Games
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[edit] Introduction
You can click on the topic on the right to get to a list of games for that category or you can
click here for a list of all the games on the wiki.
Our report for Nordic Serious Game Concepts and Practices can be found here (pdf).
If you are a developer, see the information about adding your game here.
This page contains the results of the serious game survey we ran.
We started with three goals: To find a good representative of Nordic serious games and general information on them over a number of different categories (in the end a total of eight specific ones), analyze their use of technology and their development methods. The main method for the survey was selected to be searching online. As a result we gathered information on 144 games and game-like applications, of which ten are from outside the Nordic region, but were included due to their exceptional nature. These are games that are either highly popular or have done something different or differently than their Nordic counterparts. One major hurdle was to figure out where to draw the line, as some games and websites have very little game-like features. In the end we went with a fairly loose definition of a game, but as a result gained a bit more insight on the use of serious games and game-like technologies in their field.
In general, there was a fairly good amount of information on commercial games, but not necessarily as much or the type that we would’ve liked for this survey and no hands-on testing to verify or complete the data. On the other hand, free games provided us with the possibility of hands-on testing to generate verified information, but there is little other information available, including the developer of the game in over a fourth of the games. Likewise, the release date of the game is missing or uncertain in over two thirds of the games, which makes tracking progress in the field rather difficult.
[edit] General
The game technologies and genres vary quite a bit, but there are a few trends fairly easily observed from our survey.
First of all there is the staggering amount of web based games. It does not necessarily have to be single player or multiplayer, just so long as it is playable in a browser. Presumably this is to make the game more easily accessible and make people more likely to play, even when passing by. The opposite is also true for some of the genres (namely military, business and the training oriented health games), where it’s either not as important to get anyone playing or it is simply impossible due to the purpose of the game and the technology used.
The web based games themselves vary in complexity quite a bit, but generally tend to host the more simple games available. Most of them are also done with various versions of the Adobe Flash environment using its ActionScript language. The choice is quite natural considering its emphasis on graphics, animations and interactivity coupled with most of these games targeting children or youth, and the spread and browser support for Flash players. “Real” games that take years to create are few and far apart, aside from the military and business, whose budget for these things is in a league of its own.
The genres of the web games also vary quite a bit, but puzzles, quizzes and minigames reign supreme (quizzes especially have been inserted into a lot of games of different genres to bring some educational value to it). All of these three are generally fast to create, somewhat entertaining, but tend to have limited replay value. This may or may not be a problem, since such games are usually designed to deliver their message on the first run through and the message itself generally is both simple and small. When other web technologies than Flash are in use, this aspect is further emphasized (usually also dropping the minigames genre, or being individual minigames in and on themselves) due to their limited options in real-time interactivity and graphical presentation. This is something of a problem, since puzzles and quizzes especially can be very non-game-like.
Simulation, the preferred genre of military and business applications is something of a grey zone. Whilst simulators are in general considered games, their game aspect can often be limited to the use of game technology. Then again, they are by design made to blur the difference between reality and virtual in an effort to help the user learn. In contrast, Shoot-‘em-ups, beat-‘em-ups and platformers tend to
Single player games are in general heavily favored among most of the serious games. The categories that make a big exception to this are, again, military and business, both of which have more multiplayer than single player games. This is somewhat surprising considering that a lot of the games are web based and, as such, readily capable of online multiplayer. Still, creating multiplayer- instead of single player games takes more time and money. Some of the online games do somewhat circumvent this issue by having online scoreboards, so you can measure your score against other people, but it’s still single player.
[edit] Games by category
The game technologies used in serious games vary quite a bit, even though there are some similarities. In this section we will go trough the different categories and their genres, target audiences and used technologies.
You can click on the topic to get to a list of games for that category or you can click here for a list of all the games on the wiki. Also, you can click here to add a New Game to the Nordic Serious Games Directory.
[edit] Health
There are two primary uses for health games: education (about food and healthy way of life, usually) and exercise. They are not aimed at specific groups, though the more educational programs seem to gravitate towards younger people.
The health games come in several genres: Action, Adventure, Quiz, Puzzle, Simulation, Sport, Exercise, beat-em-up and various minigames. As is common with educational games, the games meant to teach the players something of this category also tend to have quizzes, which are the easiest way to increase the educational value of any game.
As with most serious games, the educational health games tend to be web based, usually created in Flash (and published online), with minor JavaScript aids on occasion. On the other hand the training games (or exergames) seem to come with various hardware or hardware requirements. Health games, with military games, are the only ones to take benefit of positioning and mobility. Specifically, Virku uses an exercise bike and a heart monitor for controls whereas Fitness Adventure is controlled with a cell phone and it’s GPS. Games meant for training in general tend to be designed to make people move. There are several single player games, but especially the games meant to make you move tend to come in at least some multiplayer flavour.
Also worth mentioning is DDR, which has made Machine Dancing into an official sport in Norway, and Wii Sports (and the upcoming [Wii Fitness]), which are likely the most recognized and used Health category games world wide. Possibly even of all the serious games.
Click here to see the list of Health games in this wiki.
[edit] Traffic
Traffic games seem to differ between two target audiences, with two different uses. For children, they are there to teach traffic rules and general traffic safety. For adults they are more to test the drivers.
There are minigames and simulation found in traffic games, but quizzes are highly dominant, regardless of the target audience.
Most of the traffic games are web based, but created with various programming languages, ranging from Flash (and it’s ActionScript) via JavaScript to CS-Script. There is, however, also a 3D simulator (Førstehjælp). Several of them came in the form of a website that has some minigames or such. Most of them are single player games.
Click here to see the list of Traffic games in this wiki.
