Serious games architectures and engines

The term Serious Game includes a wide, heterogeneous field of digital games with varying purposes and objectives and for a multitude of different application areas. All in common is the underlying software. This chapter gives an overview on the technical aspects of serious games including their software architectures and engines. As the general topic is manifold and the technical aspects of serious game software are quite comprehensive, this chapter covers the basic principles of and requirements for serious game software. It depicts selected software architectures and provides examples for game engines including a description of selected components.