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Managing passenger information during disruption (PIDD) is a significant factor in running effective and quick-to-recover rail operations. Disruptions are unpredictable, and their timely resolution is ultimately dependent on the expert knowledge of experienced frontline staff. The development of frontline employees by their employers usually takes the form of practice reviews and 'on-the-job' learning, while academic education majors on theoretical approaches and classroom-based teaching. This paper reports on a novel industry-funded project that has developed a serious game (the 'Rail Disruption Game') that combines theory and practice to better manage PIDD for frontline staff in a UK train operating company (TOC). It defines challenges and the development method for the Rail Disruption Game; it also incorporates developer and user feedback. This paper provides insight into how to design, make and deploy a serious game as part of a gamified management process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A serious game is a type of game that is designed for a primary purpose other than entertainment. Instead, serious games are intended to achieve specific goals, such as education, training, or health promotion. The goal of serious games is to engage players in a way that is both enjoyable and effective in achieving the intended learning or behavior change outcomes. Recently, several systematic reviews on the development and application of serious games and on the application of gamification techniques have been published, which indicate high activity and ongoing progress in this area of research. Such an extensive body of review papers raises the need to analyze and extract the current state and the prevailing trends of the serious games and gamification (SGG) domain by analyzing and summarizing the systematic review articles. This study presents a systematic meta-review, i.e., a review of the 53 survey papers on the domain of serious games and gamification. The systematic review follows the PRISMA guidelines, while constructive and cross-sectional methods are used to analyze and present the results. Finally, this study identifies the future trends and challenges for the domain. As a result, the meta-review helps the reader to quickly assess the present status of SGG and serves as a reference for finding further information on each technology utilized in SGG. Using the criterion of the citations, the meta-review analysis provides insight into the quantity and academic relevance of the published SGG articles. Moreover, 53 articles published in journals were selected as important surveys in the research field. The study found that serious games and gamification techniques are increasingly being used for a wide range of health conditions and the focus is shifting towards the use of mobile and digital platforms, virtual reality, and machine learning to personalize and adapt interventions. The existing research gaps include the lack of standardization in development and evaluation, insufficient understanding of underlying mechanisms of action, limited understanding of integration into existing healthcare systems, limited understanding of specific game mechanics and design elements for promoting health behaviors, and limited research on scalability, adoption, and long-term effects. These research gaps highlight the need for further research to fully understand the potential and limitations of serious games and gamification for health and how to effectively apply them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feedback is a critical aspect of optimised learning design, but there are few, if any, feedback models that map different types of feedback and how they may assist students to increase performance and enhance their learning experience. This research paper outlines a feedback model as an extension of the four-dimensional framework which includes a consideration of the type, the content, the format, and the frequency of feedback, as well as the agent which delivers it. This model is based upon an understanding of learning in the context of designing learning experiences and utilises a game-based model of learning to understand the importance of motivation and autonomy in learners to enhance and accelerate learning. The framework is developed and reflected upon by analysing two cases: a medical triage case in which the timing and frequency of feedback proved critical, and a business simulation which illuminated the need for a range of types of feedback and to be aware of the possibility of different agents (instructor peer and game) that can deliver feedback. The extended model may help game and learning designers alike to discern different types of feedback, both in games and more generally, in more explicit and nuanced ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, there has been a significant increase in the adoption of game-based interventions for behaviour change associated with many fields such as health, education, and psychology. This is due to the significance of the players' intrinsic motivation that is naturally generated to play games and the substantial impact they can have on players. Many review papers measure the effectiveness of the use of gaming on changing behaviours; however, these studies neglect the game features involved in the game design process, which have an impact of stimulating behaviour change. Therefore, this paper aimed to identify game design mechanics and features that are reported to commonly influence behaviour change during and/or after the interventions. This paper identified key theories of behaviour change that inform the game design process, providing insights that can be adopted by game designers for informing considerations on the use of game features for moderating behaviour in their own games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loss of motivation is one of the most prominent concerns in programming education as it negatively impacts time dedicated to practice, which is crucial for novice programmers. Of the distinct techniques introduced in the literature to engage students, gamification, is likely the most widely explored and fruitful. Game elements that intrinsically motivate students, such as graphical feedback and game-thinking, reveal more reliable long-term positive effects, but those involve significant development effort. This paper proposes a game-based assessment environment for programming challenges, built on top of a specialized framework, in which students develop a program to control the player, henceforth called Software Agent (SA). During the coding phase, students can resort to the graphical feedback demonstrating how the game unfolds to improve their programs and complete the proposed tasks. This environment also promotes competition through competitive evaluation and tournaments among SAs, optionally organized at the end by the teacher. Moreover, the validation of the effectiveness of Asura in increasing undergraduate students' motivation and, consequently, the practice of programming is reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different types of rewards are applied in persuasive games to encourage play persistence of its users and facilitate the achievement of desired real-world goals, such as behavioral change. Persuasive games have successfully been applied in mental healthcare and may hold potential for different types of patients. However, we question to what extent game-based rewards are suitable in a persuasive game design for a substance dependence therapy context, as people with substance-related disorders show decreased sensitivity to natural rewards, which may result in different responses to commonly applied game rewards compared to people without substance use disorders. In a within-subject experiment with 20 substance dependent and 25 non-dependent participants, we examined whether play persistence and reward evaluation differed between the two groups. Results showed that in contrast to our expectations, substance dependent participants were more motivated by the types of rewards compared to non-substance dependent participants. Participants evaluated monetary rewards more positively than playing for virtual points or social rewards. We conclude this paper with design implications of game-based rewards in persuasive games for mental healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]