Conclusion

This book has attempted to stress the importance of storytelling in the creation of serious games and simulations, while still recognizing principles of good gameplay and effective pedagogy. We have surveyed media and platform selection, and offered some tips on production and asset usage. Of course, numerous books and websites explore these topics in greater detail and specificity.

Our primary effort has been to use the specific examples from our own experiences in the trenches, to identify strategies for marrying story narrative to learning objectives in order to bring greater authenticity and excitement to the world of serious games and simulations.

Just as the motion picture at the dawn of the 20th century invited educators to take advantage of the new medium, so too should Serious Games and immersive simulation environments invite 21st-century educators to answer the growing pedagogical needs of our diverse global society.

The US Army, with its tremendous training requirements, has once again paved the way in developing technology that can also serve the principles of the private sector and other government agencies. We hope that sharing our experiences with developing military simulations and serious games can benefit those developing such training material for crisis decision making, cultural awareness and understanding, and interpersonal management and teambuilding. The Army’s collaboration with Hollywood and the academic community has brought a new dimension to tasks that once were only learned through the use of workbooks and lectures.

If stories teach us how to live, then combining them with our strongest instructional technologies can lead to greater global understanding and the ability to confront the challenges we know face us in the decades ahead.