The MOVES Institute and Aptima, Inc., teamed to create a game for use at the Navy's Surface Warfare Officers School (SWOS). SWOS will use the game in the Prospective Commanding Officers (PCOs) class to teach as well as evaluate students in counter-piracy procedures.

Building an effective game for learning in the counter-piracy domain provided many challenges. SWOS wanted the game to assess students in ambiguous areas where there was not necessarily one correct answer. The game also needed to stress the students by putting them into positions where the book did not provide definitive guidance. Additionally, the game needed to evaluate the students' performance in the game, since SWOS does not have enough instructors to observe the students playing the game. Finally, the game had to be easy to modify after delivery so that SWOS could update the game as changes occurred in tactics and procedure

This paper describes the procedure used to create the game, the game itself, the performance measure system used to evaluate the students and provide feedback, and the tools created to allow easy modification of the game in the future.

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Matthew Roberts