Group items tagged

Abstract Virtual worlds give us the opportunity to explore another self, a virtual character of the real life you. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have become extremely popular over the last decade. It has also grown into a lucrative business. To keep the players, the game needs to be more than just a game. This study aimed at finding out what factors that determine which features of the character creation interface that are most important to players. The following research question was formed; "Which underlying factors affect how important different features of the character creation interface are to experienced MMORPG players? To be able to answer the question an extensive literature review was conducted. A qualitative approach was taken. Long interviews were made with five participants, two female and three male players. The interviews took place while they created a number of avatars in different MMORPGs. The interviews were then followed up. During the follow-ups, the impact the character creation process had for the players, were discussed. The findings indicate that the character creation interface is important for the players to get a good gaming experience. However different types of players require different things. Important features for the users to change were mainly; the head; the name; and adding parts of yourself on your character. The factors that determined the importance of these features were found to be; Player types; Identity types; Immersion levels; and whether or not the game or the gaming experience were new to the player. Another finding showed that the longer you have played a game the less bizarre the different races, classes and gender will seem. The study also indicated that the female participants had a hard time identifying with their male characters."

"This project involves developing an action-platformer game for the Flash platform. The user controls a character who must progress through levels, while avoiding obstacles, collecting items and fighting many types of enemies. Role-playing game elements such as equipment and upgrades support user customization and varied battle strategies. Developing a successful Flash game involves several factors. Flash games must be simple to get into, yet rewarding to play in both short and long sessions. Flash games must be accessible to a wide audience; both in terms of user preferences and technical limitations. Finally, Flash games must offer something unique to stand out from the crowd, in a market where hundreds of free games are published every month. This report covers the research, design and implementation done to achieve these requirements, in terms of game mechanics, interface, level design, visual design, accessibility options, and replay value. Technical challenges include building, testing and optimizing a game engine and interface from scratch, balancing the game mechanics and difficulty, and structuring the whole development process in a way that enables easy creation of new content. In addition to game design and development, this project also deals with the business aspects of developing online games; how games generate revenue, how they are marketed and distributed, and developing trends in the consumer market. Project success in different areas has been evaluated through usability studies, user ratings and reviews, and vast quantities of usage and distribution statistics. Overall, the project has been a success in terms of user reception and generated revenue, and the final section of this report includes plans for a second game, utilizing and building upon the same game engine and mechanics."

"How do game characters contribute to shaping the playing experience? What kinds of design tools are available for character-based games that utilize methods from dramatic writing and game research? Writer Petri Lankoski has a theory for this. There is a need to tether character design to game design more tightly than has been the case in the past, as well as to pay attention to social networks of characters by the means of finding useful design patterns.

From the abstract: "Traditionally, the tasks associated with game AI revolved around non player character (NPC) behavior at dierent levels of control, varying from navigation and pathnding to decision making. Commercial-standard games developed over the last 15 years and current game productions, however, suggest that the traditional challenges of game AI have been well addressed via the use of sophisticated AI approaches, not necessarily following or inspired by advances in academic practices. The marginal penetration of traditional academic game AI methods in industrial productions has been mainly due to the lack of constructive communication between academia and industry in the early days of academic game AI, and the inability of academic game AI to propose methods that would signicantly advance existing development processes or provide scalable solutions to real world problems. Recently, however, there has been a shift of research focus as the current plethora of AI uses in games is breaking the non-player character AI tradition. A number of those alternative AI uses have already shown a signicant potential for the design of better games. This paper presents four key game AI research areas that are currently reshaping the research roadmap in the game AI eld and evidently put the game AI term under a new perspective. These game AI agship research areas include the computational modeling of player experience, the procedural generation of content, the mining of player data on massive-scale and the alternative AI research foci for enhancing NPC capabilities."

A complete guide to creating usable, realistic game characters with two powerful toolsCreating viable game characters requires a combination of skills. This book teaches game creators how to create usable, realistic game assets using the power of an open-source 3D application and a free game engine. (excerpts in Google Books)

"Online games increasingly sell virtual goods to generate real income. As a result, it is increasingly important to identify factors and theory of consumption values that affect intent to purchase virtual goods in online games. However, very little research has been devoted to the topic. This study is an empirical investigation of the factors and theory of consumption values that affect intent to purchase virtual goods in online games. The study determines the effects of game type, satisfaction with the game, identification with the character, and theory of consumption values on intent to purchase virtual goods. The study used a survey to collect information from 523 virtual game users. Study results showed that game type is a moderating variable that affects intent to purchase virtual goods. And it demonstrated that role-playing game users are affected by theory of consumption values: functional quality, playfulness, and social relationship support. Moreover, war-strategy game users are affected by satisfaction with the game, identification with the character, and theory of consumption values: price, utility, and playfulness. The study also presents conclusions, proposes applications, and describes opportunities for further research."

