A Review on Serious Games for Disaster Relief

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development and application of serious games in disaster relief training, proposing a classification framework to guide future research and development in this field.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic disaster relief classification framework and analyzes the functions, technologies, and limitations of serious games for each category.

Findings

Proposes a comprehensive disaster relief classification framework.

Analyzes functions and technologies of SGDRs in each category.

Provides guidance and recommendations for game developers.

Abstract

Human beings have been affected by disasters from the beginning of life, bringing them many sad memories. In the long struggle against disaster, people have devised a variety of methods to train relevant participants in disaster relief capabilities. However, many traditional training methods, such as disaster exercises may not provide effective training to meet the need of today. Serious games provide an innovative approach to train participants in disaster relief, and a large number of Serious Games for Disaster Relief (SGDRs) have been developed to train disaster planning and rescue capabilities. At the same time, there is no systematics phase description for disaster relief, which cannot effectively guide participants' work and training in disaster relief. Therefore, this paper proposes a comprehensive and professional disaster relief classification framework according to different relief work in each stage of the disaster. Based on this framework, we review the functions and technologies of serious games in each classification, which can offer reliable guidance for researchers to better understand and use SGDRs. In addition, we analyze the serious games in each category, point out the limitations, and provide some valuable advice for developers on game design.