Acknowledgements

General introduction: games in society

Part 1. Understanding board games to improve their design

1. Key concepts before designing a game

What can we learn from the sciences of games (ludology) and play?

The five dimensions of playing a game

What is a serious game?

What is a board game?

The game as a means of revealing or transforming social space

2. The specificities of games on agriculture and landscape

Playing with agriculture: a great classic

The multiple complexities of agricultural activity

Playing with the landscape adds further complexities

3. Towards a typology of board games designed for agriculture and landscape

Level 1. Education or awareness-raising through board-based games

Level 2. Mutual recognition and building capacity for ‘joint action’

Level 3. Cooperation and commitment for ‘project-making’

Case study thread for Part 1

Part 2. Designing and building a game

4. Before getting started

What is the game about?

What are the game’s objectives?

Who is the game’s audience?

5. Simplifying reality through modelling

How to prepare the conceptual framework for the model

How to organise knowledge into a system

How to take spatial dynamics into account

How to take social phenomena into account

Where to include decision-making centres

How to calibrate the model

6. Creating the game world

Who are the players? Who are the agents?

How do the players interact: competition or collaboration?

How to represent spatial dimensions through the game board

How to integrate temporal dimensions into the game

What place should be given to chance and to the pleasure of playing?

7. Transcribing the model into a game

How to move from model to game materials

How to represent and manage flows of matter and information

How to define the rules of the game

How to spice up the game

8. Testing the game and making necessary improvements

Is the game’s ‘engine’ working properly?

Are the rules clear?

Is the game fluid?

Are the game elements practical?

Is the playing time reasonable?

Does the game perform well?

9. Transforming a game that works into a game that people enjoy

Why good graphic design matters

The special case of ‘sad games’

Are the graphics consistent with the message conveyed by the game?

Does the game correspond to its intended audience?

Case study thread for Part 2

Part 3. Facilitating, evaluating and disseminating a game

10. Facilitating a game session

Some theoretical points of reference

Preparing the game session

The roles of the facilitator

11.Evaluating the game

Some principles of validity for understanding reality

Defining your evaluation: understanding the real

Defining evaluation levels

Assessment tools

12. Devising a strategy for disseminating the game

Valorising your game: questions to consider in advance

Stage A. Baseline profiling of the game to guide valorisation and define an action plan

Stages B1 and B2. Who owns your serious game and how can it be protected?

Conclusion

Case study thread for Part 3

Conclusion

References

List of authors