Mood and learning in navigation-based serious games

Games are played for entertainment and have the ability to stimulate a variety of moods during gameplay, including happiness. Serious or applied games are created and used to serve a purpose rather than purely for entertainment. The relationship between mood and task efficiency has been investigated in psychology with contrasting results, and it also appears that there is a relationship between mood and learning. Players' mood and learning efficiency as a consequence of playing two serious games involving navigation in a virtual environment as the main action of gameplay, but with different learning objectives, have been investigated. The first game trained players to perform a religious ritual, while the second taught the route to a real world destination. The pre- and post-gameplay mood of 52 players were noted. It was found that both serious games helped the players develop a pleasant overall mood and significantly increased the selfreported happiness score in the postquestionnaire. It was also found that players who felt happier spent more time learning and that women performed better when they were happier. Also, younger learners tend to obtain a higher learning performance score than other age categories.