scholarly journals Smart Games: Emergent Game Design

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keaton Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Algorithms ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Recreational Activity ◽  
Player Experiences

<p>Gaming is a rapidly growing recreational activity. Over the last two decades we have seen a proliferation of games across all genres and user demographics. The consumption of content in modern games has grown as a result of the advancing technology available to game designers, as well as the growing expectations of the audience. The need for increasing the value of the content and expanding potential audience grows every day. Using dynamic adjustments to the underlying game systems as the player experiences the game, this paper will demonstrate how using emergent principles combined with other foundational systems, such as evolutionary algorithms, can increase the value of the content created for any game. This added value is of benefit to both those who have made the game, and the users who experience the results.</p>

scholarly journals Smart Games: Emergent Game Design

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keaton Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Algorithms ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Recreational Activity ◽  
Player Experiences

<p>Gaming is a rapidly growing recreational activity. Over the last two decades we have seen a proliferation of games across all genres and user demographics. The consumption of content in modern games has grown as a result of the advancing technology available to game designers, as well as the growing expectations of the audience. The need for increasing the value of the content and expanding potential audience grows every day. Using dynamic adjustments to the underlying game systems as the player experiences the game, this paper will demonstrate how using emergent principles combined with other foundational systems, such as evolutionary algorithms, can increase the value of the content created for any game. This added value is of benefit to both those who have made the game, and the users who experience the results.</p>

Players’ Experience in a Sport Geocaching Game

2014 ◽  
pp. 127-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pirita Ihamäki ◽  
Mika Luimula
Keyword(s):  
Game Design ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Internet Survey ◽  
Complex Environments ◽  
Outdoor Sports ◽  
Adventure Game ◽  
Player Experiences ◽  
Prevalent Form

Geocaching is a multiplayer outdoor sports game. There is a lack of extensive research on this game, and there is a need for more academic research on this game and its application to other contexts worldwide. There are about 5 million people participating in the geocaching game in 220 different countries worldwide. The geocaching game is interesting because the players create it. The players’ role in game design increases its value in human-centred design research. Digital games are a prevalent form of entertainment in which the purpose of the design is to engage the players. This case study was carried out with 52 Finnish geocachers as an Internet survey. The purpose of this conceptual analysis is to investigate how the geocaching sports game might inform game design by looking at player experiences, devices, and techniques that support problem solving within complex environments. Specifically, this analysis presents a brief overview of the geocaching sports game, its role in popular adventure game design, and an analysis of the underlying players’ experiences and enjoyment as a structure to be used in game design.

scholarly journals Selective Realism

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Pötzsch
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Selective Realism ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Player Experiences ◽  
Wide Dissemination

The present article develops the concept of selective realism to understand how design features and narrative frames of first- and third-person shooters (F/TPS) exclude attention to salient, yet unpleasant, features of warfare such as problematic forms of violence, long-term psychological impacts, or sociopolitical blowbacks. Identifying four specific filters that frame player experiences, I argue that the resulting selectivity is significant because it is characteristic of the F/TPS genre as a whole that, through its wide dissemination, impacts upon the cultural framing of actual warfare. The article illustrates features of selective realism before it conducts in-depth analysis of the titles Spec Ops: The Line and The Last of Us to show how critical game design can invite a conscious unraveling of the generic frames and the ideological positions these invite. The article concludes with a reassessment of arguments regarding alleged sociopolitical impacts of war- and violence-themed computer games.

An Evaluation of the Added Value of Co-Design in the Development of an Educational Game for Road Safety

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anissa All ◽  
Jan Van Looy ◽  
Elena Patricia Nuñez Castellar
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
Road Safety ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Scoring Systems ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Educational Game ◽  
Innovation Research ◽  
Mobile Phone Applications ◽  
Game Designer ◽  
Mini Games

This study explores the added value of co-design in addition to other innovation research methods in the process of developing a serious game design document for a road safety game. The sessions aimed at exploring 4 aspects of a location-based game experience: themes, game mechanics, mobile phone applications and locations for mini-games. In total, 72 adolescents between 15 and 18 years participated in five co-design sessions lead by a researcher and a professional game designer. The sessions provided useful input regarding the aspects the authors wished to explore. The sessions were especially useful in gathering input on scoring systems, ways to give instructions about next tasks and organizing level systems. In sum, their study indicates that co-design can be a source of additional ideas on top of other research methods such as state of the art analysis and expert consultation and thus lead to more effective interactive content creation.

