How does it all work? Let us show you!

We provide training and consultancy for many aspects of Serious Games and Simulation development. From design to development, delivery and support, we have a tailored training session just for you.

Serious Games Primer

A one day workshop exploring the range of opportunities that Serious Games and Simulations can offer. This course is tailored to suit the attendees. It is ideal for anyone considering using Serious Games as a means to engage, train, measure or inspire their audience.

Aims:

• To raise awareness of the possibilities of Serious Games and Simulations.
• To gain an overview of the creative and technical strategies necessary.
• To understand the practical implications of creating serious games.
• To understand the process behind developing a serious game idea and realising it.
• To understand timelines, costs and measuring the effectiveness of the product.

Outcomes:

At the end of the Serious Games Primer attendees will be able to:

• Describe the production process of Serious Games
• Have an overview of what is creatively possible with Serious Games and Simulations
• Describe the planning process required for development
• List the implications of software development on the creative dynamic
• Describe several collaborative, creative processes for creating content on alternative platforms to linear TV
• Describe different visualisation methods for preparing content for different stages of editorial sign-off

Bespoke Training

We provide monkey bespoke training – from beginner right through intermediate to advanced. Some of the feedback from our courses:

“Serious Games development is an enormous challenge. Several of our staff were eager to learn more about this technology and how game based learning can be used in business. The patience and direction from PlayGen’s trainers has given them a real boost in confidence and knowledge.”

“The Serious Games training session from PlayGen has given me a huge leg up. I feel much more comfortable with ideas, possible tools and workflow. Coming in from the cold, Serious Games often felt very foreign. I’m not yet an SG pro but understanding that I’ve gained gives me a comfort level that makes it much easier to overcome challenges.”

“Over all the session was very insightful and helped the team gain perspective on the entire development cycle. From a development, having hands-on training allowed our staff to learn about the process and guidelines. PlayGen’s knowledgebase covered a wide ranged of useful information. At similar training seminars; the speaker usually can only talk about their specific area of development. I was especially pleased with PlayGen’s ability to show and describe work across a whole raft of different applications.”

To book training contact us.

Inspire your learners with the power of games

Inspiration gives us the fuel to do things we never even dreamt of. Innovation is all about being curious and trying new things. It means taking risks and thinking the impossible. There are many situations in which we wish the people around us were more inspired. These could be students, our staff, our customers and trainees that we engage with daily. The realities of the workplace, the lab or the classroom do not always make this easy.

When players are deeply immersed in a virtual world they tend to let go of their inhibitions and be more open to new ideas and experimentation. This is the ground where inspiration flourishes. Games and simulations let users explore the ideas that would be too expensive, too risky or simply beyond the realms of today’s science. Cutting edge science can be given a helping hand by cutting edge technology.

Our games give you the tools to open minds

Virtual worlds can take innovation to new levels. We can take users to the inside of a human blood cell, the corridors of power in the White House, or the far reaches of space. And most importantly, we can provide them with detailed feedback about results across a range of scenarios, informing today’s decisions in the real world.

We can help to inspire your audience by:

• Instilling a sense of awe on a subject that seems difficult or impossible to understand
• Building immersive worlds where users’ decisions have a knock on effect as a scenario plays out
• Challenging people to think about new possibilities and opportunities
• Helping people to look at things from a new perspective
• Bringing a complex area to life and making it accessible

Virtual worlds don’t just play a role in inspiring the leaders and professionals of today. Their biggest potential is perhaps in inspiring the scientists, the visionaries and the healers of tomorrow. We are looking to join forces with other organisations that share this vision and want to work with us in inspiring young people to innovate.

How do we make serious games and simulations to inspire?

• Start with a solid foundation of what is known
• Add a generous helping of tools that are open ended enough to allow for experimentation
• Provide plenty of space for the player’s own imagination

We’ve learnt that the most inspiring tools are often the simplest ones. For instance, we’ve developed a number of games to inspire the next generation of scientists about the possibilities of nanotechnology. The games vary from fairly complex to extremely simple. Some of the simulations with the biggest wow factor have been those that bring to life the notion of the nano-scale through the simplest visual comparisons.

Measure everything…it’s important

As the saying goes “you can’t manage what you don’t measure”. We’re here to make things better. And we know we’ve got to measure everything along the way to achieve excellence – for us, our partners and our players.

By measuring players’ capabilities we can help them improve their understanding and performance. By measuring a product’s usage or impact on behaviours and attitudes, we can help you improve its design and show return on investment.

Why are serious games or simulations good for measuring?

Serious games and simulations are cost effective but they are also more effective at being able to measure choices.

