Tactical Forms: Classification of Applied Games for Game Design

Abstract

Entertainment game genres provide game designers with a taxonomy of known sets of mechanics, which are used as a foundation to design games. Serious games taxonomy in comparison do not provide the same kind of design knowledge. For this reason, we adopted a way of classifying serious games into four categories by tactical form, or the way the game is deployed in a certain context to achieve its primary purpose. Central to this paper is the discussion of our extended tactical from termed adaptive. DJ Fiero, a game designed to rehabilitate children with ABI (Acquired Brain Injury), is used as a case study to examine how the adaptive form fits the current sociopolitical and economic design challenges of the Dutch healthcare domain.