Högskolan i Skövde

In high-stakes professions such as that of negotiators and pilots, simulations are frequently employed as a risk-free training tool to facilitate the refinement of skills and decision-making abilities. While traditional simulations are effective, they are resource-intensive. In contrast, computer-based simulations offer scalability but may lack realism and sensory engagement. This study examines the potential of mobile phones in simulation-based learning, with a particular focus on a 3D hostage-taking scenario designed to enhance immersion through realistic interactions. By integrating a detailed environment and interactive elements, this approach demonstrates the potential of mobile technology to enhance the realism and engagement of training. Furthermore, the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) has transformed digital narration by moving beyond the limitations of rigid, time-consuming conversational trees. The traditional methods, which required a considerable degree of multidisciplinary expertise, frequently resulted in disrupted dialogue coherence due to the constraints imposed on the pathways available for communication. However, LLMs enable the creation of dynamic virtual personas from simple descriptions, thereby streamlining content creation and enhancing immersion through their expansive conversational capabilities. This publication reports on a digital hostage-taking simulation that utilised both mobile phones for communication and LLMs for character simulation, thereby highlighting advancements in feasibility and immersion. 

The report is based on three sub-studies using different data collection techniques:

• A bibliometric study of Swedish game research based on data from Scopus and SwePub.
• A survey study of Swedish game research environments.
• An interview study of Swedish game research environments.

The bibliometric study uses a broad approach. The material therefore includes items that only have a peripheral connection to games, yet SwePub returns fewer than 3,000 items. Game research is conducted at many higher education institutions in Sweden and published within many subject areas. A total of 95 researchers have at least 10 game-related publications¹. There are strong local clusters of researchers who co-publish, but co-publishing between Swedish and Nordic higher education institutions is not extensive. Compared with Finland, Sweden has fewer publications with a clear focus on game research.

The survey study shows that game research environments usually consist of a number of researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds, where they themselves define as game researchers rather than the organisation as such doing so. Taken together, the environments have, at the highest estimate, around 30 active doctoral students, but the figure is uncertain. 94% of respondents state that their research is within “games for purposes other than entertainment” and only 6% indicate a “game technology focus”. 44% indicate “the games industry”. It is clear that entertainment games are not the main focus in Swedish game research. This is remarkable as the Swedish games industry is a multibillion industry focused specifically on entertainment games. There is therefore a large discrepancy between industry and Swedish game research.

The interview study shows that game research is conducted in fragmented environments and by researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds. There is a clear perceived lack of research funding within adequate areas, and shortcomings in existing funding instruments. This affects both the type of research that can be conducted and the recruitment of doctoral students. Respondents are generally very positive towards the idea of a national graduate school. Several also consider the Council of Swedish Games Researchers as an important actor to strengthen Swedish game research nationally and internationally.

Recommendations:

• There should be a clearer disciplinary home for research and education related to games to clarify the core of the field.
• The research focus needs to shift so that entertainment games receive more attention.
• Funding instruments for game research need to be changed to enable such a shift.
• Anational graduate school in games should be established.
• There is reason to learn from successful environments in Finland and Denmark.

¹Note that this figure does not reflect the number of active researchers today.

The advent of Large Language Models (LLMs) has revolutionized digital narration, moving beyond the rigid and time-consuming process of creating conversational trees. These traditional methods required significant multidisciplinary expertise and often disrupted dialogue coherence due to their limited pathways. With LLMs character simulation seems to become accessible and coherent, allowing the creation of dynamic personas from text descriptions. This shift raises the possibility of streamlining content creation, reducing costs and enhancing immersion with interactive dialogues through expansive conversational capabilities. To address related questions, a digital hostage-taking simulation was set up, and this publication reports the results obtained both on the feasibility and on the immersion aspects. This paper is proposed as a twin paper detailing the implementation of a simulation that use an actual mobile phone to communicate with the hostage-taker. 

Rapporten bygger på tre delstudier med olika datainsamlingstekniker:

• En bibliometristudie av svensk spelforskning baserad på data från Scopus respektive SwePub.
• En enkätstudie över svenska spelforskningsmiljöer.
• En intervjustudie om svenska spelforskarmiljöer.

