Serious games: An overview of the game designing factors and their application in surgical skills training

Serious game is a promising tool for interactive teaching and training. The serious games are applicable to a wide variety of scenarios ranging from school education to training of professionals. The serious game design is different from normal game designing as there is a learning objective involved. The perfect blend of learning and entertainment along with promising results is a challenging task. In the case of specific applications like skills training in surgery, assessment methods and validity measures are the additional inevitable requirements. The main focus of our paper is to provide an overview of design factors for skills training applications in surgery.