Tool Acknowledgement: This text was revised with the help of writing tools such as: Grammarly, DeepL & ChatGPT
Foreword
This article summarizes my master’s thesis on design guidelines for serious board games, offering an easy-to-read overview. The full thesis is available on ResearchGate for those interested in a deeper dive.
Research Topic
Serious games, games designed primarily for education rather than entertainment, are becoming popular across various industries (Military, Healthcare, …). While there’s some literature on their effectiveness, these games are often used experimentally and not fully integrated into regular use. My research zooms in on serious board games, a niche area with limited documentation, making it an ideal focus for my study.
Research Focus
As a game designer, I was particularly interested in the game design process of serious board games and trying to tie it in with documentation. Some framworks already exist, however existing frameworks are mostly iteration cycles that offer only a few specific design tips.
Conversations with experts revealed a gap in documenting their design processes in a way that’s broadly applicable. This led me to investigate: What criteria do experts consider important when it comes to design guidelines for serious board games?
Methodology
To answer this, I interviewed serious board game experts using a method called Q-sorting. Participants ranked various design criteria on cards, allowing me to analyse their opinions statistically. The process was done twice for each participant: once for game design elements (content criteria) and once for guideline structure (meta-criteria). They could also suggest additional criteria, providing further insights.
Participants
Due to time and budget constraints, I could only gather eight participants, all from my supervisors’ and my personal network. While the sample size is small, it was enough to begin identifying preferences.
Findings
The study, while limited, offers some insights:
- For serious board games: Experts prioritized social elements and the player’s core experience over the “fun factor,” which was surprisingly less critical for educational purposes.
- For design guidelines: Participants emphasized the importance of guidelines being practical and clearly outlining their scope, limitations and use case. Interestingly, they preferred guidelines validated by their practical use rather than through academic studies.
Want to read more?
This article offers a short overview of my research over the past year. For detailed data and analysis, I encourage you to read my full thesis, especially the methodology and data chapters.