Part 1: DEFINING [SERIOUS] GAMES:

Stenros stated, “A game implies someone who enacts the game, performers usually called players, but also decision-makers, participants, contenders, people, as well as adversaries and teammates” (Stenros p.507). Games are defined as work that involves individuals or teams and has some specific rules. The game should be interactive that is governed by certain rules in which players are evaluated, and it runs on computers, mobile phones, or TV.  The game depends largely on the use of the mind and on the intelligence of the person and the ability to make decisions like in chess. These games fall between ease and difficulty, which depend heavily on graphics, which leads to a lot of attraction to them. According to the “Current Practices in Serious Game Research” article, the serious games is “a computer-based game with a primary purpose other than entertainment, ranging from anywhere between advertisements to military training exercises” (p.233).  The serious game is a type of games that raise the level of the academic and social skills of people, such as the skill of writing, searching for information, and the skill of acquiring new foreign languages, in addition to the skills of solving problems facing them, and critical thinking skills. The serious games introduce the players to the world around them and introduce them to new environments and experiences that they have not tried before. The serious game has the ability to raise the level of concentration of the players, in addition to raising the efficiency of memory and observation.

Part 2: APPLYING YOUR DEFINITION OF A SERIOUS GAME TO A SERIOUS GAME

According to the “Current Practices in Serious Game Research” article, playing a serious game is “ a complex task, even when an appropriate design was chosen for the intended learning outcomes: Players have to visually attend different locations on the screen, coordinate this with mouse or joystick movement, interpret verbal cues, and solve problems that occur during the game-play”(P.243). I played McDonald’s videogame. I consider this game as a serious game because it fits the criteria for a serious game. This is based on critical thinking and it develops problem-solving skills. In McDonald’s videogame, I have to make sandwiches but I have to go through a complex process to make the sandwiches. I have to create pastures then slaughter some cows then send vegetables and cow beef to the restaurant. At the end of this process, I start to prepare the components of the sandwich. All these steps need the player to have problem-solving skills because each step in the process has its challenges. This game introduces me to a new environment and makes me try new things that I haven’t tried before. McDonald’s videogame makes feel that I’m the owner of McDonald’s and I’m responsible for everything in this business. I think that this game has the ability to raise my level of concentration and improve my efficiency of memory and observation.

Critical Play Journal – Entry 2

I played a game called is “Depression Quest”. This game is considered as a serious game because it has the characteristics of serious games. In this game, I played as an individual who is suffering from a deep depression. This game gave me daily life events and the rule of this game is to manage these events including my relationships, illness, and job issues. I have to find the best possible treatments for each of these events. This game has a goal which is making the players feel and understand what depression can do to people. This game makes the player feels the feelings that depressed people feel.

It has rules and a goal, and these are the characteristics of serious games. Depression Quest game improves the self-direction, responsibilities, and reflective learning skills.  This type of game empowers “participants with a sense of responsibility and setting appropriate and flexible boundaries helped motivate the game participants” (Schrier, p.7). It gives the player the responsibility to manage the life events that are assigned to the player. This game increases the social and community awareness of the player because it puts the player in the position of the depressed people and makes the player views the world from their point of view to understand their illness. This game makes the participants aware of different viewpoints.

Link: https://the-quinnspiracy.itch.io/depressionquest

Critical Play Journal – Entry 4 (Gamestar Mechanic)

The Gamestar Mechanic focuses on making students learn the game design process by themselves. In Gamestar Mechanic, the idea is to transfer game design skills to students without the intricacies of programming to create their own games and help them to develop other skill sets such as language, systematic thinking, problem-solving through simulation, trial, storytelling, etc. The Gamestar Mechanic makes the students interested to create games because it gives them the ability to edit games and create their own games. This makes students gain the 21st-century skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, information literacy, and creativity. The Gamestar Mechanic is considered a serious game because it helps students to learn and experience new things like creating games that develop their skills. It gives students instructions to help them to work on their problem-solving and critical thinking skills. The serious games are the games that use “pedagogy to infuse instruction into the gameplay experience [3, 4] – is relevant, because a large and growing population is familiar with playing games, that can present users with realistic and compelling challenges, highly stimulating their information processing capabilities and capturing their concentration span for long duration” (Bellotti, P.22). In Gamestar Mechanic, students gain a good amount of information about creating games through different learning levels, after that, they start to create their game characters, storyline, and environment.