1. Underground: train surgeons in a risk-free environment

Practice makes perfect. However, in some professions, practising skills does not come easy. For surgical training, it’s impossible to practice on patients due to the risk of complications that would bring. So traditional surgical training methods make use of simulators. However, these simulators are expensive and not engaging.

The University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG) noticed these simulators weren’t used often enough by trainee surgeons. On the other hand: the surgeons enjoyed playing games on their smartphones during their breaks. What if the simulator is transformed into an experience as exciting as Angry Birds?

Objective: to make training for surgeons as fun as Angry Birds

The UMCG and Grendel Games developed the game Underground. In an exciting world, the surgeons play Sari, a brave girl who must free her robot friend Sw4nk from the mines. With a customised laparoscopic controller, the surgeons must complete challenges that simultaneously train their motor skills.

The results of Underground

The implementation of Underground has brought many advantages for both UMCG and the trainee surgeons:

• For the hospital, a serious game is much more affordable than a simulator;
• Surgeons practise more often and therefore, are better prepared;
• Underground’s risk-free training environment and challenging storyline reduce performance pressure – players have a great time while practising;
• The effects of the game are

The serious game ‘Underground’ won the Dutch Game Award twice and has been proclaimed by Forbes as a ‘game that can change the world’.

2. Sea Hero Quest: effective dementia research

‘Sea Hero Quest’ is not just another game on your smartphone. Developed by ‘Deutsche Telekom Alzheimer’s Research UK’ and game developer ‘Glitchers’, it collects invaluable data for dementia research.

Objective: large-scale data collection

While you sail through winding canals in a boat on your way to the next checkpoint, the game is observing your performance. Sea Hero Quest uses a clever technique measuring your navigation abilities, which are among the first skills affected by dementia.

The collected data is used to better understand what ‘standard navigational skills’ are by establishing a baseline. From this baseline, researchers can see when someone’s navigation skills fall below average, which can indicate the onset of dementia.

The results of Sea Hero Quest

Sea Hero Quest has provided researchers with a wealth of data, unveiling early signs of dementia and shedding light on gender differences in navigation skills. Its gamified approach to data collection has proven to be both effective and engaging, with millions of players contributing to scientific research simply by playing the game.

3. Water Battle: safe water by helping cute creatures

Vitens, a water company, developed Water Battle to encourage water conservation in a fun and engaging way. The game involves whimsical water creatures and engages schoolchildren and residents of Leeuwarden to reduce water consumption.

In Water Battle, whimsical water creatures inhabit the water network of Leeuwarden. Their tiny homes frequently flood due to the excessive water consumption by the city’s residents. Schoolchildren join forces with citizens to help save the creatures’ home while learning about water and energy. Citizens can support children by spreading and measuring their water usage through a smart meter and app. As they adjust their behaviour, the water creatures are faced with less flooding.

The results of Water Battle

147 children participated in the pilot project. This led to an average water consumption reduction of 7%. This would save 2.500 litres of water per household per year. Top 10 players reduced their consumption by an impressive 25%.

Water Battle received 3 awards for its innovative and engaging approach to water reduction.

4. EndeavorRX: a video game as a treatment for ADHD

When thinking of medicine, you’re likely to think of pills. American company Akili has proven serious games can function as medicine just as well. After six years of scientific research, they developed the first FDA-approved game to treat children with ADHD: EndeavorRX.

The results of EndeavorRX

EndeavorRX challenges children to fly a craft through obstacle courses, where they must dodge obstacles while collecting rewards. According to research, the game helps improve attention and concentration in one-third of the participating children with ADHD. Additionally, as many as half of the parents reported a positive change in their child.

5. Reducept: reduce chronic pain with virtual reality

When people experience chronic pain, their body continuously sends pain signals to their brain even when it’s not necessary.

Together with Margryt Fennema, health scientist and digital healthcare innovator, and Louis Zantema, medical psychologist, Grendel Games developed a serious game to help patients understand and learn to cope with their pain: Reducept.

The results of Reducept

Virtual reality plays a significant role in Reducept, winner of a World Summit Award. It enables patients to become more aware of the source of their pain. The game also helps patients understand how to manage and reduce their pain through by learning about virtual reality, pain and psychology. Results from Reducept show that patients who play the game experience a significant reduction in chronic pain.

Serious games: endless possibilties!

Since the first attempt 200 years ago, serious games have become incredibly successful. Through research and technological advancements, the possibilities are endless. Serious games have made a significant impact on the world.

When developing a serious game, we combine the best of both worlds: the power of research and our expertise in game development. This combination enables us to make games that are entertaining and effective in accomplishing their goals. In other words: training through gaming. Read here how we do it.

