Design Process and Initial Development of a Serious Game for Supporting the Personal Development of Young Athletes

Abstract

A Personal Development Manager (PDM) is an individual responsible for providing off-field support for the well-being, transition, and dual-career development of athletes. Using gamified digital tools, the GOAL4PDM initiative intends to provide the necessary information to anyone interested in becoming a PDM. Experts in the field have therefore created missions for a serious game to educate about the PDM's role. The expert team was provided with two design templates to ensure consistency and coherence. The first template is used to design a mission, including its name, description, list of tasks, and brief descriptions of each. Then, a task design template is provided for designing each individual task, which is primarily the player's interaction with an object, a non-player character, a questionnaire, or a minigame. Based on the supplied missions and tasks, an alpha version of the game focusing on one of the missions is created. Future stages include developing the remaining missions and implementing a save system to preserve the game's progress for users.