Space Vision

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (CHI PLAY) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Stuart Iain Gray ◽  
Chris Bevan ◽  
Stephanie Campbell ◽  
Kirsten Cater
Keyword(s):  
Visual Acuity ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Home Monitoring ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Eye Disease ◽  
Clinical Test ◽  
Clinical Tool ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Player Experiences ◽  
Marker Detection

This paper presents a novel mobile serious game, "Space Vision", which uses a hidden-object mechanic with fiducial marker detection to gamify a clinical test of visual acuity - a key marker of childhood eye disease. For Space Vision to become a credible clinical tool that can facilitate the screening and home-monitoring of children's visual acuity, it must be able to sustain player engagement over the extended durations required to detect vision abnormalities. Hence, we pay particular attention to developing effective game characters - a crucial aspect of children's game design. Using an early prototype with 13 school children (aged 5-6 years), we investigate player experiences through a series of evaluation sessions, involving a single one-to-one observational playtest, semi-structured interview, and ideation activity with each child. Thematic analysis of our session video recordings, written observations, and ideation artefacts, found that future game iterations must: increase resonance between players and game characters by providing aesthetic and behavioural customisation, embrace more anthropomorphic styling, better imbue narratives pertaining to children's life scripts, and feature fantasy character powers as a form of self-expression. Meanwhile, greater physical device support and digital incentivisation of body posture and head position are key to improving the reliability of the visual acuity measurement.

scholarly journals Using the Behaviour Change Wheel Program Planning Model to Design Games for Health: Development Study (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C Robertson ◽  
Tom Baranowski ◽  
Debbe Thompson ◽  
Karen M Basen-Engquist ◽  
Maria Chang Swartz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Behavior Change ◽  
Older Women ◽  
Behaviour Change ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Program Planning ◽  
Planning Model ◽  
Game Mechanics ◽  
Behaviour Change Wheel ◽  
Games For Health ◽  
Player Experiences

BACKGROUND Games for health are a promising approach to health promotion. Their success depends on achieving both experiential (game) and instrumental (health) objectives. There is little to guide game for health (G4H) designers in integrating the science of behavior change with the art of game design. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to extend the Behaviour Change Wheel program planning model to develop Challenges for Healthy Aging: Leveraging Limits for Engaging Networked Game-Based Exercise (CHALLENGE), a G4H centered on increasing physical activity in insufficiently active older women. METHODS We present and apply the G4H Mechanics, Experiences, and Change (MECHA) process, which supplements the Behaviour Change Wheel program planning model. The additional steps are centered on identifying target G4H player experiences and corresponding game mechanics to help game designers integrate design elements and G4H objectives into behavioral interventions. RESULTS We identified a target behavior of increasing moderate-intensity walking among insufficiently active older women and key psychosocial determinants of this behavior from self-determination theory (eg, autonomy). We used MECHA to map these constructs to intervention functions (eg, persuasion) and G4H target player experiences (eg, captivation). Next, we identified behavior change techniques (eg, framing or reframing) and specific game mechanics (eg, transforming) to help realize intervention functions and elicit targeted player experiences. CONCLUSIONS MECHA can help researchers map specific linkages between distal intervention objectives and more proximal game design mechanics in games for health. This can facilitate G4H program planning, evaluation, and clearer scientific communication.

scholarly journals Player Experiences and Behaviors in a Multiplayer Game: designing game rules to change interdependent behavior

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niko Vegt ◽  
Valentijn Visch ◽  
Arnold Vermeeren ◽  
Huib De Ridder
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Design Experiment ◽  
Competitive Behavior ◽  
Competition And Cooperation ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Rule Sets ◽  
Game Elements ◽  
Player Experiences