The idea for this math game was developed by Ate de Boer and Marjon Huisman of Rekengames B.V., inspired by the ‘Rekenmuurtje’ (Math Wall) method. The Math Wall organizes exercises into layers, or ‘bricks,’ where each layer builds on the one below. Children focus on strengthening their understanding of the foundational layers before moving on to more complex challenges. Skipping steps can lead to difficulties with advanced exercises, making this step-by-step approach essential.

An Evidence-Based Learning Method

The Math Wall technique was developed by education experts Wolter Danhof and Piet Bandstra to support children who struggle with arithmetic. Both experts played an integral role in creating the educational foundation for Garfield’s Count Me In.

Track Progress in Real Time

While children enjoy the game, parents and teachers can monitor their progress through an intuitive dashboard. Teachers can review performance at both the class and individual levels, while parents can track their child’s achievements in detail.

The Story

Garfield’s friends have been captured by mischievous space dogs! Determined to save them, Garfield hops into his spaceship and heads to the planet where his friends are held captive. There, he encounters curious creatures with numbers on their bellies. Garfield discovers that solving math problems with the help of these creatures brings him closer to rescuing his friends.

Personalized Learning for Every Child

Every child learns differently, and the game adjusts to match the player’s unique pace and skill level. As they improve, they’re introduced to new planets with fresh challenges and slightly more difficult exercises. Each planet offers exciting math puzzles, and the level of difficulty increases gradually. The game is won when all planets are explored, and all of Garfield’s friends are safely rescued.

Collaborative Development

Garfield’s Count Me In was created by Grendel Games in collaboration with educational advisors Wolter Danhof and Piet Bandstra. The game was commissioned by Rekengames B.V., and Grendel Games is officially licensed to use the Garfield character, making learning both effective and entertaining.

Awards

Garfields Count me gained a Silver Award in 2018 at the Inernational Serious Play Congress

Availability

Garfields count me in underwent a visual redesign for the publisher Lexima and is now available in Dutch as Rekenheld.

https://lexima.nl/programma/rekenheld

But Gryphon Rider is the opposite of boring! This game was specifically designed for young clients rehabilitating after Acquired Brain Injury (ABI), who have to perform multiple balance exercises. Young clients can play the game at the rehabilitation centre and at home with family members or friends. The technology behind Gryphon Rider automatically keeps track of all the data, giving the rehabilitation therapist insight into the client’s rehabilitation process.

How does Gryphon Rider work?

Gryphon Rider transports players into beautifully designed worlds. The game is just as appealing and challenging as other high-quality entertainment games. Riding on the back of a Gryphon, the player goes on an adventure in an enthralling fantasy world. The children operate the game by moving their body. For example, they steer the Gryphon by leaning to the left or right. The client’s movements are captured by a Kinect (a camera that detects movement, linked to a gaming console). The Kinect measures the client’s movements and translates them inside the game into instructions for the Gryphon.

Anyone can play Gryphon Rider

Clients can play Gryphon Rider at the rehabilitation centre or at home. The game can automatically perform any arm, leg or balance function a child is not (yet) capable of, enabling anyone to play the game. This means the client can also discover the amazing world of Gryphon Rider together with family members and friends.

“Gryphon Rider can be customized for every individual client.”

Maaike Brienne, therapist at rehabilitation centre RMC Groot Klimmendaal

Gryphon Rider: customized for individual clients

Every rehabilitation process is unique. That’s why the skills in the various components of the game can be set beforehand to the appropriate level for the client. The pace of rehabilitation can be adjusted too. After a client has played Gryphon Rider, they can save the game and continue next time at the level they previously reached. This flexibility makes Gryphon Rider suitable for all clients of all levels.

Data collection during the game, locally and remotely

While the young client enjoys playing the game, the Kinect detects their movements and pose. These data are automatically processed into graphs. This enables the therapist to supervise and direct the client while they play. If the client plays Gryphon Rider at home, the therapist can follow the rehabilitation remotely and determine whether the client needs to come to the clinic for extra supervision.

Gryphon Rider Partners

The game was designed as a result of requests from and in collaboration with rehabilitation professionals. The staff at Grendel Games know how to build appealing, exciting games, but they’re not rehabilitation specialists. That’s why we asked rehabilitation professionals as well as rehabilitation clients to assist in the development of Gryphon Rider. Their expertise gives the game content and ensures the rehabilitation is effective. Our additional partners who were involved in the development, funding and ultimate realization of Gryphon Rider:

Project goal

Reduce pain intensity by at least 30% for Dutch adult chronic pain patients who have used the game, for a period of 6 months after they use the game

Reducept

A journey through the body

Reducept is a serious game designed for patients to help manage their chronic pain as well as educate them on how pain originates. By providing this unique combination of gaming and education, patients are more able to manage their chronic pain, even after the game has ended. Through amazing visual graphics, patients will go on a journey through their body and they can be emerged within the experience virtual reality offers. By playing different games, patients learn different techniques that they can use to manage their chronic pain. The goal is to control pain through education. Added bonus: it is fun to play!

