Educational games present the complex realities of simultaneous interactive processes more accurately and effectively than serial processes such as lecturing and reading. Objectives of educational gaming are to motivate students by presenting relevant and realistic problems and to induce more efficient and active understanding of information. Games are efficient learning devices because they allow three levels of learning to occur simultaneously without ability grouping of students. These levels are (1) efficient learning of facts, (2) learning of cause and effect relationships by substituting gaming for personal experience, and (3) learning of strategic thinking concepts by considering results of alternative courses of action. Games focus on reality but are combinations of skill, chance, reality, and fantasy. In designing games one must (1) define overall objectives and scope; (2) identify the key actors, their objectives, and constraints; (3) determine an interaction sequence and decision rules; (4) identify the win criteria; and (5) choose the form of presentation. Compromises must be made between simplification and realism, concentration and comprehensiveness, and melodrama and analysis. The attempt to include too much in one game must be avoided. (TT)