This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. This issue contains a special section on serious games with 8 outstanding contributions from the VS-Games 2011 conference; furthermore, there are 13 regular papers. These contributions clearly demonstrate the use of serious games and virtual worlds for edutainment applications and form a basis for further exploration and new ideas. Front Matter....Pages - The Periodic Table of Elements via an XNA-Powered Serious Game....Pages 1-28 Digital Storytelling within Virtual Environments: “The Battle of Thermopylae”....Pages 29-48 Games on Prescription! Evaluation of the Elinor Console for Home-Based Stroke Rehabilitation....Pages 49-64 An Analysis of the Potential to Utilize Virtual Worlds to Enhance Edutainment and Improve the Wellbeing of the Ageing Population....Pages 65-80 Course Lectures as Problem-Based Learning Interventions in Virtual Worlds....Pages 81-96 Virtual Customers in a Multiagent Training Application....Pages 97-114 Game Based Early Programming Education: The More You Play, the More You Learn....Pages 115-131 Story Guided Virtual Environments in Educational Applications....Pages 132-149 Rendering Technology of 3D Digital Chinese Ink-Wash Landscape Paintings Based on Maya....Pages 150-159 Effects of RPG on Middle School Players’ Intrapersonal Intelligence....Pages 160-175 Implementation of Lushan Virtual Digital Plant Museum....Pages 176-183 Pedestrian Detection Based on Kernel Discriminative Sparse Representation....Pages 184-195 The Design and Implementation of Computer-Aided Chinese Medicated Diet System....Pages 196-204 Music-Driven Emotion Model Applied in Digitalized Dance Performance of Sacrificial Ceremony for Confucius....Pages 205-212 Real-Time Rendering Framework in the Virtual Home Design System....Pages 213-224 Multiple-Cue-Based Visual Object Contour Tracking with Incremental Learning....Pages 225-243 Building Virtual Entertainment Environment with Tiled Display Wall and Motion Tracking....Pages 244-251 A Calibration Method for Removing the Effect of Infrared Camera Self-radiance on the Accuracy of Temperature Measurement....Pages 252-261 Enjoying of Traditional Chinese Shadow Play – A Cross-Culture Study....Pages 262-277 A Patch-Based Data Reorganization Method for Coupling Large-Scale Simulations and Parallel Visualization....Pages 278-289 The Boom and Bust and Boom of Educational Games....Pages 290-296 Back Matter....Pages -
