Serious Game Production Methods for Online Success

1. Serious game design is a team sport. Your team might include members with some combination of these skills and more: C programming, JavaScript writing, art, instructional design, animation, story writing, and database programming. Few organizations find it easier or more efficient to “go it alone,” so finding the right partner to provide the talents and expertise to round out your team is critical.

2. You will need both learning and game design expertise for your project.

3. Game designers and learning designers have each developed distinct workflows. To overcome differences, project teams will want to create:

   a. A plan of record for the project that documents all design and development decisions; this living document should be a resource to the entire team throughout the project

   b. A common project lexicon

   c. A process diagram and that will guide the project team in their work; game designers and learning designers must negotiate a process that reflects the needs of their respective disciplines

Serious games do not exist in a vacuum but are part of a course, curriculum, or larger learning experience. Learning designers must plan for easy and natural integration of a serious game into the overall learning design. Most especially, learning designs must include a plan for learning transference from the game back to the greater learning plan or to the workplace.

Successful production and marketing of a serious game can also depend on matching the technology of your production team and the players' systems.

some IT departments will shut down a project that uses technologies not already on the “approved” list. To mitigate against any such interruption or derailment, serious games projects are well-advised to select broadly adopted content creation and distribution tools, such as Adobe Flash (97% market penetration), Adobe Acrobat® (89% market penetration), and Adobe Director and Adobe Shockwave Player (56% market penetration and growing).

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