Hi all. Any suggestions on a good starting point for designing a Serious Game? I know what I want to teach but I don’t know how to design it, to include game mechanics. Perhaps there are game mechanics proven to work well that could be adopted. Thanks.
What would you define as a serious game? or what is not a serious game?
You gotta have some idea of what you want and what you can make, after that it comes down to scoping a project you can complete with your resources.
Please be more vague, thanks. 
My understanding is a Serious Game is defined as: “A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment.”
I know exactly which knowledge I want to impart. And I can definitely do that in an online course. But I am trying to understand how to do that in a game. If I pick up any book in game design then it probably will not be geared towards learning, but rather entertainment. I did try once to read a book specifically on Serious Gaming but it did not really get into how to do it.
The concept really is that the player goes through a transformation. Basically hitting on all levels of learning:
Rote
Understanding
Application
Correlation
Gaming seems like the perfect medium to experiment as the player. And It seems like if it is not designed well then it will just fall flat and all for not. I am looking for ideas of which direction to go with this. Or if anyone knows of a course that teaches an approach to Serious Gaming that would be great. I’ve been searching and there are many courses on game design, just not the design approach that I need.
And to hit on your last point. I have little knowledge and so far, limited resources on what I’m trying to achieve. However, a forum is a resource and that is why I’m here.
So you mean like Kerbal Space Program actually teaches rocket science (to a degree, you’re not gonna get a job at nasa with kerbal certification)
how are we suppose to help you do that if you don’t tell us what it is you’re trying to teach?, you’re saying “you know the knowledge you want to teach”, where does that get us(as in the other people on the forum)
Thank you for the help. I don’t think I am doing well at explaining the issue, which has nothing to do with what I’m trying to teach. It has a lot more to do with media, quizzes, tutorials, scorm, practice, and bringing it all together. Thanks anyway, I probably just need to keep reading.
Are you asking for resources on how to design games for educational purposes? I think your usage of the word serious threw me off as to what you’re asking, I thought you meant how to not set your targets too high.
I’m not aware of any of this stuff personally, but I think you just gotta come up with a puzzle that requires the understanding of what it is you’re trying to teach, like KSP is a puzzle on how to get to space (and hopefully stay there), just take the real life concept and make it into a fun mechanic and learning it will come naturally.
Why are you refraining from telling us your teaching subject?
Yes, designing for educational purposes. Serious game is a genre listed by purpose.
Ok, I will give it more thought. Part of what I’m looking for is proven mechanics. The same thing someone might do when creating a game for entertainment. A person would likely look at other games and get an idea of how the game mechanics work. Maybe I can find games on Steam, for education, and use some of those ideas.
I would rather not talk about the teaching subject at this time. For the same reason a person wouldn’t share every business idea that came to mind publicly. Thanks for the feedback. I think my next step is to play educational games and get ideas.
Just FYI: No one here wants to steal your game. We have our own things to work on. By trying to keep things secret you’re really only hurting yourself by preventing anyone from helping you.
Pretty much the #1 thing to know about game development is that ideas are really, really easy. Execution is what matters.
Agreed, thank you.
Wikitedia seems to have a pretty arbitrary differentiation between “education” and “serious” games. not that I really care what “they” call what, just a weird category name.
Yeah, I hear ya. Thank you both for your time. Just through this conversation I think it would greatly simplify things to break apart the objective. The first two levels of learning taught on Thinkific in a traditional video lesson/testing scenario. And then, for the second two levels, in the form of a game. This removes the need for scorm and various other elearning components in the game engine. The player can then take the knowledge gained and apply that within the game.
Still a Serious Game because without the core knowledge they likely cannot play the game, and it has a very focused primary purpose, in part through story telling.
So thanks again. I’m starting to gain clarity.
I think, computer(vedio/mobile) game is new industry still. What do you study is a big subject.