Partners

Reducept is developed together with Margryt Fennema, health scientist and digital healthcare innovator, and Louis Zantema, medical psychologist. Their aim is to provide treatments that are accessible to everyone through gaming.

Availability

Reducept is currently available for Pico G2, Android and iPhone. The game can be downloaded directly from their respective stores. Patients can also obtain the game with a pre-installed set made available by their therapist or practice. You can find more information on the official website.

The degree of fun in serious games is mainly reflected in game design. A serious game has to fit the target group and it has to translate the project objective into good game design. In addition, the right game mechanics are important to make the game exciting and to guide the player through the game with ease.

We asked our game designers how this works.

Serious games help to motivate learning and to realize behavioural change. Games are generally played for entertainment. In serious games, the learning objective is key, but the game has to be fun.

The degree of fun in serious games is mainly reflected in game design. A serious game has to fit the target group and it has to translate the project objective into good game design. In addition, the right game mechanics are important to make the game exciting and to guide the player through the game with ease.

We asked our game designers how this works.

Firstly, it is important to understand what the development of a serious game looks like. When making a serious game, we look at three parts:

• Objective: what is the ultimate goal of the game? Think of stimulating a positive behavioural change, transferring knowledge and/or the motivation for learning.
• Content: what information needs to be transferred? In which environment is the game used? Is it in the classroom, in a museum or perhaps in a hospital? And who are the target group and the end-user?
• Game design: In which world does the game take place, who are the main characters, and what challenges need to be completed? How is the game developed graphically?

These three parts must fit together seamlessly.

What makes a serious game fun?

To make a serious game fun and entertaining it has to:

• connect with the target group;
• translate the content into a game;
• have the right game mechanics to achieve the objective.

To realize this, there is quite a lot involved. Let’s take a closer look at these points.

A serious game tailored to the target group

Everything starts with an objective. Think about ‘transferring knowledge’ or ‘realizing a behavioural change’. Such a project objective often contains information about the problem, the solution and the target group.

An example of a project objective can be: “Activate professionals in the financial sector to work on their health every day“.

In this case the target group is highly educated. The game may therefore contain more complex texts. For convenience, a mobile game can be chosen, because the target group always has a smartphone on hand that works on the common company networks. All these factors ensure that a game is readily accessible.

Translate contents into an appropriate serious game

Based on the project objective and design choices, game characters have to be invented. A fascinating and motivating character. That is quite a challenge, especially to make it fit the target group. Often certain characteristics of the target group are taken into account. Take as an example a serious game for surgeons. It is generally known that surgeons are motivated to help people. This is an element that can come back in the serious game. Also, surgeons may like to be the boss in an operating room and value status. In the serious game they don’t necessarily have to play as a surgeon, but it has to be a game character that fits the characteristics of the target group. For example, it is possible that a serious game is developed in which the surgeon plays the role of a pilot, the boss in a cockpit.

A surgeon as a bomb expert: the storyline and game world

The storyline and the game world of a serious game must also fit the environment. Back to a game for surgeons who need to learn how to operate. You can think of a serious game where the surgeon is on a smartphone or console in an operating room and has to cut in the right places. This is quite exciting, but it can be more exciting! To keep the user motivated and increase the fun factor, a similar setting can be created. What if the surgeon moves into the game as a bomb expert? They start at level 1 and see a time bomb, where they have to cut the right threads in 5 minutes. There are 5 red threads. By watching how the threads run, a decision can be made which threads need to be cut first. Has the wrong wire been cut? Boom! This is just an example of how the content and setting is transformed into a suitable game, where design, story and characters fit the environment, but exitingly. The context is a very important part of the game.

Besides the narrative (the storyline, game world, and characters) other factors also play a role. There are numerous factors that can be implemented in a specific game. The list is endless. Think of ‘pacing‘ or ‘flow‘. This is a game principle where the duration and intensity in a game are determined. A game should feel like a ‘ride on the roller coaster’: sometimes calm and sometimes full power ahead.

Interesting choices in serious games

Another example of a game principle is ‘making interesting choices‘. In games it is important that a choice is meaningful and leads to a certain turn in the story. A game becomes more fun when the user can determine how the game goes. In case of a wrong choice, it may of course be that the level has to be replayed, and that is where one learns from certain choices. Rewards in the game help to motivate the player to consistently make the right choice.

As you can see, the number of factors in the design of a serious game is endless. They also depend very much on the objective, target group and type of assignment.

Choosing the right game mechanics

Game mechanics can be seen as a kind of ‘rules of the game’. They guide the player through the game and make sure they don’t get stuck in a game. There are different kinds of design disciplines that make a serious game more fun.

