Group items tagged

Abstract: "Scalability, fast response time, and low cost are of utmost importance in designing a successful massively multiplayer online game. The underlying architecture plays an important role in meeting these conditions. Peer-to-peer architectures, due to their distributed and collaborative nature, have low infrastructure costs and can achieve high scalability. They can also achieve fast response times by creating direct connections between players. However, these architectures face many challenges. Distributing a game among peers makes maintaining control over the game more complex. Peer-to-peer architectures also tend to be vulnerable to churn and cheating. Moreover, different genres of games have different requirements that should be met by the underlying architecture, rendering the task of designing a general purpose architecture harder. Many peer-to-peer gaming solutions have been proposed that utilize a range of techniques while using somewhat different and confusing terminologies. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of current peer-to-peer solutions for massively multiplayer games using a uniform terminology"

Abstract: Video games are no longer a means of simple entertainment that serve as a form of escapism. They are perceived not simply as free time distractions, but as logic of engagement and platforms of creative thinking. Furthermore, online video games have taken the idea of interaction to a level no any other media has ever achieved. Online video games known as virtual world or MMO (massively multiplayer online) are a mega interaction platform that attract millions of players across the globe. They are the ultimate goal that all architects have ever dreamed of, i.e. to create an interactive space that satis es the needs of users. This thesis research will tend to examine a variety of video games from 3 perspectives: space, structure and interactivity, with a view to understanding and exploring the behaviour of players in video games, as known as, virtual stages. In recognizing and articulating such behaviour, followed by exploring the relationship between architects, users and spaces, the interpretation of architectural languages can then be translated into physical spatial form. This research then questions the possibilities of promoting the gaming industry in South Africa. In the current digital era, the IT (information and technology) industry is a main stream profession that helps with the growth of a country as a whole. The role of the gaming industry therefore cannot be ignored in this instance. The gaming industry is a rapid growing profession that comprises a lot of speci c professionals. SA does not offer nor focus on the video game eld and as a result, we are experiencing a shortage of professionals in this eld. This thesis proposes a facility to facilitate current and future game industry related professionals, on the same time, providing a playful environment that integrates the building and local context, allowing deeper engagement for those who haven t been exposed to the real meaning behind video games.

"In this paper we present an ap- proach for serious game development, based on the model-driven game development techniques. Our approach aims at reducing the complexity of game design and implementation by separating the conceptual envi- ronment of the game and its concrete implementation.We rst dene the abstract models that characterize the structure and behavior of the game. Then, with the software architecture model and the platform-specic model, we transform the abstract models into concrete implementations. The resulting prototypes are generated completely (100%)."

Abstract: "the boom of Cloud Computing services in the recent years has created new opportunities and removed many of the limitations that are typically tied to software deployed on the Internet. It has been shown that the development of online games can benefit from the integration of Cloud services into their design in order to solve many of the problems that plague their development and maintenance. In this paper, we first discuss the current designs of online gaming architectures and present their limits. The solutions offered by using Cloud services in respect to these video games are then explored and the new problems that arise from this combination are addressed. We also present a case study by deploying an online First Person Shooter multiplayer video game on currently available Cloud infrastructures (using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud) and detailing our architecture specifically designed for this purpose. We show that, where once entering the market of online games was solely affordable by big companies due to the high infrastructure costs, a single person could now create and deploy an online game."

Abstract: "The rising acceptance of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) in the e- Learning field poses new challenges such as producing student-centered courses which can be automatically tailored to each student's needs. For this purpose digital games can be used, taking advantage of their flexibility (good video games always try to adapt to different players) and capabilities to stealthily track players' activity, either for producing an accurate user model or enhancing the overall assessment capabilities of the system. In this chapter we discuss the integration of digital games in Virtual Learning Environments and the need of standards that allow the interoperable communication of games and VLE. We also present a middle-ware architecture to integrate video games in VLEs that addresses the technical barriers posed by the integration. We present a case study with the implementation of the architecture in the game authoring platform, along with three examples of video game integration in educational settings"

From the abstract: "n the last decade the popularity of MMOGs has exploded. Unfortunately, the demand has far outweighed the resources commercial game providers can provide. Many MMOGs are suffering from scalability issues, resulting in game world partitioni ng, service down time and server crashes. The centralized server architecture of most modern day MMOGs is unable to cope with this increase in the number of participating players. Hence, there is a need for a scalable network architecture which can support these large number of players without affecting the overall gaming experience for each player. In this paper, we provide a review on the existing networking infrastructure solutions for MMOGs. This includes description and comparison of different im plementation techniques for the deployment of massive multiplayer on-line games, which work as a client/server and peer-to-peer paradigms. "

"Abstract-Implementations of mobile games have become prevalent industrial technology due to the ubiquitous nature of mobile devices. However, simultaneous-movement multiplayer games - games that a player competes simultaneously with other players - are usually affected by such parameters as latency, type of game architecture and type of communication technology. This paper makes a review of the above parameters, considering the pros and cons of the various techniques used in addressing each parameter. It then goes ahead to propose an enhanced mechanism for dealing with packet delays based on partitioning the game background into grids. The proposed design is implemented and tested using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi communication technologies. The efficiency and effectiveness of the design are also analyzed."

