Serious Games Development

Serious Games are a bridge between educational concepts and engaging, fun gameplay. They allow concepts that are normally too esoteric, dangerous, or boring to learn to be avaliable to everybody around the world.
At the start of the semester, I actually thought that serious games meant “games with a serious storyline.” I was tempted to drop the class, but after sticking with it, I learned of the potential of growth in the serious games market. Their ability to teach concepts to those otherwise uninterested present a great opportunity for enabling the innovators of tomorrow. On top of that, their use in simulations and interactive diagrams allow for professionals to quickly prototype without any physical effort.
For this class, I started by deciding which space related concept would be the most fun to make a game out of. I ended up picking hydroponics, and thought of making a fast-paced resource management game. Work started slow, but once the first resource was added, the rest went smoothly. Writing the informational text was difficult since I’m far from an expert in hydroponics, but they ended up being simple and effective communication tools. While developing this game, we were taught about Octalysis, motivations, simulations, education, gamification, and advertising in the context of serious games. At the end, I had learned about a whole alternate path for gaming that I hadn’t properly considered, as well as its future.
I believe that serious games are evolving incredibly quickly in both user and developer access. The ability to develop games easier is also making developing serious games easier, and the next generation is taking to this new form of education incredibly well. I think that serious games will see much more use in the near future, and I’m excited to watch the field grow.