A design discipline that improves the game experience is ‘game feel‘. This means that events in a game become more fun or realistic, or feel better, and therefore more exciting to perform. Game feel is often used in shooters (shooting games), where the player shoots a car and then causes an explosion. When the explosion occurs, the screen may start to vibrate and the controller vibrates from the recoil of a weapon. Game feel’ ensures satisfaction to perform an action.

Challenges and rewards

Challenge and reward ensure progress and feedback. A good game has a progression system that motivates the player to continue playing. Often this is linked to a skill level. When the user is unable to meet a challenge after multiple attempts or when the challenges are too easy, he or she becomes less motivated. By placing the player at a certain skill level it is more rewarding to complete the challenge.

Rewards are important to keep the player involved. Rewards give the user a sense of euphoria. Balancing reward is important. Balancing’ indicates how often and how big a reward should be. Imagine you get a compliment for your work every Monday morning at 10.00 am. The first time this gives you a very good feeling, but after a few weeks the value of the compliment will decrease. Often in games, the interval of rewards increases as the game progresses, so the challenge increases. Another principle is that rewards are given at random intervals, after level 1, then after reaching level 4, then again after level 5, then 8 and so on.

The same principle occurs in the balance between the challenge and the reward. If a player presses the start button in a game and then gets a big message with “congratulations, you’ve pressed the start button and completed the first challenge!”, the player probably thinks: “what is this?” The player then doesn’t feel like he has done anything important. A reward should follow when a big decision has been made with a happy ending or when the player has made a big effort.

‘A game is as good as its weakest parts’

A serious game can be designed meticulously, but if an important part of the game doesn’t work, the fun and motivation of the player can disappear in seconds. The User Interface (UI) must therefore be completely correct. The buttons, menus, and other signals should lead the user effortlessly to and through the game. Think of simple, crucial parts like a ‘play icon’ on the start button in the game and of course the word ‘start’ on that button.

Another example is a moment in a game where the player has to click on another character to start a conversation with this character, to get further in the game. For instance, most youngsters who regularly play games understand that they have to click on a character, and have a conversation when there is a large, red exclamation mark above this character. However, certain target groups may find that just an exclamation mark is not enough to understand that they have to click on it. That is why game mechanics are always tested with the target group during the development process. Do they understand the menus, texts and the steps that need to be taken in the game?

Conclusion

As you have noticed there are numerous factors that contribute to the fun factor in a serious game. In this article, only a few factors are discussed. Which game mechanics should be used and what the game world, characters and the game story should look like strongly depends on the objective and target group. All these elements contribute to the entertainment value of a game and need to be analysed and tested in every step of the process.

Would you like to know more about serious games and how they can help solve your problem? Please contact Tim Laning to discuss it!

Many people use a lot of water during specific times of the day, particularly in the morning and evening. These peaks often align with daily routines such as taking showers, doing the dishes, or using washing machines. Concentrated periods of high water demand put extra pressure on water systems, requiring pumps to work harder and consume more energy. To address this issue, Vitens, a forward-thinking water provider, sought to encourage customers to spread their water usage more evenly, saving both energy and costs.

Vitens knew from experience that changing customer behavior can be a significant challenge. This inspired them to explore an innovative approach: using a game to foster change. “We approached Grendel Games,” says Micha van Aken, business development manager at Vitens. “It was the first time we’d used a game to influence behavior. The Grendel team was excited to take on the challenge and quickly came up with creative ideas.”

A Thoughtfully Designed Game

The result was the Wijk & Water Battle, a collaborative game aimed at promoting sustainable water usage. The project included an app, a website, and a Facebook page to engage users across multiple platforms. “Grendel Games is fantastic at visualization, which gave the game its unique appeal,” Micha explains. “They also brought in behavioral scientists to ensure the game was both fun and effective.”

How It Works

The objective of Wijk & Water Battle is to provide participants with insights into their water and energy consumption, ultimately encouraging them to change their habits. The pilot launched in the autumn of 2015, involving children from two primary schools in different neighborhoods of Leeuwarden. Over three months, the children teamed up with local residents in a “battle” to reduce peaks in water usage, successfully spreading consumption more evenly throughout the day.

The Story Behind the Game

In the game, whimsical water creatures live in the local water network, but their tiny homes are frequently flooded due to high water consumption during peak hours. Schoolchildren and residents join forces to help these creatures by reducing water use at critical times. Participants track their progress using a smart meter and an app, making it easy to see the impact of their efforts. As they change their habits, the creatures experience less flooding, creating a rewarding and meaningful connection between the game and real-world behavior.

Through this innovative collaboration, Vitens and Grendel Games demonstrated how gamification can inspire positive change, fostering greater awareness and more sustainable water usage habits in the community.