Serious gaming is used as a means for improving organizational teamwork, yet little is known about the effect of individual game elements constituting serious games. This paper presents a game design experiment aimed at generating knowledge on designing game elements for teamwork. In previous work, we suggested that interaction- and goal-driven rules could guide interdependence and teamwork strategies. Based on this finding, for the present experiment we developed two versions of multiplayer Breakout, varying in rule-sets, designed to elicit player strategies of either dependent competition or dependent cooperation. Results showed that the two rule-sets could generate distinct reported player experiences and observable distinct player behaviors that could be further discriminated into four patterns: expected patterns of helping and ignoring, and unexpected patterns of agreeing and obstructing. Classic game theory was applied to understand the four behavior patterns and made us conclude that goal-driven rules steered players towards competition and cooperation. Interaction rules, in contrast, mainly stimulated dependent competitive behavior, e.g. obstructing each other. Since different types of rules thus led to different player behavior, discriminating in game design between interaction- and goal-driven rules seems relevant. Moreover, our research showed that game theory proved to be useful for understanding goal-driven rules.

The Added Value of Graphical Input and Display for Electron Lens Design

1990 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 190-191
Author(s):  
B. Lencova ◽  
G. Wisselink
Keyword(s):  
Flux Density ◽  
Numerical Data ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Lens Design ◽  
Step Size ◽  
Magnetic Lens ◽  
Flux Lines ◽  
Fine Mesh ◽  
Electron Lens ◽  
User Friendly

Recent progress in computer technology enables the calculation of lens fields and focal properties on commonly available computers such as IBM ATs. If we add to this the use of graphics, we greatly increase the applicability of design programs for electron lenses. Most programs for field computation are based on the finite element method (FEM). They are written in Fortran 77, so that they are easily transferred from PCs to larger machines.The design process has recently been made significantly more user friendly by adding input programs written in Turbo Pascal, which allows a flexible implementation of computer graphics. The input programs have not only menu driven input and modification of numerical data, but also graphics editing of the data. The input programs create files which are subsequently read by the Fortran programs. From the main menu of our magnetic lens design program, further options are chosen by using function keys or numbers. Some options (lens initialization and setting, fine mesh, current densities, etc.) open other menus where computation parameters can be set or numerical data can be entered with the help of a simple line editor. The "draw lens" option enables graphical editing of the mesh - see fig. I. The geometry of the electron lens is specified in terms of coordinates and indices of a coarse quadrilateral mesh. In this mesh, the fine mesh with smoothly changing step size is calculated by an automeshing procedure. The options shown in fig. 1 allow modification of the number of coarse mesh lines, change of coordinates of mesh points or lines, and specification of lens parts. Interactive and graphical modification of the fine mesh can be called from the fine mesh menu. Finally, the lens computation can be called. Our FEM program allows up to 8000 mesh points on an AT computer. Another menu allows the display of computed results stored in output files and graphical display of axial flux density, flux density in magnetic parts, and the flux lines in magnetic lenses - see fig. 2. A series of several lens excitations with user specified or default magnetization curves can be calculated and displayed in one session.

Preliminary Findings on the Use of Session Questionnaires to Improve Clinician-Client Alliance With Special Consideration to Clinical Education

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-60
Author(s):  
Anu Subramanian
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Clinical Education ◽  
Clinical Decision Making ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Treatment Effectiveness ◽  
Clinical Decision ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Therapeutic Outcomes ◽  
Specific Feedback ◽  
Stakeholder Perspective

ASHA's focus on evidence-based practice (EBP) includes the family/stakeholder perspective as an important tenet in clinical decision making. The common factors model for treatment effectiveness postulates that clinician-client alliance positively impacts therapeutic outcomes and may be the most important factor for success. One strategy to improve alliance between a client and clinician is the use of outcome questionnaires. In the current study, eight parents of toddlers who attended therapy sessions at a university clinic responded to a session outcome questionnaire that included both rating scale and descriptive questions. Six graduate students completed a survey that included a question about the utility of the questionnaire. Results indicated that the descriptive questions added value and information compared to using only the rating scale. The students were varied in their responses regarding the effectiveness of the questionnaire to increase their comfort with parents. Information gathered from the questionnaire allowed for specific feedback to graduate students to change behaviors and created opportunities for general discussions regarding effective therapy techniques. In addition, the responses generated conversations between the client and clinician focused on clients' concerns. Involving the stakeholder in identifying both effective and ineffective aspects of therapy has advantages for clinical practice and education.

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