Serious Games: An Updated Systematic Literature Review

TL;DR

This systematic review updates the understanding of serious games, highlighting evolving trends, effective techniques, and procedures used in various application fields to enhance learning and training outcomes.

Contribution

It provides an updated synthesis of recent research on serious games, comparing current trends with previous reviews and identifying effective methods and techniques.

Findings

Questionnaires and interviews are the most effective evaluation techniques.

Pre/post procedures yield the best results in assessing serious games.

Serious games are increasingly used across diverse fields like health and education.

Abstract

Serious games are simulation software designed to assist people in learning the practical concepts of various application fields such as Health, wellness, Education and Culture. People improve their individual knowledge, skills and attitude through training. This study identified the changing trends with existing studied applications, approaches and methods. We collected 37 papers from Google Scholar, Elsevier, Springer, IEEE Xplore and ACM Digital library. We have collected the evidence answer to six research questions and analyzed the result and identify the change in trends with the comparison with previous systematic literature review (SLR) results. We achieved the best results by techniques (questionnaires and interviews) and procedure (pre/post). Our findings will be useful for practitioners and researchers who can test serious games in different fields.