[edit] Education
Education is competing with Advertisement of the spot of the most popular serious game category. Education games hold the widest variety of games, in technology, audience and genres: Quiz, Adventure, Platformer, Cave flight, Puzzle, Shoot-em-up, Strategy, Simulation… If it isn’t in Education games yet, it most likely will be. The target audiences vary as much, from children to disaster area workers.
Quizzes, Puzzles and various minigames seem to be the dominant genres, though there are several shoot-em-ups with less emphasis on education and more on increasing awareness under the mask of entertainment. Still, increasing awareness does count as education so they are included.
Most of the games are web based, made in Flash. Some other online technologies, like JavaScript and Shockwave, are also in use. Aside from these, there are also standalone 3D games (f.e. Rulleræs) and even though (real-time) online 3D is rare, there is a Shockwave based strategy game (Kampen on energien). While actual multiplayer games are few and far apart, there is an online scoreboard system in several of them.
The most curious technological solution comes from outside the Nordic region. Revolution is a multi-player role playing game that is created as a full modification over a commercial game, Neverwinter Nights.
Click here to see the list of Education games in this wiki.
[edit] Safety
The games in safety category are mostly targeted at younger people, but there are also more general themed games that are designed for all age groups. Awareness of various safety issues, for example safety on waters, and educating the users about them are the main goals of the games. Commonly info screens during the game play are used for this.
The games are often light on the game play resembling quizzes and interactive stories. Other genres are minigames and puzzles.
As with many other games found in the survey also the safety themed games are Flash based and published on websites. All the games are single player games.
Click here to see the list of Safety games in this wiki.
[edit] Travelling and Tourism
Traveling and tourism isn’t a very popular category as there are only very few games found in the survey. However, some of the advergames, for example Trysil Twintip promoting a ski resort, could also be seen as part of this category. There isn’t any particular target audience visible and the main usage for the games is awareness.
The games found belong to problem solving genre, but they are not very far from being interactive questionnaires. Again, the division is not clear.
Flash is the most commonly used technology and the games are part of websites. All are single player games.
Click here to see the list of Travelling and Tourism games in this wiki.
[edit] Business
Business games mostly target people who are either studying how to run a business or who are involved in it already. The games themselves are various business simulations with possible emphasis on strategic elements.
The main striking element of the business games is the fact that they are mostly multiplayer. Not only that, but several of them require a separate “game master”, like that of a role playing game and they tend to be turn-based. This may have something to do with the fact that several of these games are the digitalized versions of their board-game origins. Another such feature is the analyzing sessions and lectures in between rounds as seen in Builder’s Net Game and BTS Business Simulation workshop (Computer based) workshop.
Again there is one game that really stands out coming from outside the Nordic region: Attent. It takes an everyday high-profile tool, e-mail, and turns it into a game, which they claim increases its efficiency. Another game (from the Nordic region) that stands out is Realgame, which is the only fully computerized, real-time business simulation.
Click here to see the list of Business games in this wiki.
[edit] Military
Military games are, unsurprisingly, targeting military personnel. The games themselves are mostly simulations, usually for training people of varying positions. They also vary greatly in scope, as a simulator can be used to train anything from a single person to battalions.
on commercial computer solutions, but some still require specialized hardware. Commercial games themselves are nowadays considered, and in part used, as a base to build a military game on, like the Anti-artillery simulator (unnamed). Aside from that, many of the simulators involve people with replicas of the actual controls or weapons they would use in reality. While the games themselves can often be multiplayer in nature, none of the ones made for military personnel are inherently designed for online play, likely due to security concerns.
A couple of these are worth pointing out, as they also represent the opposite sides of the spectrum. First, there’s KASI (Simulation system for two sided combat), a massive simulation system used to train two companies against one another (in a forest), armed with laser detectors and GPS positioning to gather data and simulate weapons and indirect fire. On the other side there is a game from outside the Nordic region: America’s Army, which is more of a conventional computer game, produced by the US military, targeted at everyone and used to promote and help recruit people to the army in the US.
Click here to see the list of Military games in this wiki.
[edit] Advertising
Advertising games (or advergames) are often designed to be part of a certain advertising campaign, which means they might be available only for a limited time, or a more permanent website. The games are used for brand and product visibility, but also to educate people about the products. The information content is commonly rather limited though as the main usages seem to be branding and entertainment. In the case of the The Samsung D600 Mystery, the product has been tightly integrated into the game play so that the user will learn the mobile phone’s features while playing.
Most of the games are aimed at children and teenagers, especially in the case of snack and other food product themed games. These games tend to be simpler minigames or arcade style games. Another major audience is young adults, who are also targeted with more elaborate games promoting products like mobile phones for example.
The game genres found in advergames are Adventure, Sport, Minigames, Simulation (light), Action, Platform, Quiz and Arcade. The advertisement content and its implementation varies from taking a well known game, for example Pacman (Energymix), and changing its appearance by using logos, product images and mascots, to more complex branding “experiences” in which the product itself isn’t that important anymore. These more complex games usually belong to the adventure genre.
All advertising games found in the survey are web-based, with an exception of a mobile game Mentos bubbles, and created in Flash to ensure the broadest possible user base and the maximum visibility. The games tend to be single player games, but to have more of a community feel to them and to encourage playing there are often public scoreboards and also a function (usually email) to tell your friends about the game, thus making each player also a potential advertiser.
Click here to see the list of Advertising games in this wiki.
[edit] Others
The other games do not really fall into any of the previous categories. Most games easily do fall into one category or the other, so such games are uncommon.
Click here to see the list of Other games in this wiki.
Categories: Article | Research | Games | Technology
