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Despite the continued development, use and success of serious games in the world of education nowadays, questions remain regarding how best to equip students with the diverse set of skills and knowledge required to effectively develop serious games. As identified in findings such as those by Bergeron (2006) and de Lope et al (2015), although all games share common features in terms of interactivity and competitiveness, serious games exploit these common elements to facilitate effective learning. Despite this, whilst there is no shortage of methodologies for the development of "commercial" or fun games, the suitability of these methodologies for serious game development is limited, due to the unique demands of serious games in balancing play, challenge and feedback with relevant learning outcomes (Aldrich, 2005). This paper will present on the results of a pilot project which was designed and implemented to help address this shortfall. The "Press Start" project was a training initiative in which 45 Irish secondary school students received training, over the course of a number of weeks, on how to conceptualize, plan, produce and publish a serious game, dealing with an ethical issue of their choosing. This paper will offer new ideas and approaches about engaging young people in serious game design and development by outlining the technical and pedagogical decisions undertaken in the project and will also demonstrate some of the results of the initiative, including the developed student games and the data which was gathered from stakeholders on the overall effectiveness of the pedagogical approaches undertaken. The paper will also offer specific suggestions on how best to plan and deliver training to help students develop their skills and ability in designing and developing serious games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable development education remains a hugely relevant and urgent pursuit across all sectors of society. In 2002, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2005-2014 the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Within the European Union, there has been a focus on establishing regulations with regard to environmental awareness and prevention solutions in European countries over the past 30 years. The U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development (USPESD) was conceived in 2003 and is dedicated to education for sustainable development in the United States. This paper puts forth the case for the use of serious games to help support this noble cause through the use of games for conventional skills and knowledge development related to sustainable development, in addition to the use of games to help promote a shift in fundamental attitudinal dimensions by constituting a form of procedural rhetoric (Bogost, 2007) based around the learner experiences of rule-governed variables related to sustainability education. This paper offers a qualitative meta-analysis of the learning computer and video games have been shown to support and goes on to focus in on the specific area of games which are aimed at fostering knowledge and skills related to sustainable development, in addition to cultivating a range of important generic metacognitive and 21st century skills. The authors map a range of such skills and learning to a spectrum of existing commercial and serious video game titles, across a wide range of game genres, including strategy games, simulation games, action games, amongst others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]