8. The QUARTIC Process Model for Developing Serious Games: ‘Green My Place’ Case Study

Software engineering for pedagogy and game design for entertainment produce very different requirements and generate unique kinds of practical difficulties. The design and development of serious games relies heavily on the experience of practitioners to overcome the pitfalls inherent in joining these two distinct processes into one, but experience in tackling these problems is not widespread. This creates a requirement for a process model to guide any development of integrated game-like and education-like elements, helping to manage risk in areas of hidden difficulty such as tightly integrating the mechanics of play with the formal pedagogy. This paper presents a process model for developing contextualized educational games. Parallel streams of pedagogy and game development are married to streamline the process of deriving appropriate educational games from client requirements. The process model is illustrated in action using the case of Green My Place, a serious game developed as part of the SAVE ENERGY EU project to teach energy efficient knowledge and behaviour to users of public buildings around Europe. Our evaluation highlights the positive outcome of the project and the functioning of the serious game; this evidence also suggests a positive benefit from using the model.