Serious games represent the state-of-the-art in the convergence of electronic gaming technologies\r\nwith instructional design principles and pedagogies. Despite the value of high-fidelity content in\r\nengaging learners and providing realistic training environments, building games which deliver high\r\nlevels of visual and functional realism is a complex, time consuming and expensive process.\r\nTherefore, commercial game engines, which provide a development environment and resources to\r\nmore rapidly create high-fidelity virtual worlds, are increasingly used for serious as well as for\r\nentertainment applications. Towards this intention, the authors propose a new framework for the\r\nselection of game engines for serious applications and sets out five elements for analysis of engines\r\nin order to create a benchmarking approach to the validation of game engine selection. Selection\r\ncriteria for game engines and the choice of platform for Serious Games are substantially different\r\nfrom entertainment games, as Serious Games have very different objectives, emphases and\r\ntechnical requirements. In particular, the convergence of training simulators with serious games,\r\nmade possible by increasing hardware rendering capacity is enabling the creation of high-fidelity\r\nserious games, which challenge existing instructional approaches. This paper overviews several\r\ngame engines that are suitable for high-fidelity serious games, using the proposed framework.
Loading....