games for health - micah hrehovcsik - serious game classification for game designers

Games and Interaction

Tactical Forms- A Classification of Applied Games for Game Design

Micah HrehovcsikHKU University of the Arts Utrecht

School of Games and Interaction

Game Design Lecturer, Researcher and Theorist

micah.hrehovcsik@hku.nl

gi.hku.nl

Joeri TaelmanUtrecht University

j.g.g.taelman@students.uu.nl

Joep JanssenDe Hoogstraat Revalidatie

j.janssen@dehoogstraat.nl

Niels KeetelsHKU University of the Arts Utrecht

niels.keetels@hku.nl

Design

research?

Game Design

Research?

It’s about opening

up the black box of

game design.

There’s a problem with applied

game taxonomy!?

What about Sawyer & Smith’s

2008 “Serious Games

Taxonomy”?

No way!

Now pay attention! Serious games ≠ training

& education games. -Sawyer & Smith 2008

Current applied

game taxonomy is

used as a way to

“get all parties on

the same page”

and “provide a

snapshot of the

current state of

serious games

industry” -Sawyer &

Smith 2008

Uh? So… what kind of

game do I need to design?

“The primary goal of any applied game is the use and

usefulness of its game activity outside the domain of the game

itself” – van Roessel & van Mastrigt-Ide 2011

An applied game could be any genre or have any

game mechanic as long as the game achieves its

desired goal(s) -Michael & Chen 2006

Wow… All I need to do

now… is read through allthe literature about

applied games and

become an expert in a

specific domain.

What would really be

useful though… is a

few good examples.

Where are all

the applied

game clones?

Classification!!! My game

design power has increased

tenfold! I have the power of

“tried and true gameplay

solutions.” - Fullerton, Swain & Hoffman 2004

However “genres are a mixed blessing

to an entertainment game designer…

genres also tend to restrict the creative

process.” - Fullerton, Swain & Hoffman 2004

Restricted creative

process!!!

Sorry, but those tricks won’t

work for applied game design!

But… game mechanics

like randomness, time

compression, perfect

communication worked

for entertainment games

fun!!! -Michael & Chen 2006

Aaah!?

Entertainment Genres !!!

But a lot of work has already

been done on applied game

taxonomy!

How can the idea of

Tactical Forms really

add to this? What!? You mean…

Tactical form is a term to

describe the way an

applied game’s

deployment is designed

for a certain context.

GAMING: The Future’s Language

Richard Duke 1974

THANK YOU