Dear friends,

We have received 6 (six) entries for the Serious Games contest; they are now uploaded to Acknex Unlimited:

Acknex Unlimited Demo Page

Please download them, test them and then vote the best one. If the entries contain a readme text file, please read it. The poll will start accepting your votes in a few hours; I want to make sure that all the entries are OK.

Thank you!

What demo should win the 1st prize? single choice
Mooncraft by Willem Johannes Bender	13%, 3 Votes
Gamestudio Trivia by Willem Johannes Bender	0%, 0 Votes
Cue Ball by Willem Johannes Bender	9%, 2 Votes
Animals by Rene Pol aka Realspawn	26%, 6 Votes
Solar System by Rene Pol aka Realspawn	35%, 8 Votes
EProcurement by Jonas Freiknecht	17%, 4 Votes
Total Votes: 23 Voting on this poll ends: 12/25/12 12:00

Mooncraft does not work properly if you have a Commercial licence key, but when I replaced it with my old Extra licence key, it is perfect!!!

Sivan yes all my entrys made on free version , did i not mention that in readme files ? Doh! Sorry if i did not ,theres also something strange happening when i switch to fullscreen mode all physics stop working ,i have no idea why

282 views but 16 votes ?

I totally forgot that, sorry. I'll post later my reviews.

This review is in alphabetically order and I wrote my comments right after or while I played the particular contest entry. I tried to review the actually educational/serious-aspect of each game most, because this is what it is all about in this contest. If I critize something, this isn't meant as an offense but as a hint what you could have done better.

For my understanding Realspawn has captured the spirit of serious games most with Animals and Solarsystem. The EProcurement and Mooncraft demos have also a potential to transfer knowledge or the experience of a simulated environment to the player, but missed the accessability of information and game controls so that the game experience was totally broken which makes the player want to exit the game rather than to play the game. The EProcurement demo failed especially because it was an attempt to migrate the character of a lecture into a 3D world, which simply is a thing that doesn't work without utilizing the power of interactivity. Cue-Ball and Gamestudio trivia are quizzes; if Gamestudio trivia were actually about real Gamestudio trivia, it would have been fun, but in the end it wasn't, so thats for that. In the following you find more specific notes on each game.


Animals
The idea is simple and nice, the graphics are also very decent, given that the target group are kids. Have you drawn the animals by yourself? I think a small introduction is missing ("click on this knob and guess which animal it is") and a reward is missing at the end when you have guessed all 9 animals. Some of the animals were hard to recognize, like the lion and the bear. The butterflies are a really uplifting effect, but in return the music is very annoying. I could imagine that the music could distract a child and belittle it's concentration.


Cue-Ball
Putting a multiple choice quiz between two levels is a very simple way to put an educational factor into a game. But for a serious game it has to be more like that and it has to be the main element of the game. Learning by doing could be a solution. Asking "what is 1 + 1" is neither challenging nor entertaining and that is why your entry is very weak. Thinking in terms of "a game plus quizzes inbetween" can also be an argument for not playing a game, because the quiz breaks the game experience. Besides, the pool billard game is unplayable for me - I can hardly move the cue and can't hit the ball.


EProcurement Interactive Learning
E-Procurement is the purchase and sale of supplies, work, and services through the Internet. Given that background info, I expected something that is serious and targetted towards young professionals and/or trainees. In the Starter-Window, you can press the button "Open Text", which opens a readme written in German. Given that the starter and the setup are English, it would be better if you select the language in the Starter (German/English), make the app completely German or completely English. The same applies to the button "Open Podcase" and the played audio file. What is a Podcase? I only know the term Podcast. And in the game, the written and spoken text are also German. If you really wanted to gain a positive ranking in this contest, I would have translated everything.

What I like is that you show the "WASD+Mouse" panel at the start so that the user knows what to do. But I don't know how to activate objects.. I pressed E... didn't work. Ah, a mouse click works. But where do I have to go? If the camera would face the first person, I would know it. When he talks to me (he looks like Hitman.. not very comforting), he doesnt at least turn to me and I can walk away and do stuff. Because the voice comes from the off I feel a bit alone and not addressed. My point is even though I critize your controls and game mechanics apart from the educational factor, it must be important for you as a game designer to settle the player in a well known environment so that he is able to learn new things. If you decide to make a game to transfer your knowledge, your game must not violate well established basic rules.

