Sexually transgressive behaviour (STB) causes serious problems for, among others, students of higher education. The persuasive card game TALK THAT TALK was designed to promote ethical bystander behaviour in STB situa-tions and contribute to a social transition to less sexual violence. To this aim, the game facilitates Intergroup Dialogues between female and male players. A con-trolled experiment was conducted to evaluate the game. The outcome variables of the experiment were obtained from the literature: Willingness to Intervene, Awareness of prevalence of STB, and Bystander Responsibility. Quantitative and qualitative analyses, including validated questionnaires and semi-structured in-terviews, were employed to measure the game’s effects. Participants evaluated the quality of the game (session) and game experience positively and reported that meaningful intergroup dialogues about STB situations took place during the game session. As a result, in the experimental group a significant increase of the three outcome variables was observed, whereas in the control group a non-sig-nificant decrease was found. However, due to a selection bias in the recruitment of participants the effects were possibly overestimated. Reversely, a lack of prac-tical skills training in the game may have led to an underestimation of the effects. We concluded that the game TALK THAT TALK may promote ethical bystander behaviour in STB situations by facilitating an intergroup dialogue between fe-male and male participants. Future research should establish if the results can be generalised to a more representative sample of participants and if the game ef-fects may be improved when institutes for higher education include the game in large-scale intervention programmes against sexually transgressive behaviour.@en

In the field of forensic mental healthcare, forensic vigilance is an im-portant skill of healthcare professionals to deal with criminal behaviour of pa-tients. The facilitated, collaborative card game ROTBEESTEN?! was developed to motivate professionals to enrol in forensic vigilance training. A controlled ex-periment was conducted with professionals from a Dutch forensic mental healthcare facility to explore the potential of the motivator game. The control condition involved ‘treatment as usual’: an oral presentation followed by a group discussion. Questionnaires, interviews and observations were used to measure certain participant characteristics, the quality of the game, and the user experience in both conditions. Respondents expressed significantly higher pref-erences for active, experiential learning styles than for learning from theoretical sources. In addition, respondents evaluated the quality of the game positively. Finally, respondents reported significantly higher scores on four out of five di-mensions of (game) experience in the experimental condition than in the control condition. Limitations of the study include a low response rate to the post-questionnaires. As a result, the effects of both the game and presentation could not be established reliably. From the results, we may conclude that the game ROTBEESTEN?! was evaluated more positively and has more potential to moti-vate participants for follow-up training activities than ‘treatment as usual’ (an oral presentation). These findings are in line with the preferred learning styles reported. Games seem promising tools to motivate (healthcare) professionals to enrol in training activities. Future research will establish if indeed the game’s motivating effects exceed those of an oral presentation.@en

Policy of Multi-Actor Systems is an introduction into the art of craft of problem exploration and problem structuring. It positions policy analysis as a scientific discipline focused on systems analysis in a multi-actor context to support better informed decision-making. The approach presented in this book is considered to be the cornerstone of the curricula of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Delft University of Technology and underlies the research on (the governance of) socio-technical systems. Systems thinking applied in a multi-actor environment and its inherent multi-disciplinary character is what makes this work stand out from traditional hard- and soft systems approaches. The core of the book is dedicated to systems analysis, actor- or stakeholder-analysis and discusses methods for dealing with uncertainty. These analytical activities combined lead to a rich problem description and to plans for further research. Due to the stepwise approach this book serves as a basis for any problem analysis both for our bachelor and master students, our alumni worldwide and any interested practitioners.@en

Tabletop games that require the aid of a human facilitator are typically designed for a physical environment. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown measures prevented people from gathering. Therefore, tabletop games were sometimes played and facilitated in a mediated environment using online communication tools instead. But this setting possibly deteriorates the players’ game experience. To understand the effect of playing facilitated tabletop games in a mediated environment we measured the player experience of the game Cue Kitchen in a mixed-method study comparing physical and mediated game sessions. Forty-four players played eleven game sessions, three in a physical environment and eight in a mediated environment. Of all seven dimensions of game experience measured, only one differed significantly between the two experimental conditions: players in a mediated environment became significantly more tired than players in a physical environment. The qualitative results explained why: players in a physical setting can wander off, while players in an online setting have to stay focused on their screen and, therefore, grow more tired. The research results suggest that facilitated tabletop games may be played in a mediated environment instead of a physical environment, without significant loss of player experience.@en

Classical music venues in the Netherlands and throughout the world are struggling to attract new audiences. Especially younger visitors are underrepresented. Previous research emphasizes the importance of providing new, potentially interested audiences with more means to consume the music. This paper presents an exploratory case study with the persuasive game Listening Space which we developed to help attract new audiences and thus preserve Western classical music heritage. In particular, we studied to what extent this game could promote more varied ways of listening to classical music and thus enrich the experience of visiting a classical music concert. We designed and executed a controlled randomized trial with surveys before and after the experiment as well as a series of in-depth interviews with participants after the experiment. Our treatment group consisted of 139 participants (both new and existing visitors). They played our digital game at their own convenience, followed by a visit to a concert in a renowned classical music concert hall. A control group of 165 participants only visited the concerts. We measured the effects of the game - changes in the ways participants listen to classical music - through self-report in questionnaires before and after the experiment. Results show that Listening Space seems most effective for new audiences: the game promoted more varied ways of listening in the treatment group and thus enriched their experience of visiting a classical music concert. The control group of new visitors did not show an effect and also no differences were found between the treatment and control groups of regular visitors of classical music concerts We employed regression analysis to identify predictors of the game's effect on listening styles: participants' age and their level of appreciation of the classical music genre were negatively related to the effectiveness of the game. The way in which participants experienced the game also significantly influenced the effectiveness. This case study shows the potential of using games to promote classical music concerts: games seem to be valuable in attracting new, young audiences and, therefore, represent powerful instruments to help preserve Western classical music cultural heritage. @en

Background. To facilitate game sessions for purposes beyond mere entertainment a facilitator needs to act like an ‘Unseen Helmsman’: steering their ship clear from rocks and storms without the players in the ship realizing. Previous work laid down a competency model for game facilitation. It reviewed several competency models for facilitators of generic (non-game) group sessions. Since no such model comprehensively provided guidelines to facilitate game sessions in particular, a new competency model was proposed using a bottom-up approach with the participation of game facilitation experts. The question remains what lessons may be drawn from this model.

