been developed and proved successful for the mediation of skills in complex systems (Windhoff, 2001). Serious games are also widely used in primary and secondary education nowadays. Children learn excellently by playing them. In contrast, learning by gaming is often seen as not serious enough within higher education and vocational training. Consequently, gaming as a teaching method is still often excluded in many curricula. Hence, students lack the experience of active knowledge acquirement during lessons and thus encounter a barrier for successful participation in serious games later.

Criteria of Development of Adaptive Didactic Games for People with Intellectual Disability

Children with intellectual disability have a diminished ability of social intelligence; thus, it is necessary to develop abilities in the area “use of the community” in order to suitably use these resources. An educative alternative is the use of didactic games in order to instruct disabled people. The approach used in this chapter is to propose criteria to developing games for people with intellectual disability. The authors use prototypes of games like for example to describe the proposed criteria applied in the areas of development and the situations of learning towards which the game focuses, in order to obtain the learning, as it is the intention of the game. The result that is expected is to enable these players so that they are self-sufficient to obtain inclusion of these vulnerable groups to the social surroundings. Concluding the chapter is a proposal for the development of a formal game by a company that could commercialize it and make it available for the targeted community.

Using Games for Primary School

Computer games are a form of e-learning; the player is able to learn at his own rhythm in a fun, but effective way. One of the most important aims of these educational games is to motivate the pupils to make learning easier by using their own experiences. This study is based on the flow experience introduced by Csikszentmihalyi (1975). The person who undergoes the flow experience feels pleased and fully emerged in what he is doing and tends to repeat the activity. In the context of this study, information has been gathered through questionnaires utilizing the five dimensions of the flow state. The sample used consisted on twenty nine pupils; each of them played five games. At the end of the study, it was possible to conclude that the pupils experienced the flow and that it had a positive effect on their learning experiences.

Game-Based Learning

A new interest in the use of video games for learning has emerged, and a number of claims are made with respect to the effectiveness of games in education. These educational games are considered as new instructional technology with great potential. The suggested positive outcomes and effects have been mentioned repeatedly. In this review, the learning effects of educational games are studied in order to gain more insights into the conditions under which a game may be effective for learning. A systematic literature search in three databases was conducted. Some studies reported a positive effect on learning and motivation, but this is moderated by different learner variables and depends on different context variables. Next to this, the effectivity research on game-based learning is highly susceptible to a muddle of approaches, methodologies, and descriptions of gaming for educational purposes.

Battle for Value

A wargame is competitive simulation used to build and test strategy. Wargames have been used by military leaders throughout history, notably by the Persians and Napoleon (Figure 1), and more recently by the U.S. when planning its invasion of Iraq. They have also been used effectively by business executives, leaders in government agencies, and even non-profits. They can be powerful tools to generate creative ideas, surface and resolve taboo issues, anticipate competitive responses, identify and prioritize stakeholder needs, assess likely market acceptance of a product or service, or to build and test a strategic plan. In following chapter, the authors (1) define what a wargame is and briefly introduce the reader to the concept and history of wargaming, (2) explain why wargaming is valuable and when it can be used most fruitfully, and finally (3) describe how to run a wargame, spanning from the relatively simple to the more complex. As Karl Von Clausewitz so eloquently put it, “everything in war is simple; but the simplest thing is difficult...”

Serious Games

While the study of serious games is gradually increasing, the potential of serious games to help increase the effectiveness of training and learning has also been a subject of debate in much of the literature published in the field of teaching and training. The purpose of this chapter is to review what has been studied in the literature regarding serious games for teaching and training. By discussing the foundation of game-based learning, the study not only discusses some of challenges and impacts of serious games for teaching and training, but it also outlines some of the fundamental issues and considerations for the effective use of serious games and strategy of game-based learning.