"The high cost of launching resources from the Earth's surface is a significant barrier to future long- duration human space exploration. A future resource economy in space may allow resource production, processing, storage, and transportation at distributed locations, but will have many stakeholders with var- ied and potentially competing objectives. Simulation games provide a medium for communication and learning richer than papers or linear presentations by combining the technical capabilities of simulation models with human interaction. Building on technology powering military wargames, federated simulation architectures such as HLA-Evolved use independently-developed simulation models connected over a dis- tributed network of computers. This paper presents an approach for developing a multi-player simulation gaming environment where human players take on roles of organizations or government agencies within scenarios designed to address the design and operation of a resource economy in space. The game design addresses the number of players, time advancement, level of abstraction, scenario selection, and other de- cisions based on past simulation games in the domains of military-political, educational, disaster response, and business-management games. Future research will focus on evaluating game executions to analyze human decision-making under various scenarios. Quantitative analysis of decisions using game logs com- bined with qualitative analysis of interviews and surveys will contribute to strategies for a future resource economy in space."

Abstract: "In this paper, we explore the application of Software Product Line (SPL) technology in the video games domain by exploiting differences in various video game platforms to design a variable component - based software product line architecture for a multiplatform vide o game . Our approach consists of constructing a feature dependency model for describing variability in multiplatform video games. We explored variability in the user interface, input devices, output devices, CPU, as well as other variability in various vid eo game platforms. Then, we designed a variable component - based SPL that is tailored to every video game in the product line. We validated our approach by implementing a SPL of a combat flight - simulator game and by deriving two versions of the game: a Win dows desktop version and a Windows Phone version. The derivation process of each version is done by selecting features from the feature dependency model and the corresponding software components and SPL parameters that relate to those features. "

Abstract: "Collision avoidance and multi-agent navigation is an important component of modern video games. Recent developments in commodity hardware, in particular the utilization of multi-core and many-core architectures in personal computers and consoles are allowing large numbers of virtual agents to be incorporated into game levels in increasing numbers. We present the hybrid reciprocal velocity obstacle and optimal reciprocal collision avoidance methods for reciprocal collision avoidance and navigation in video games and described their implementations in C++ as HRVO Library and RVO2 Library. The libraries can efficiently simulate groups of twenty-five to one thousand virtual agents in dense conditions and around moving and static obstacles."

Unreal Englne and its potential

Abstract: "This paper explores the use of modern sensor technologies for physical interaction on educati onal games and interactive spaces. More specifically the thesis studies the potential effect of motion capture and wearable body sensors on educational interactive games, on two aspects: i) on the involvement of human body and motion in the process of lear ning, and recall of knowledge (embodied learning), ii) on assisting the development of basic social emotional competencies, through the enhanced social affordances of embodied games. The paper presents a prototype of an educational game developed using a m otion capture controller and two bio feedback sensors, proposing a generic architecture for multi sensor interactive spaces. Finally the paper provides a review of previously studied modalities for emotion recognition, and examines their application on gam e mechanics and AI game agents."

from the introduction: "Collision avoidance and navigation among virtual agents is an important component of modern video games. Recent de- velopments in commodity hardware, in particular the utiliza- tion of multi-core and many-core architectures in personal computers and consoles are allowing large numbers of vir- tual agents to be incorporated into game levels in increasing numbers and with increasing fidelity. As a result, there is a need for efficient techniques to automatically generate real- istic behaviors for such groups of virtual agents"

"Abstract-While component reuse is a common concept in software engineering, it does not yet have a strong foothold in Computer Game development, in particular the development of computer-controlled game characters. In this work, we take a modular Statechart-based game AI modelling approach and develop a reuse strategy to enable fast development of new AIs. This is aided through the creation of a standardized interface for Statechart modules in a layered architecture. Reuse is enabled at a high-level through functional groups that encapsulate behaviour. These concepts are solidified with the development of the SkyAI tool. SkyAI enables a developer to build and work with a library of modular components to develop new AIs by composing modules, and then output the resulting product to an existing game. Efficacy is demonstrated by reusing AI components from a tank to quickly make a much different AI for a simple animal."

Abstract: "We present the Brigade renderer: an efficient system that uses the path tracing algorithm to produce images for real-time games. We describe the architecture of the Brigade renderer, and provide implementation details. We describe two games that have been created using Brigade."

RTF (Real Time Framework) with one of the cases implementation of multiplayer online games on multiple servers

From the abstract: "In this paper, I present and compare a number of cross-platform compilers. While the overview alone indicates which cross-compiler may be appropriate for the needs of a given project, the study in this paper reaches beyond that. I also present tools to support the development process and using them I create a working title. It leads to a series of tests measuring the quality of experience and showing that even very simple methods may have impact on the end-user."