Development of a distributed construction project management game with COTS in the loop

Simulation games are effective tools for training and interactive learning but require significant development effort. A Construction project management game has been developed to provide an interactive simulation environment to assist in construction project management learning. The objective of this game is to help users understand the effects of their resource allocation decisions on project time and cost performance. A distributed approach using High Level Architecture (HLA) has been used in developing this game. The game federation consists of four federates (Progress simulator, Resources simulator, Controller, and User Interface). A Commercial-Of-The-Shelf (COTS) application “Microsoft project 2007®” is used as the main user interface for this game. The use of a common COTS reduces the effort needed for building a dedicated graphical interface from scratch and provide a familiar interface for users. This paper describes the development process of this game, potential use, and future extensions.