For the educational part: it is very boring. Sorry about that. When I click on the hologram, he talks and talks and talks - and I have no subtitles. What if I want him to repeat the last sentence? And what if I have questions? Moving a learning situation into a game is a nice thing, but you should use the power wisely: if you would make him behave like a character in a RPG, like Skyrim, you could offer different dialogue options in which the user would be able to INTERACT with the speaker. That is why your attempt fails to carry knowledge: the player would have the possibility to make a selection process on the things you tell him, but you doesn't allow such things. Ultimately, it is only like a lecture - but even worse, because the player can't ask stuff. And you can't progress to the next room if you don't listen to the way too long spoken passages. I am sorry to say that, but this was a very bad design decision. Another thing what I dislike is the environment. It looks like a Doom level and not like an environment that supports the learning process. If you e.g. introduce into procurement, why don't let the player go into an office where people are actually working and you can ask what they do and in those dialogues you encapsulate the info. Or for room 2 in which you introduce into the difference of direct and indirect goods for production: you could build a factory hall in which Coke cans are actually manufactured. You could go around with a foreman who tells you about the process and what is needed to make a can - and these are direct goods --- he could even tell you jokes about the office jerks and what money they spend on things that aren't affecting production - which are indirect goods.

So, all in all I am bit disappointed with this entry not because of the contents, but because of the lost potential of placing the player in a interactive environment. It feels more like a lecture, but even more restrictive and boring. Sorry about that.


Gamestudio trivia
I hoped that this thing was a collection of fun facts and other interesting things about Gamestudio, JCL, it's history and other remarkable stuff. But unfortunately I was sorely disappointed. This quiz is a bit more entertaining than Cue-Ball, but not much. I don't know what educational purpose it has - because you need to know the stuff to solve the thing. Sure, that is the point of the game but what is serious about this. Besides, I found the formulations of the questions a bit strange. The programming of the letters is nicely done, but, hell, you scared me with the sound effect when you entered a correct answer. I don't like to be scared and even more if I am supposed to learn something.


Mooncraft
Mooncraft - cool name bro! And when I started it I though... what the heck is that? Ah, a simulation. When the "moon device" - whatever this is - falls down, it can't even stand there.. it overthrows, because the floor isn't a plane or something. And what should I do? I only see LOTS of text on the screen. Then, finally I found out which controls to use. Which are very very hard to use, actually. Where is the reset-button? The whole thing is nearly unplayable, the space-thing is turning around and doesn't stabilize so that I could manoveur correctly. I was finally able to grab another thing and shoot it - and that was the moment where I was done and quit the game. This was no fun, hard to control and I learned nothing.


Solarsystem
Beside the fact that you have obviously ripped a TV-documentary and use Star Trek music score in this demo (very very bad Realspawn ^^), I kinda like it. What you have done wrong is obviously the proportions of the planets, the spaceship, the distances - and in particular the planetary orbits around the sun --- Pluto for example is not in-plane with the orbits of the other planets and they are not all perfectly centered around the sun. You should have done this better. You could have put very much value in this demo buy letting the player travel to each planet and its moons and present some information there. You get a bonus point for "Regards, Admiral Realspawn" ;-)


Regards,
-Christian

Hey HeelX, thanks for reviewing all the games!

Concerning the EProcurement-Demo: I know, it is bad. Really bad. But it fits in the contest and that is why I handed it in. Unfortunately, my tool PresentationGS was not accepted since I contacted George too late. Next time there is more to expect from my side, I promise!

I really hope that the next contest is an "open for everything" contest so that more people are throwing in their stuff.

I agree with HeelX
...Or maybe a contest which doesn't give that specific rules.

thx for testing out our demo's

As a non coder it was for me nice to try create something people can use to learn from. So kids love the game and jup the music is annoying (Press M to cancel it) The drawings are royalty free so i did not draw them myself An instruction is still a good idea so i will add it. Kids seem to love it and it was my intention to create something that teaches younger children. In this case animals and there sound in a playfull and simple enviroment

You're right about the proportions but my goal was to show the solar system and in the second part the player can visit the planets. I will however change a lot in the future now i have time for it to create a master piece hahah thank you for testing and voting


About solar. My intention was to create a simple demo that shows our solar sytem and gives some explanation about the planet. I used voice sample i found on you tube but can always replace them later with my own voice and music. Due to the deadline i decided to send then entry as it is.