Bibliometristudiens ansats har varit bred. Materialet inkluderar därmed även poster som endast har en perifer koppling till spel, men returnerar i fallet SwePub färre än 3000 poster. Spelforskning bedrivs på många lärosäten i Sverige och publiceras inom många ämnesområden. Totalt 95 forskare har en publicering som omfattar 10 eller fler spelpublikationer¹. Det finns starka lokala kluster av forskare som sampublicerar men sampubliceringen mellan svenska och nordiska lärosäten är inte så omfattande. Jämfört med Finland har Sverige färre publikationer med ett tydligt fokus på spelforskning.

Enkätstudien visar att spelforskarmiljöerna oftast består av ett antal forskare med olika ämnesmässig bakgrund där de själva definierar sig som spelforskare snarare än att organisationen som sådan gör det. Miljöerna har sammantaget och högt räknat runt 30 aktiva doktorander men siffran är osäker. 94% av respondenterna anger att deras forskning ligger inom ”spel för andra områden än underhållning” och endast 6% anger ”spelteknikfokus”. 44% anger ”spelbranschen”. Det är tydligt att spel för just underhållning inte ligger fokus för svensk spelforskning. Detta är remarkabelt då den svenska datorspelsindustrin är en multimiljardindustri fokuserad på just spel som underhållning. Det finns alltså en mycket stor diskrepans mellan industri och svensk spelforskning.

Intervjustudien ger en bild av att spelforskningen bedrivs inom splittrade miljöer, av forskare med olika ämnesmässig bakgrund. Det finns en tydlig upplevd brist på forskningsfinansiering inom adekvata områden och det finns brister i de finansieringsinstrument som finns idag. Detta påverkar såväl vilken typ av forskning som kan bedrivas inom spel och rekryteringen av forskarstuderande. Respondenterna är överlag mycket positivt inställda till idén om en nationell forskarskola. Flera ser också Svenska Spelforskarrådet som en viktig aktör för att stärka svensk spelforskning både nationellt och internationellt.

Rekommendationer:

• Det bör finnas en tydligare egen hemvist för forskning och utbildning inom spel för att tydliggöra kärnan i området.
• Fokus för forskningen behöver förändras så att spel för underhållning kommer mer i fokus.
• Finansieringsinstrumenten för spelforskning behöver förändras för att möjliggöra en sådan förändring.
• En nationell forskarskola inom spel bör inrättas.
• Det finns anledning att lära av framgångsrika miljöer i Finland och Danmark.

¹Notera att siffran inte återspeglar antalet aktiva forskare idag.

High-stakes professions like negotiators and pilots utilize simulations for risk-free training, enhancing skills and decision-making. Traditional simulations, while effective, are resource-intensive. Computer simulations offer a scalable alternative but lack realism and sensory engagement, impacting immersion. This study explores mobile phones’ role in simulation-based learning, using a 3D hostage-taking scenario to improve immersion through realistic interactions. The simulation integrates a detailed environment and interactive elements, and demonstrate the potential of mobile technology to enhance training in critical fields by making simulations more lifelike and engaging. This paper is presented alongside a twin paper, both part of the same project Master final project. The second paper introduces a different version of the simulation using a Large Language Model (like ChatGPT) for generating dialogue freely and interactively. It also discusses the results of a study comparing immersion levels between the two versions. 

Background: Digital interventions are promising tools to reach adolescents for cardiovascular health promotion.

Purpose: We assessed adolescents’ knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) regarding cardiovascular disease (CVD), explored opportunities for a digital intervention, and developed a serious game prototype.

Methods: In total, 649 adolescents grades 8-10 were surveyed in a semi-urban community of Nepal regarding KAP of CVD and digital pre-requisites. Eight focus group discussions (FGDs) separately among boys and girls (n=76) provided deeper understanding of CVD perceptions.

