Designing Serious Games

A comprehensive guide to the design and development process of games for impact.

Serious games—or games for impact—encompass everything from educational, therapeutic, and rehabilitative games to games for social, scientific, and cultural impact. While the field is flourishing, the practice of actually designing such games is not readily understood. Filling this gap, Designing Serious Games provides a comprehensive guide to the design and development process of this unique interdisciplinary field. The book guides readers through a user-centric design process that includes methods to define the game’s goal, understand its target audience, design accordingly, and evaluate outcomes. Featuring diverse case studies, actionable advice, and incisive interviews with transformational game practitioners and industry leaders, this practical book is an essential resource for anyone interested in designing serious games.

• Provides game design instruction tailored to the needs of serious games
• Offers step-by-step activities and guidance on concept design, preproduction, production, and postproduction
• Highlights industry perspective through interviews sharing real-life insights of development practice
• Includes extensive exercises and case studies
• Suits both students and professionals

Part I
1 Serious Games: An Introduction
2 Designing and Developing Serious Games
3 What Is Impact?
4 The Business of Serious Games
Part II
5 Understanding Users
6 Defining the Target Audience
Part III
7 Concept Design
8 Pre-Production
9 Production and Polish
Part IV
10 Game Useability through Heuristics
11 User Studies
12 Evaluating Playability and Engagement
13 Conclusion and Remarks on Measuring ImpactENDORSEMENTS

“The most grounded and multi-voiced introduction to serious games available—told by the people who’ve actually built, sold, and studied them.”
—David J. Gagnon, Director, Field Day Lab, University of Wisconsin–Madison; founder of Vault Learning Games and Open Game Data

“An excellent textbook detailing the design of serious games that weaves together industry-driven and science-driven perspectives to create a powerful user-centered design process.”
—Jan L. Plass, Paulette Goddard Chair, Digital Media and Learning Sciences, and Co-Director, Games for Learning Institute, New York University; coeditor of Handbook of Game-Based Learning; coauthor of Rethinking Cognitive Load Theory
Magy Seif El-Nasr is Professor and Department Chair of Computational Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she directs the Game User Interaction and Intelligence (GUII) Lab. She has been recently appointed the UC Presidential Chair at Santa Cruz to support her work on AI literacy and innovations in AI and Education. Her research focuses on developing new methods that push the boundary of research in understanding and augmenting human experiences towards making social impact in areas of education, training, and health.

Elin Carstensdottir is Assistant Professor of Computational Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she directs the Interaction Dynamics (ID) Lab. Her research focuses on the development and design of research tools and games for impact, where she investigates the dynamics between interfaces, AI and user experience with a focus on interactive narrative, virtual characters and social simulation.

Michael John is Associate Teaching Professor of Computational Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he directs the Games and Playable Media MS Degree Program, teaching courses in game development as well as games for impact. He previously worked in the commercial industry for both entertainment games and educational games, including as a co-founder of the GlassLab educational games studio.