Design patterns applied in the development of serious games for cognitive-affective training

Abstract

Game developers have been widely adopting software design patterns (SDPs) for their usefulness in providing maintainability, scalability, and adaptability to their software products. Nevertheless, their systematic application to cognitive-affective training in the context of Serious Games (SG) has not been explored. In turn, the definition of a Cognitive-Affective model (COGAF) for SGs facilitates their use in training cognitive and affective aspects in users. This article focuses on integrating SDPs into the COGAF model to facilitate the development of SGs. The paper presents four design patterns to simplify SG development based on the COGAF model. The SDPs used in the COGAF model create a set of Java classes, which embody the architectural principles of Serious Game Design Patterns (SGDP) for cognitive-affective training. Integrating design patterns (Template Method, Factory Method, Composite, and Strategy) in COGAF contributes to the organization, reuse and maintenance of code in SGs, reducing development complexity. We validate our proposal in four ways, the first with a case study involving user interaction in SGs, the second by implementing competency questions, the third, by assessing the usability and subjective player experience, and the fourth is a statistical evaluation to assess the development times of SG developers using extended and classic COGAF. The results show that integrating design patterns into COGAF improves code organization, which translates into improved development times for SG developers. In turn, the quality and effectiveness of cognitive-affective training with the generated SGs are not affected, ensuring the coherence and completeness of the proposal.