Science and Gaming
NEWTowards Human-Game Interaction (HGI)
Botte, B.; Marinensi, G.; de Rosa, F.; Rizzi, A.
Games and Learning Alliance (GALA 2025), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 16307, Springer02 January 2026As serious games, as well as entertainment games, evolve along a continuum ranging from analog to digital, including hybrid solutions, the design and role of game interfaces have become increasingly...
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Jjodel for Serious Games: A Metamodel-Driven Vision for Assisted Game Design
Bucchiarone, A.; de Rosa, F.; Pierantonio, A.
Games and Learning Alliance (GALA 2025), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 16307, Springer02 January 2026Serious games are a powerful way to explore complex problems and promote critical thinking and decision-making in uncertainty. However, designing such games remains a challenge, particularly when integrating...
The AMR Knowledge Space Game: participatory modeling to address the complexity of antimicrobial resistance
F. de Rosa, A. Wilson, V. Seremedi Migliorini, R. Bright
Scientific Reports05 December 2025Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an urgent and complex global health threat, widely recognized as a silent pandemic that erodes the effectiveness of existing countermeasures and exacerbates...
Transdisciplinarity in Serious Gaming Design for Improved Crisis Preparedness
de Rosa, F.; Escott, M.; Havron, D.; Walkes, D.; Meyers, L. A.
International Journal of Serious Games, 11(4), 155–17221 November 2024Transdisciplinarity is identified as an important paradigm to cope with the complexity of societal problems, such as public health crisis and climate change. It refers to problem solving and research strategies that...
The C3C Game: Serious Games and Community-Centered Design for Improved Pandemic Decision Making
de Rosa, F.; Escott, M.; Havron, D.; Walkes, D.; Meyers, L. A.
Games and Learning Alliance (GALA 2023), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 14475, Springer29 November 2023Serious games have long been used in domains like defense, management, finance, and environmental protection to improve plans and procedures. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health and emergency...
Finding Mechanisms to Build Analog Games for Spatial Planning and City Building
Micael Sousa
2025 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)19 August 2025Many simulations and serious games use territorial elements to deepen the representation of scenarios. This paper explores the mechanisms that analog games use to represent territorial elements, identifying patterns that can support the development of new games that are more engaging and better represent scenarios. The paper provides a practical guide for consultation for serious game designers working on analog, digital, and hybrid games.
CSSII: A Player Motivation Model for Tabletop Games
Carlos Martinho, Micael Sousa
FDG 2023: Foundations of Digital Games 202313-04-2023The paper proposes a model with 5 dimensions characterizing the main motivations to play tabletop games that explains 80% of the variance of the data: (C)ompetitive interaction, (S)ocial challenge, (S)ensory experience, (I)ntellectual challenge, and (I)maginative experience. By understanding why players engage with tabletop games in their physical form, the paper provides guidance on what to focus on to make games more engaging and proposes guidelines for developing hybrid or digital versions of these games, as well as serious games.
Transformative Learning Through Play: Analogue Games as Vehicles for Educational Innovation
Sara Rye, Micael Sousa, Carla Sousa
Plagrave Macmilan / Springer2025This book explores analog game-based learning, arguing that traditional educational methods fall short in a complex world and that games can foster collective problem-solving. It traces the historical roots of analog and tangible games, examines their psychological impact on cognition, motivation, and skill transfer, and offers practical guidance on learning game design. One chapter, authored by Micael Sousa, introduces serious game development for educational purposes, providing frameworks and support tools for practicing the craft of applying, adapting, and developing such games. The book closes by championing inclusive, accessible design and the ethical importance of diverse learning environments, appealing to researchers and practitioners across education, instructional design, psychology, and game studies.
NEWMACMEO: Playable Framework for Analog, Hybrid and Digital Serious Game Design
Micael Sousa
International Journal of Serious Games16 May 2025The paper proposes the MACMEO framework, developed as a research design process across several sessions, as a flexible, adaptable, gamified analog toolkit to help design analog, hybrid, or digital serious games through a structured process. The paper presents a ready-to-use gamified process for developing serious games.