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Call for Serious Games Designers to Enter Annual Challenge

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Orlando, Florida -- Launching into its fourteenth year, the Serious Games Showcase & Challenge (SGS&C) announced Aug. 1 that submissions are officially open. SGS&C is the foremost venue for recognition of excellence in the field of Serious Games development, and the top games, as chosen by the worldwide panel and students in participating schools, will be celebrated at this year’s 2019 Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC).

With each passing year, the submissions grow more engaging and creative, and once the games are vetted, chosen finalists will exhibit at I/ITSEC, where all attendees are invited to play the games and vote for the coveted People’s Choice award.

As part of the process, all applicants are required to submit an “intent to submit” form by Sept. 13 to ensure the committee is adequately prepared to accept each game’s materials. The form and all information about the submission process can be found at www.sgschallege.com

Awa…
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Book Preview: Democratizing Interactivity In Educational Media With “Short Sims"

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Clark Aldrich, one of the top educational simulation designers in the world, is about to release his sixth book Short Sims: A Game Changer, a revolutionary proposition for finding the synergy between meaningful interactivity and cost effectiveness that is necessary for broad adoption. A proposition that aims to democratize interactivity in educational media.
Why Short Sims? According to Clark, there is a growing realization that significant interactivity is necessary to a successful learning program. “The necessity of interactivity is why educational simulations and serious games have evolved quickly over the last couple of decades,” he says. “The research tells us that interactive experiences work, and they can scale the development of competency and conviction better than other approaches. However, traditional interactivity is expensive to build”, states Clark and proceeds:
“It is time consuming. Interactive content typically is platform dependent.  Many organizations have been tempted…
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VR Serious Game Allows Leaders To Test Themselves In Formidable Situations

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Image credit: Earth to Mars VR Serious Game
Earth-to-Mars, a Virtual Reality Serious Game co-created by eLearning Studios and Headspring, the executive development joint venture of Financial Times and IE Business School, has won silver honors in the 2019 International Serious Play Awards competition in the Company Training category.
Earth-to-Mars claims to be the first of its kind in the executive learning space, allowing leaders to test themselves in formidable situations. 
Departing from the background presumption that leaders work in challenging circumstances — staying focused under pressure, dealing with complex and conflicting priorities, and pivoting when needs require, the game uses Virtual Reality to simulate such pressures in a learning experience.
Image credit: Earth-to-Mars VR Serious Game
Earth-to-Mars is designed for two-players connected wirelessly. One player experiences the Mars basecamp in virtual reality, the other runs Earth’s Mission Control using an interactive tablet.…
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3 Games For Social Emotional Learning Win Awards In International Serious Play Competition

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Image credit: Trauma-Informed Practices for K12 Schools Serious Game
LOS ANGELES – June 18, 2019 – Three games designed for Social Emotional Learning (SEL) have been cited for excellence in the 2019 International Serious Play Award Program
Gold Medal citations were awarded to: Trauma-Informed Practices for K12 Schools, an interactive professional development solution for educators to build skills, confidence, and empathy to better support students whose behavior might be caused by trauma or distress. The product was created by Kognito in partnership with UNICEF USA and Mental Health America of Greater HoustonSilver Medal status went to: The Compassion Project, a game designed to help primary school students understand compassion and how to practice it in their lives, developed by The Game Agency with EverfiBronze Medal recognition went to: Project Here Games, an interactive game structured to offer bite-sized activities to allow middle school students to …
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Serious Game Helps Managers Learn And Practice Coaching Techniques

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Image credit: Pragmatic Leadership - Coaching Leader Serious Game
Pragmatic Leadership: Coaching Leader, a Serious Game created by Wrainbo, Inc. for Bacharach Leadership Group, has won silver honors in the 2019 International Serious Play Awards competition in the Company Training category.
The Coaching Leader game was designed to help managers learn and practice coaching techniques that are immediately applicable to their day-to-day conversations with those they lead. Coaching enables managers and leaders to engage and develop their people and include competencies such as active listening, asking facilitative questions, and giving feedback.
In the game, the player assumes the role of a people manager to role-play in various real-world scenarios, such as giving feedback to their subordinates. The branching dialogue design provides dozens of paths for the players to practice and immerse in.
All the game sessions and modules are bite-sized and can be consumed in 5-12 minutes. It allows the c…
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Serious Game To Understand The Role Of Monetary Policy In Growing A Healthy Economy

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Image credit: Chair the Fed – A Monetary Policy Serious Game
Chair the Fed,a Serious Game created by the educational arm of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, has won gold honors in the 2019 International Serious Play Awards competition in the Higher Education category.
The purpose of Chair the Fed: A Monetary Policy Game is to develop players’ understanding of the role of monetary policy in growing a healthy economy.
The game accomplishes that by simulating fundamental relationships between monetary policy, price inflation, and the labor market. Using the Federal Reserve’s key monetary policy interest rate, players learn about the impact of rate changes on prices, jobs, and the economy.
The game also provides a hands-on approach to learning about policy time lags, the real rate of interest, supply and demand shocks, and the natural rate of unemployment.

Chair the Fed puts players behind the wheel of the U.S. economy, charged with meeting two key goals: stable prices and high emp…
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6 Games For Higher Education Win Awards in Serious Play Competition

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Image credit: Chair the Fed serious game
LOS ANGELES – June 13, 2019 – Six Serious Games designed for use in higher education have been cited for excellence in the 2019 International Serious Play Award Program
Gold Medals were awarded to: Chair the Fed, a monetary policy game to develop players’ understanding of the role of monetary policy in growing a healthy economy from the Federal Reserve Bank of San FranciscoJack the Riddler,a game to facilitate English dialogue between foreign students created by Ahoot Media, in collaboration with Viden Djurs, DenmarkMalaria Invasion, a health care game that educates university students of the molecular mechanisms used by the malaria parasite to infect red blood cells, after the mosquito bite and the parasite Plasmodium enters the bloodstream, created by Drexel University’s Institute for Molecular Medicine and Infectious DiseaseThe Phoenix Student Success Game, a student support and intervention tool to …
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