LudoScience

PhD in Computer Science - University of Toulouse (France)

Design and use of videogames for purposes going beyond entertainment (Serious Games): education, communication, healthcare, politics, art...

Study and development of theoretical methods and software tools that can help to design such videogames.

Professional experience

2008-2011

PhD Student through an universty-industry parternship (CIFRE contract).

Wrote a PhD thesis in computer science while working for three industrial organizations:

• The "Game Library" from "Odyssud" culturel centre (France). Inside this cultural centre, I was involved in many cultural activities related to videogames, such as : setting up videogame creation contest, design of an "alternate reality game" , demonstration of Serious Games during a festival for young people, management of cultural events about videogames...
• OKTAL, a private company specialized in the design of simulator suited for professionnal training. I was involved in the design "geDriver", a Serious Game to teach ecological driving habits. I also participated in a background analysis of the internal development tools.
• SEM Constellation, who built an ecological town called "Andromède". I designed, developed and evaluated two Serious Games meant to present this new ecological town to local inhabitants.

Since 2007

Videogame and game design teacher.

Teaching theoretical lessons on videogaming history and culture. Also teaching on game design (theories and applied methodologies) in both public and private courses.

2006-2008

Teaching Flash, PHP and HTML/CSS software technologies to professionals, alongside with the management of "end-course" projects. Also teaching algorithms science and the basics of programming for the web.

Employeer : ACT Formation.

2003-2008

Design and development for websites (2.0 projects, galeries...), CDRom and videogames (casual and serious games), mainly by using Flash, PHP/MySQL and XHTML/CSS. Main employeers : Milan Presse, Ja-Games and Magelis .

PhD Thesis

Serious Game Design : theoretical and technical study of the creation of videogames designed for serious purposes.

PhD Thesis in Computer Science.

Defended on November 28th, 2011 in the University of Toulouse III in front of the following jury:

• Jean-Pierre Jessel, professor at the University of Toulouse (IRIT) – Thesis director
  
• Pascal Estraillier, professor at the University of La Rochelle (L3I) – In-depth evaluator
• Franck Tarpin-Bernard, professor at the University of Grenoble (LIG) – In-depth evaluator
• Abdelkader Gouaich, associate professor at the University of Montpellier (LIRMM)
• Jean-Christophe Routier, professor at the University of Lille (LIFL)
• Philippe Palanque, professor at the University of Toulouse (IRIT)
• Josette Hospital, director of the "Game Library" from the Odyssud cultural centre
• Gilles Gallée, technical director of OKTAL

Abstract

Nowadays, videogames are an important part of popular culture. Although videogames are most famous as leisure, the wave of « Serious Games » aims to use them for a wide range of serious purposes: teaching, communication, therapy, professional training, advertising, political propaganda…

This thesis focuses on the design of such « Serious Games ». More specifically, we will try to identify means able to ease the creation of Serious Games. To achieve this goal, we will first concentrate on the analysis of means used to ease the creation of entertainment videogames. We will then try to evaluate how these means can be relevant to ease the creation of Serious Games. Through this process, we will specify the difference between the design of an entertainment videogame and a Serious Game. This research was conducted with the help of an industrial partnership involving three companies and institutions. The main contributions of this thesis are:

• A global view of the « Serious Game » field through a corpus of 2218 titles.
• An analysis of the « theoretical » tools able to ease the creation of videogames, backed with four case studies coming from our industrial partners. This study of the « theoretical » side of the Serious Game Design process will result in a synthetic methodology to create Serious Games.
• An analysis of the « technical » tools able to ease the creation of videogames, based on a corpus of 400 software tools. This study will result in an open and collaborative database of videogame creation tools.
• An evaluation of these « theoretical » and « technical » tools through a university course whose goal is to teach the basics of Game Design. This evaluation will point out several limitations in the available tools. This study will thus result in a specification of desired features for a tool able to ease the creation of Serious Games in an educational environment.
• Two software experimentations aiming to create a tool embedding all the features listed in the previous specification. The first experiment failed to reach this goal, but the second one shows a promising mid-term result: this prototype tool was successfully used to create one of the Serious Games designed for our industrial partners.

Download the PhD Thesis (written in French - PDF - 11 Mo)