Christy Dena

This session will: Provide an overview of the current state of this genre; Outline the business strategies behind employing such games to extend a property; Provide guidelines for the design of these games for application in large-scale, small-scale and education environments; and Work as teams to apply these principles in a rapid-prototyping scenario. This workshop will be of interest to designers of locative arts projects; film, TV and web producers; educators and ludologists, but is open to all. This workshop does not require prior technical experience.

Millions of players worldwide are spending hours, weeks and months with these elaborately written, directed and programmed stories that traverse websites, emails, faxes and phone calls. They have been called the ‘Citizen Kane of online entertainment’ (Internet Life). They are innovating audience interaction, the use of real-world devices, immersion and advertising in ways that you can utilise now.

This half day seminar will show you just what they are, what advertising agencies think of them, how many are playing them and what you can take from them for your own properties.

What worked and what didn’t will be explained, along with an insight into the design issues for creating such properties. Guidance on how to select platforms and formats according to target audiences will also explored. And for those that just have to know: examples of how marketing and entertainment have worked together to produce innovate and monetized content without selling out either of their respective values will be provided!

This seminar will provide an overview of the variety of serious game forms available and design considerations.

The seminar will be an a useful over view into current trends in serious games, and will be of interest to game makers, and those involved with simulators, military, education , the public sector and government.