Serious Game Jam Operation Manual: Prototype Development and Evaluation

Serious Game Jam (SGJ) is one of the major events organized by DiGRA JAPAN every year since 2014. This study proposes a prototype SGJ operation manual. Although eight SGJ events have been organized so far, the first few events were conducted based on the manuals for a general game jam and the organizer’s experiences. However, considering the process of developing entertainment and serious games is different, an operation manual is required for organizers of SGJs.

MMAJams – Multi-Method Analysis of Games in Research and Education

Lessons Learned from Serious Game Jams Organized by DiGRA JAPAN

ctrl+R: Reflections on Prompting Reflective Game Design

On the Local Value of Game Jam Games: Beyond Learning from the Process

A Challenge of Developing Serious Games to Raise the Awareness of Cybersecurity Issues

One of the Japanese Government Reports says that there are about 265,000 persons in charge of cyber securities in our country, but we need to raise more 80,000 persons. In order to solve this problem, many companies and schools are providing educational programs, but lecture types of learning is not enough effective since the methods and techniques of cyber attacks drastically grow day by day. Therefore, our proposal is to introduce “Serious Games”, and here are three reasons to support it. One reason is that since games are attractive to many persons in Japan, they would be good learning materials to keep their motivation. The other reason is that games are good method of simulation based learning and training for dynamically changing cyber security issues. The last reason is that computer games are the good platform to perceive the learning activities of person, and to continuously update educational materials by updating software contents. With this aim in mind, on April 2014, we have organized an Executive Committee (ExCom) of Serious Game Jam (SGJ) consisting of members from academia and industry. A Game Jam is known as an effective method to develop prototypes of game in a short term, and about 60 university students who are majoring in computer science or game developing attended to the Serious Game Jam for Cyber Security (SGJ#2). They have proposed 42 games, and 6 were developed in two days. Out of those 6 games, 3 games have been tuned after the SGJ, and we have evaluated 3 games in three experiments by 152 (take#1: 61, take#2: 23, take#3:68) university students. Through those experiments, we have confirmed the effectiveness of serious game for cyber security education, and also obtained the implication of future possibilities. In this paper, an overall activity of this challenge, experiments, results and lessons learned are described.

Game Jams as an Opportunity for Industry Development

Game jams are social events involving the integration of enthusiasts from various game making disciplines (e.g. programming, art, design) to make games under constraints, such as a short fixed time (Goddard et al. 2014) and a common theme (Fowler et al 2013). Research on game jams has suggested that they have the potential to provide an effective and focused experience and that participants gain valuable skills in prototyping and collaboration (Fowler et al. 2013), exploring technology limits, experimenting with interfaces, and exploring themes (Goddard et al. 2014). This paper investigates whether game jams have an effect on the sense of community among developers in a weak and unsupported development ecosystem. Results from two local game jams suggest that they can in fact provide an opportunity for increasing awareness, familiarity, and participation amongst community members, and open up opportunities for identifying potential work partners – all essential elements in the move towards the development of a local games development industry.