The facilitation of game sessions is an endeavor that requires specific competencies. A game facilitator needs to be an ‘unseen helmsman’ steering his/her ship of game players clear from rocks and storms without the players realizing. However, the competencies required for game facilitation are somewhat shrouded in mystery. In the past, several competency models have been developed for facilitators of generic group sessions. However, among facilitators of simulation game it is assumed that facilitating gaming sessions requires additional competencies. Currently, there exists no model that comprehensively outlines the competencies needed to facilitate a simulation game in particular. In our study we determined what makes facilitating a simulation game stand out with respect to generic group facilitation. Then we performed both a top-down literature review and a bottom-up, participatory study to propose a competency model for game facilitation. In the former we investigated several existing competency models for generic group facilitation. In the latter, we guided a group of game facilitation experts through a four-step process to identify competencies. First we asked the group to identify skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are needed to facilitate a simulation game. Second, the results were analyzed by another group of experts and submitted to, third, a hierarchical cluster analysis and, fourth, a ‘labelling game’ to identify competencies. We compared the outcomes of the top-down and bottom-up studies to draw conclusions. We found that although some competencies from the literature on generic group facilitation are valuable for game facilitation as well, others are not applicable in a game facilitation@en

This study investigates whether a system of hub locations distributing goods across the water to the city of Amsterdam can be a potential future solution to guarantee same-day delivery to shopkeepers. A simulation model was developed to analyse the logistics performances and to optimise the number of hub locations and required fleet size. The simulation tests have shown that two hub locations are sufficient when they are equipped with two vessels. Conclusion of this study is that a waterborne city logistics concept with a small number of hub locations can compete with truck deliverance and seems to be a sustainable solution for other cities with large canals as well.@en

Richard Wagner’s Parsifal was recently rewritten and performed as a‘game opera’.We used observations, questionnaires, and interviews to study howthe 700+ audience were facilitated to experientially learn about the show’s mainthemes: compassion and collaboration. This case study contributed to ourunderstanding how performance art may improve games for learning and trainingpurposes, many of which now are notoriously ‘boring’. We concluded thatperformance art’s main contribution, in particular to games discussing fundamentalvalues such as compassion, is to captivate players and ‘lure’ them intotheir natural behaviour. Thus the Parsifal game opera emotionally confronted itsaudience with their – callous and selfish – behaviour and intensified their learningthrough embodied experiences. However, some players lacked time and supportto (collectively) reflect on their experiences and lacked catharsis. Therefore, werecommend using gameful performance art for learning and training purposes,provided that all activities in experiential learning are sufficiently facilitated.@en

Every 2 to 7 years, Kenya experiences a reoccurrence of El-Niño rains leading to loss of life and massive damage to property. The 1997/98 El-Niño floods affected 1.5 million persons and led to an estimated USD 1.2 billion infrastructural damage, USD 236 million agricultural damage and USD 9 million on other losses (property, soil erosion, pollution). Recent rains in October 2015 to January 2016 left 112 Kenyans dead and over 100,000 internally displaced. The Kenyan Government predictions indicate that the number of affected persons will be approximately 1,500,000, before 2018. Despite the numerous exposures to floods, Kenyan communities' resilience to floods risks is weak. Traditional crisis management approaches have not been successful in enhancing citizen capacity in flood prevention and preparedness. In addition, the past flood forecasts have not played a key role, as early warning advisories. To address these complexities, we propose a location-based game so as to create a positive learning environment and increase territory awareness, collaboration and soft skills, which are necessary for flood preparedness. Moreover, through playing the game, we hope that social learning for joint action will be enhanced. The game is known as "MAFURIKO" which is a Swahili word for floods. Through MAFURIKO, the citizens may learn basic flood prevention and preparedness procedures, may begin to see their predicament differently and may also identify opportunities which remain untapped. In this paper, we outline a theoretical framework and preliminary MAFURIKO game design specifications for the Nzoia sub-basin of the Lake Victoria Basin, in Kenya. MAFURIKO is intended to enhance the capacity of Kenyan citizens on flood risk reduction, so that they can work with the Kenyan Government to prevent and prepare for future floods. Future work will entail completion, staging and application of the location based game.

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Theatrical art and games can mutually benefit each other. In a recent project we explored this proposition. On the one hand, we added game elements to a classical opera performance. The resulting ‘Parsifal the game’ was performed six times for altogether over 400 spectators/players. On the other hand, we investigated how user experiences in simulation games could benefit from an artistic space in which they are played. We studied how our production encouraged its plaudience (a conflation of the words players and audience) to experience and reflect upon themes such as compassion, sustainable societies, competition, and collaboration. From our work we derived lessons about how our blend of theatre and games may evolve into a new genre of interactive storytelling. Mainly, we learned that the performance had transformed from a space for passively digesting a story into a gameful event for active co-creation of embodied experiences and meaning. Artistic concepts and game-elements strengthened each other to create an immersive environment to experience challenges and pitfalls, but also to collaboratively design new futures. We aim to continue our journey and develop a framework for scientific and artistic research to further this new genre. In our talk we will discuss our expectations when we started our journey, the obstacles and rapids we encountered on our way, the resulting opera-game, and performances. Finally, we discuss future possibilities, challenges and pitfalls in developing this genre.@en

Parsifal Playingfields – The Garden is an theatrical installation that invites its audience to re ect upon the role of compassion and their own role in the transition towards a sustainable society. As part of the encompassing Parsifal Playingfields project, Parsifal Playingfield (The Garden) discusses a contemporary, transmedial adaptation of Wagner’s masterpiece Parsifal. It complements the other pillars in the Parsifal Playingfelds project: a theatrical adaptation of the original play (including an opera-game interpretation of part 2) and a flanking city game for inhabitants of the cities where the performance takes place. In 2014 and 2015, the Parsifal Playingfields project featured in the Rotterdam International Opera Festival. In 2016 the performance will serve as the opening act of this festival. Using interactive, digital and analogue media, Parsifal Playingfields first fragments the original Wagner opera and second re-fragments it as a new form of theatrical and gameful storytelling that encourages co-creation of embodied experiences and meaning among the members in the audience. The makers aim to explore a whole new dimension of the existing practice and theory of theatrical storytelling, by leveraging upon the world of inter-disciplinary, transmedial games. The resulting new genre not just provides its audience with a means for analysis and contemplation, but also with a shared, mixed-reality space for design and development of stories and artefacts. It thus appeals to man’s abilities, instead of its inabilities and provides an attractive, positive, artistic environment for human engagement.@en