Personality tests, interviews and training sessions can be prohibitively expensive – once you’ve developed a simulation there is no limit to the number of times you can use it.  The fun and relaxing environment of games and simulations means that people let go of inhibitions and reveal their true motivations and instincts – more effective than an interview or test.

We can provide a more effective way for:

• Showing how well the player knows something
• Understanding the players emotions and attitudes
• Finding consensus on issues through collecting data from a cross section of players
• Providing a benchmark for training and development

Our technology takes measurement to a new level

Any old training tool can measure what people know. Ours can also measure how they behave, what they believe and what motivates them.

We can help you measure:

• Player’s knowledge: of facts, systems or procedures
• Player’s level of skill on particular tasks
• Player’s cognitive abilities
• Player’s behaviour: one-off or patterns
• Their personality traits
• Players’ social norms and what they find acceptable
• Attitudes and opinions of a whole cross-section of society

From knowledge through to behaviour and attitudes, our projects measure many aspects. By feeding this back to people in a user-friendly way we can create a virtuous circle of self-awareness and self-improvement.

Our measurement capabilities can help you transform performance in many ways

• Predicting an individuals’ fit with competencies or values needed for a role
• Using simulations to assess and target risky behaviour
• Providing a benchmark for training or development for personalised coaching
• Helping users to understand and reflect on their own behaviour, driving behaviour change
• Collecting data from a wide cross section of players to give the bigger picture on behaviours and attitudes
• Reaching new audiences and consulting with stakeholders on a whole new scale

From measuring capability, attitude or aptitude of the players to measuring the products interims of usage, exposure, change on behaviour or performance, we measure real return on investment.

There is no better training than by being actively involved

We all learn better by trying things out.  Our serious games and simulations deliver results by putting the player in charge, in a safe environment, where they are free to experiment.

Simulations offer the best training tool as they enable the learner to actively engage with the topic and experience it.

They are particularly effective when:

• The content is critical or risk of failure is high – either in monetary terms, injury or death
• The content is complex or difficult to communicate using traditional methods
• The content is made up of Actions and Decisions within a System
• The learners need to be more engaged than they are using current methods

In many circumstances the cost of getting things wrong or not knowing what to do can be high. In some industries it can seriously hit the bottom line.  In others it can mean the difference between life and death.  This gets in the way of learning by experience. You wouldn’t want a doctor or a pilot trying out a new idea whilst you were in their hands. You wouldn’t want your Head of Finance taking a punt on a completely new investment strategy without walking through the consequences. But we all need our staff and students to test out new ideas in order to push the boundaries and get ahead.

We create interactive learning environments where learners explore real life situations and learn by doing.

By using gaming technology you can train learners better by immersing them in the topic. Train more people more effectively in less time by providing interactive experiences. Geared to exactly match your specific goals, our content provides learners with:

• Transformational training for your students and employees
• Deeper interaction with the subject
• Better understanding of the content in context
• Sharpened skills through motivating hands-on experience

With dedicated focus and constant communication, we are with you every step of the learning process, making adjustments whenever necessary. Our job is done only when your employees and students can flawlessly execute the proper skills and behaviours identified for success.

We train using serious games and simulations by incorporating:

• Clear goals which push players/learners to achieve
• Rules that set the parameters within which goals can be achieved, reflecting practical limitations
• Competition, challenge and problem solving at personalised levels of difficulty which inspire players/learners to continuously test new solutions and improve their knowledge and skills
• Continuous feedback about performance and steps that could be taken to improve
• An exciting, interesting and engaging experience which fully immerses the player/learner in the subject matter

We can help you bring difficult subjects to life. Put the learner in control and allow them to experiment without fear of failing until they understand the topic fully. Contact us to find out more.

Engaging your audience is the key to success

Engaging an audience means getting them thinking, reacting and actively involved. It transforms their understanding and learning experience.

Every one learns about the world around them as children through play. When done right, playing with games and simulations provides some of the most powerful tools around for engaging an audience of any age.

The power of play can engage minds of all ages and backgrounds

Because our work puts people in new shoes and gives them powers we can help you to:

• Engage Citizens – by transporting them to the centre of the issue
• Engage Experts – through validated simulations
• Engage Novices – with friendly and simple to use interfaces
• Engage Decision Makers – by aggregating data and vividly showing consequences of choices
• Engage Youngsters – through the medium that’s second nature to our digital natives
• Engage Professionals – by giving them new insights into their behaviour and knowledge
• Engage the Media – use games to get your message across

We know exactly what it takes to engage your audience through the power of play

We can provide everything you need to:

• Immerse your audience using the power of play
• Put your audience in control of the situation
• Allow them to experiment and explore
• Enable your players to take decisions that change outcomes – and learn from their choices
• Provide exciting and compelling dialogue, narrative and systems
• Transform a player’s understanding of a subject or issue