EMERGO: A methodology and toolkit for efficient development of serious games in higher education

Societal changes demand education to apply new pedagogical approaches. Many educational stakeholders feel that serious games could play a key role in fulfilling this demand, and smack their chops when looking at the booming industry for leisure games. However, current toolkits for developing leisure games show severe shortcomings for the development of efficient and effective serious games. Furthermore, developing serious games asks for a specific approach which differs from the approach used in developing leisure games. EMERGO provides a methodology and generic toolkit for developing and delivering serious games aimed at the acquisition of complex cognitive skills in higher education. This article describes the EMERGO methodology and toolkit and preliminary evaluation results with case developers using EMERGO methodology and toolkit as well as learners using EMERGO cases.