Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Stevinweg 1, Delft 2628 CN, The Netherlands.
Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management, Delft University of Technology, Building 31, Jaffalaan 5, Delft 2628 BX, The Netherlands.
Water Res. 2022 May 15;215:118217. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2022.118217. Epub 2022 Feb 22.
Urban water management (UWM) is a complex problem characterized by multiple alternatives, conflicting objectives, and multiple uncertainties about key drivers like climate change, population growth, and increasing urbanization. Serious games are becoming a popular means to support decision-makers who are responsible for the planning and management of urban water systems. This is evident in the increasing number of articles about serious games in recent years. However, the effectiveness of these games in improving decision-making and the quality of their design and evaluation approaches remains unclear. To understand this better, in this paper, we identified 41 serious games covering the urban water cycle. Of these games, 15 were shortlisted for a detailed review. By using common rational decision-making and game design phases from literature, we evaluated and mapped how the shortlisted games contribute to these phases. Our research shows that current serious game applications have multiple limitations: lack of focus on executing the initial phases of decision-making, limited use of storytelling and adaptive game elements, use of low-quality evaluation design and explicit indicators to measure game outcomes, and lastly, lack of attention to cognitive processes of players playing the game. Addressing these limitations is critical for advancing purposeful game design supporting UWM.
城市水管理（UWM）是一个复杂的问题，其特点是有多种选择、目标相互冲突，以及对气候变化、人口增长和城市化加速等关键驱动因素存在多种不确定性。严肃游戏正成为支持负责城市水系统规划和管理的决策者的一种流行手段。近年来，有关严肃游戏的文章数量不断增加，就证明了这一点。然而，这些游戏在改善决策方面的有效性，以及其设计和评估方法的质量如何，仍然不清楚。为了更好地理解这一点，在本文中，我们确定了 41 个涵盖城市水循环的严肃游戏。在这些游戏中，有 15 个被选为详细审查。我们使用文献中常见的理性决策和游戏设计阶段，评估并绘制了这些被选中的游戏如何为这些阶段做出贡献。我们的研究表明，当前严肃游戏应用存在多个局限性：缺乏对决策初始阶段的关注，对讲故事和自适应游戏元素的使用有限，使用低质量的评估设计和明确的指标来衡量游戏结果，最后，对玩家玩游戏的认知过程缺乏关注。解决这些局限性对于推进支持 UWM 的有目的的游戏设计至关重要。
