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The application of serious games spans a range of topics including healthcare, military training, resources management, energy literacy, risk governance, raising awareness on the energy transition to name a few. Serious games are increasingly used as educational resources within urban planning and policy making to promote the understanding of complex urban issues and facilitate negotiations among stakeholders, or to motivate citizens to participate (Devisch, Poplin, & Sofronie, 2016; Mayer, 2009; Poplin, 2012; Tan, 2014; Thiel & Fröhlich, 2017). Their learning potential is connected to games’ capacities to produce skill-based, cognitive, and affective learning outcomes (Kraiger, Ford, & Salas, 1993), and combine learning with entertainment (Abdul Jabbar & Felicia, 2015; Boyle, Connolly, Hainey, & Boyle, 2012). Co-located gaming especially facilitates learning because players are physically present at the same location and interact with each other while playing either analogue (i.e. board games), digital or hybrid games (digital and analogue mixed). In such co-located settings, games have been reported to improve the interpersonal relations among players (Fang, Chen, & Huang, 2016) and contribute to the ‘fun aspect’ (Gajadhar, de Kort, & Ijsselsteijn, 2008), which is considered a fundamental condition for learning (Abdul Jabbar & Felicia, 2015; Dahlgren, 2009; Whitton, 2011). A number of authors discuss spatial and urban planning, and civic engagement as collective learning processes (e.g. Friedmann, 1984; Horelli, 2002; Kuhk, Dehaene, & Schreurs, 2015) that are expected to foster problem-solving skills, enhance spatial understanding, establish stakeholder networks, and test out difficult scenarios (e.g. Crookall, 2010; Erhel & Jamet, 2013; Gee, 2005; Granic, Lobel, & Engels, 2014; Luederitz et al., 2016; Shaffer, Squire, Halverson, & Gee, 2005). Over the last four decades planners have experimented with games, to investigate their potential in supporting and facilitating such learning processes (e.g. Gugerell, Jauschneg, Platzer, & Berger, 2017; Medema, Furber, Adamowski, Zhou, & Mayer, 2016; Sakonnakron, Huyakorn, & Rizzi, 2014).
Much existing game literature discusses the gaming-learning experience as one entity. Some authors take a differentiating approach advocating for the importance of a strong integration of game mechanics and explicit learning goals within the game structure (e.g. Habgood & Ainsworth, 2011; Denham, 2016; Malone & Lepper, 1987; Dörner et al., 2016). Also, only few empirical case studies (e.g. Habgood & Ainsworth, 2011; Denham, 2013) demonstrate the practical integration of learning goals within the game structure during the design process. These stress that the selection and balancing of game mechanics is one of the most difficult steps in the design process that requires careful attention.