The participatory design of a simulation training game

Serious games show to have positive impact on training results. Advantages of simulation games lay in the provision of a safe training environment, where users are able to play, test and probe without serious consequences. At the same time, it is important to engage learners by providing a motivating, challenging environment, which becomes meaningful to the player when skills and knowledge acquired within the game are transferrable to real work tasks. With the use of a participatory game design approach, we developed an immersive, meaningful virtual training environment to improve situational awareness skills. Feedback of game developers as well as from test groups shows that the participatory approach to game development lead to a meaningful experience within an authentic virtual training environment. High functional and physical fidelity, a high degree of realism, compared with challenging game elements makes the developed serious game an appropriate training tool for situational awareness skills.