Findings: Median (IQR) percent scores for KAP were 70.6 (10.59), 78.5 (8.46) and 69.5 (11.59), respectively. Good KAP (median percent scores >75%) was found in 27.7%, 69% and 27.8% adolescents, respectively. Knowledge (p<0.001), attitude (p=0.025) and practice (p<0.001) was higher among adolescents in private than government schools. Girls had better attitude than boys (<0.001). Furthermore, 98% adolescents had smartphone access and 91.6% had internet access.

In preliminary FGD analyses adolescents mentioned physical, nutritional, mental, environmental and hereditary causes for CVD. Financial and work-related burdens, plus psychological and family-related issues were perceived to influence CVD severity. Junk food and physical inactivity were health barriers. Adolescents perceived serious games as beneficial and easy to use. Challenging game and attractive visuals were thought to stimulate game use.

Conclusion: With good attitude and excellent digital prerequisites, we conclude that serious games can help fill the existing gaps in knowledge and practice in Nepal. A prototype of “Happy Heart” is being pilot-tested among adolescents as a promising way for digital cardiovascular health promotion.

Games as a service is similar to software as a service, which provides players with game content on a continuous monetization model. Game revenue forecast is vital to game developers to make the right business decisions, such as determining the marketing budget, controlling the development cost, and setting up benchmarks for evaluating game publishing performance. How to make the revenue forecast and integrate it with the game publishing process is hard for small and medium-sized independent (indie) game developers. This includes all steps of the process, from forecasting to decision-making based on the results. This paper provides a data-driven method that uses the mobile game revenue forecast based on different time-series prediction models to drive the game publishing. We demonstrate how to use the data-driven method to guide an indie game studio to forecast revenue and then set the revenue forecast as the internal benchmark to drive game publishing. In practice, we involve a real game project from an indie game studio and provide guidance for one of their casual game projects. Then, based on the revenue forecast, we discuss how to set the revenue forecast as an internal benchmark and drive the actions for mobile game publishing. Finally, we make a conclusion on how our data-driven method can be used to drive mobile game publishing and also discuss future research work.

INTRODUCTION: Serious games is an effort to combine the engagement and motivation from games with some sort of utility beyond mere entertainment.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this paper is to revisit and analyse six projects to explore the design space for serious games and derive design guidelines for serious games.

METHODS: We analysed our project portfolio to identify a set of projects which satisfied well-established guidelines for design science research. By analysing these projects as well as their outcomes we generated a set of design principles for serious games.

RESULTS: The results from this study is a conceptualisation of the design space for serious games and seven design principles.

CONCLUSION: By explicating the game design component in serious games and relating it to the utility dimension we add to the understanding of the serious games from a game perspective, which is relevant to any development effort intending to use the persuasive and motivational power of games.

Games for health is one of the most prominent areas for serious games, i.e. games with a purpose beyond only entertainment. The purpose of a health game may be to inform about health related issues; promote healthy lifestyles and even to drive behavioral change. This paper outlines the initial game design considerations and some future research directions for a game focusing on cardiovascular health. As the overall aim of the project is to promote a healthy lifestyle through diet and physical activity to prevent future cardiovascular disease, we focused on “taking care of your heart” as the basis for the game. Hence we call the game Happy Heart and use a heart symbol as a non-playable character (NPC) that the player needs to take care of. To some extent we are inspired by the electronic Tamagochi toys (Bandai) where players need to take care of a digital pet. The heart symbol is universal and is also an ideograph that expresses the concept of love and as such it transcends language barriers.

The burden of non-communicable diseases (NCD) is rapidly increasing across the world. Today they are the main drivers of morbidity, disability, and mortality in low- and middle income countries (LMICs), and are expected to increase due to unhealthy lifestyles in the wake of ongoing societal changes [1]. Among the major risk factors in many LMICs are poor diet, insufficient physical activity, tobacco and alcohol consumption, and exposure to hazardous substances, e.g. from air pollution. LMICs currently contribute three quarters of the deaths from NCD.

Among the NCD, cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of hospitalization in Nepal [1]. Digitalization and collaboration with the education sector (e.g. community schools) in health promotion interventions could further improve children’s behavior by targeting factors that affect their lifestyle outside the family environment [4]. Hence, the Digital Game Based Learning approach.