LudoScience

Design Games and Game Design: Relations Between Design, Codesign and Serious Games in Adult Education Julian Alvarez, Olivier Irrmann, Damien Djaouti, Antoine Taly, Olivier Rampnoux and Louise SauvÉ - 2019

Informations

Support : Publications
Author(s) : Julian Alvarez, Olivier Irrmann, Damien Djaouti, Antoine Taly, Olivier Rampnoux and Louise SauvÉ
Editor : in Sylvie Leleu-Merviel, Daniel Schmitt and Philippe Useille, From UXD to LivXD Living eXperience Design, ISTE Edition
Date : 2019
Lang : Lang


Description

As explained in the general introduction, experience design implies an "experience to be lived" (Vial, 2015) where the subjects "interact with their natural and artificial environment". If we can easily imagine a "natural" or "artificial" environment, there is an in-between proposed by the game. Neither totally "natural" because it can rely on artifacts, nor totally "artificial" because some animals play and the game activity falls, depending on the context, between the "natural" and the "artificial". If the game is played on us when we try to categorize it between these two areas, we can be more relaxed when it comes to saying that a game activity is an experience. Indeed, playing a game can result in emotions, stories to tell, learning, ideas, exchanges, encounters, etc. So many different and specific experiences for each subject who plays the game. Thus, the game can quite easily be called upon as an ingredient or catalyst in the design of the experience. And the experience of play is legitimately included among the life experiences that are the subject of this book. For Brandt and Messeter (2004), games have long been an integral part of the designer's tools and have been used to observe conceptual practices of collaboration between designers (Habraken and Gross's Concept Design Games, 1987) or in concrete collaborative design projects (codesign) for services and products that can be convened as part of adult education, such as the Mosaic summer schools promoted by HEC Montréal[1].

The reasons for this association between game and codesign are multiple: a game is a universal language; a game is a relevant mediation to address sensitive issues that may not be addressed in a traditional meeting; a game allows us to structure interactions between different actors involved in a design project; a game allows iterative strategies such as trial and error.

The idea of associating play in codesign activity is called "design game" by the design community. "Game design" refers to the idea of designing and creating games, digital or not, serious or not. This observation leads us to wonder about these two symmetrical terms "design game" and "game design" and to see if they designate similar processes or not. Getting answers to such a question is important to establish whether we have a new way of designing serious games or whether they are already identified approaches that are simply presented under a different name.

To begin our approach, we propose in this chapter to define, explore and illustrate the terms "design", "design game", "game design", "codesign", "game", "serious game" and "gamification". We will then focus on the different possible approaches to designing a serious game. With these listed approaches, we will put the design game approach into perspective and try to analyze in a hypothetical and deductive way whether or not it is a different process or one already listed in the game design field. This approach ultimately aims to broaden the processes dedicated to the design of serious games, educational activities or to develop tools dedicated to the design process related to the game.



1. https://mosaic.hec.ca/consulté on 15/03/2017.



Keywords : Serious Game, Design Game, Game design, Gamification, Ungamification, Serious Game design, Serious Play design