Methods. This contribution elaborates on the competency model for game facilitation and draws lessons from it. Thus it aims to empower both novice and experienced game facilitators to become an Unseen Helmsman. Also, it presents learnings for people who are experienced in facilitating groups in general, but who are new to facilitating game sessions.

Conclusions. First, lessons for novice game facilitators include familiarising themselves with the core notions of the competency model: the characteristics of a complex systems game (session), and the attitudes, knowledge, and skills for successful game facilitation. Second, experienced game facilitators may learn from existing competency models for generic (non-game) group facilitation. Third, facilitators of generic (non-game) group sessions are encouraged to study the characteristics of game sessions in addition to the specific competencies contained in the competency model for game facilitators.@en

Learning multi-cultural team competencies is important for engineering students to prepare for an increasingly global workspace. We evaluated the game BAFÁ BAFÁ with groups of Master students from varying engineering programmes using a mixed methods approach. The game experience of 118 participants was measured. These participants experienced the game overall positively, although difficulties to understand other players in the game triggered mild stress and confusion. 91respondents also completed questionnaires before and after the game about certain attitudes, skills, and values related to working with people from other cultures: willingness (attitude) and ability (skill) to understand those people; and appreciation (value) of working with them. We used paired t-tests and qualitative analysis to determine the game’s effectiveness: after playing the game the players’ willingness increased significantly (t(90) = 3.6, p=.001), but their ability to do so decreased significantly (t(90) = 3.3, p=.001) and their appreciation remained constant (t(90) = 1.3, p=.195). The qualitative responses supported our quantitative results: after playing the BAFÁ BAFÁ game, players were more willing to understand people from other cultures. Moreover, players had become more aware of their own shortcomings in understanding people from other cultures. Finally, the learning effects were likely not caused by a test effect, since the appreciation (value) of working with people from other cultures had not increased after playing the game. We concluded that the BAFÁ BAFÁ game is a powerful instrument to embark upon teaching multi-cultural team skills, and therefore, to train more culturally aware engineers.@en

Persuasive games for societal interventions aim to shape, reinforce
or change players’ attitudes and behavior to help solving complex societal
issues. In earlier work, we explored how persuasive game mechanics may
contribute to the formation of attitudes in persuasive games. As a follow-up, this paper presents four design recommendations that could increase the chance that these attitudes will actually lead to the desired behavior shown by players after the game: viz., these attitudes require the right conditions to become a predictor of the desired, post-game behavior.
In order to arrive at these recommendations we looked at relevant work from the field of social psychology. Next we linked our insights to the context of persuasive game design. This yielded four conceptual design recommendations for maximizing the likelihood for an attitude influenced by a persuasive game to result in the desired behavior in the real world;
1. aligning the degree of specification of a game’s message and the desired behavior
2. emphasizing the function of the attitude to be influenced
3. enabling players to reflect on their internal states
4. emphasizing personal relevance of an attitude to a behavioral choice
So far, these recommendations are still theoretical in nature. We therefore discuss how future work should empirically examine these, including their implications for the effective use of persuasive game mechanics. @en

This paper explores the context dependency of two popular persuasive game design principles in order to improve their effective implementation. Because of limited guidelines the choice and suitability of a persuasive game design principle is often based on a designer’s own intuition. To prevent the use of badly chosen design principles that can be counterproductive, other authors showed the importance of tailoring the persuasive game design principles to various gamer personalities. In this paper we aim to further explore the context dependency of persuasive game design principles and suggest how designers can take this into account when selecting and implementing these principles. Noticing the underexposed role of attitudes concerning persuasion through technology (including persuasive game design principles) we chose the Elaboration Likelihood Model as a framework for our exploration. Findings show different scenarios that describe how both persuasive game design principles can either enhance or reduce the motivation and/or ability of the player to elaborate on the persuasive message of the game. Although theoretical and explorative, this paper may form a starting point for further experimental research on the context dependency of persuasive game design principles in order to improve their effective implementation.@en

This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 48th International Simulation and Gaming Association Conference, ISAGA 2018, held in Delft, The Netherlands, in July 2018.
The 19 revised full papers included in the volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 27 submissions. The contributions to this book range from design thinking related to simulation gaming, the analysis of the consequences of design choices in games, to games for decision making, examples of games for business, climate change, maritime spatial planning, sustainable city development, supply chain, and much more.
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Global transportation knows many different modalities – goods arrive from far away places by ship, plane, railway, or truck. Airports and seaports both represent important nodes within the global transportation network. Both show distinct characteristics, but also similarities when it comes to challenges like required flexibility, robustness, reliability and situational awareness of the stakeholders involved. In this article, we introduce two different simulation games addressing some of these challenges in two complex transportation nodes and discuss the qualitative results of user tests with the games. Within a comparative section, we show how simulation games can be used to address the challenges of multimodal transportation.@en

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