Serious games and Complexity

As per wikipedia "A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment".

Some of the examples of serious games are

• Architecture Visualisation and monitoring of construction progress in AEC domain?
• Behaviour training for autistic patients in healthcare domain
• Surgeon training
• .....

A serious game's complexity increases due to the fact that the inputs or the environment change based on the type of player and content (3d models etc.) which is being used.

For example when building a solution for construction progress monitoring for AEC domain there are different types of players each with their own feature / performance / modality and interaction requirements.

• A civil architect would like to have more accurate visualisation of the construction in progress and also would like to create simulations of different scenarios.
• A builder / developer would like to have visualisation from a cost effectiveness and schedule of completion etc.
• like above there will be more types of players who would like to interact with the same content from different perspective’s ....

The complexity of serious games increases as we consider more variables (downloadable size of 3d model/ Fidelity of the 3d model / ML pipelines integration for analytics etc) and for architecting these games we need a workflow to address the complexity and also provision for the flexibility for modifications in the future as the solution evolves.

Using MBSE (Model Based Systems Engineering) methodology and SysML (Systems Modeling Language) provides a way of addressing the complexities of serious games. One of the first step is to define the requirements of a solution from Structural / Behavioural and Verification view points.

SysML also enables us to create the simulations of different variants using parametric diagrams.

Once the solution architecture is defined to an acceptable level and the design elements are created then it is possible to generate the source code from the solution architecture using "Enterprise Architect" from SparxSystems.

If we develop the architecture with enough detail and the design elements are clear then the source code generated can be used with Unreal Engine for developing and evolving the solutions of serious games.

Unreal engine provides an excellent eco-system of libraries and tools for developing serious games enabling the integration of generated code in to a solution.

I will be addressing different aspects of the serious games development pipeline using SysML and Unreal Engine in this news letter.

Please free to provide your feedback.