"The UT^2 game bot, created by computer scientists Jacob Schru, Igor Karpov and Risto Miikkulainen, won the Humanlike Bot Competition at the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI 2012). "The idea of the competition is to evaluate how we can make game bots, non-player characters (NPCs) controlled by AI algorithms, appear as human as possible," explains Miikkulainen, professor of computer science in the College of Natural Sciences. "It is generally recognized that NPCs are relatively weak in most video games: their behavior is predictable and mechanical, and they often make mistakes that human players would be unlikely to make. Players often enjoy playing against other humans, because it provides a more interesting game experience. The goal of the competition is to promote more research in human-like bots, as well as evaluate how well we are currently doing in this area."

Abstract: "Game Artificial Intelligence (Game AI) is a subdiscipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) that explores the ways in which AI and ML can augment player experiences in computer games. Storytelling is an integral part of many modern computer games; within games stories create context, motivate the player, and move the action forward. Interactive Narrative is the use of AI to create and manage stories within games, creating the perception that the player is a character in a dynamically unfolding and responsive story. This paper introduces Game AI and focuses on the open research problems of Interactive Narrative."

"About this Project: I love playing video games but I'm regularly disappointed in the limited and limiting ways women are represented. This video project will explore, analyze and deconstruct some of the most common tropes and stereotypes of female characters in games. The series will highlight the larger reoccurring patterns and conventions used within the gaming industry rather than just focusing on the worst offenders. I'm going to need your help to make it happen!"

Abstract: :In this paper, I draw on an embodied cognition approach todescribe how sound mediates our identification with andempathy for video game characters. This identification isdiscussed in terms of mirror neurons and body schema, drawingon theoretical and empirical research to explore ways in whichidentity is created from our embodied interaction with sound. Iconclude by suggesting ways in which sound designers andcomposers can use this information to create more empathy andidentification between players and their game characters."

Abstract: "Serious Games are increasingly used as a tool for various applications contrary to the traditional enterta inment purpose. Many game engines are available, and Unity3D is another example that presents some features such as rapid prototyping and an easy learning curve. The 3D space where action takes place is sometimes hard to map into a logical memory structure providing flexible access to that information. The problem of tracking players ' path as well as their decision s in 3D environments arises when there is no previous knowledge of the scenario representation and the creation of a memory data structure poses an extra effort for the modeller. The proposed solution in this paper, albeit simple, is a straightforward way to track the location of the video game character and map it when he / she passes certain limits. Th is mechanism proved to represent a key step for ward, addressing the important issue of tracking the decision - making process of players for future analysis and behaviour elicitation."

"The game enjoyment threshold model was used to evaluate player feedback in the feasibility study of a serious game, Wellness Partners. This game was purposefully developed as a web-based application that combines digital gaming and social networking to promote physical activity and a healthy lifestyle. The game design team led by the second author consisted of current students and alumni at the Interactive Media Division at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California. The primary participants were middle-aged university staff (egos) and they were asked to invite at least one family member or friend to enroll in the game as their wellness partners (alters). Players can accumulate points by sending status updates about their physical activities or setbacks. They can redeem their points to collect virtual objects or play animations of a virtual character related to healthy activities. A tag cloud is generated based the frequency of physical activities reported by members in a playgroup."

"Without achieving a clear understanding of the learning domain, it is difficult to develop a successful serious game that enables users to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Thus, the first step in serious game design is to establish an understanding of the particular learning domain, usually through consultation with domain experts. Whilst game design is inherently a creative process, we believe the capturing of the knowledge domain can be systematised and we present a structured approach to knowledge elicitation and representation as a basis for serious game design. We have adapted and extended the applied cognitive task analysis (ACTA) method and have combined it with additional knowledge representation frameworks. We explain how the outputs of this approach can inform the game mechanic and the development of non-player characters, and apply it to the design of a serious game aimed at reducing time-tocompetence in soft project management skills for professionals working in corporate environments. A total of 26 domain experts from five different countries were involved in a two-stage interview process. The interviews yielded more than 300 task elements, and information about the cognition underlying the more challenging tasks. This data was incorporated into several representation frameworks and used to indicate features to be implemented in the game and the game mechanics of the supported features."

Abstract: "As computational capability continues to increase, the tools available to designers of digital games have become more robust, allowing high fidelity graphics and sound to become common, and resulting in a market saturated with kinetic-based games. However, consumers and educators are eschewing such games for more complex and immersive stories, the creation of which has proven a difficult mountain for designers to climb. A central reason is that story-immersive games rely on dialogue between the player character (PC) and nonplayer characters (NPCs), the writing and coding of which is time consuming and inefficient. This paper documents the author's experiences with complex, branching dialogue systems, and examines the possibility of system automation through natural language processing (NLP)."

Forthcoming game from Funcom: "Massively multiplayer online MMO veterans know how questing traditionally works. You stumble upon a hub of non-playable characters with golden exclamation points over their heads. You scoop up every task they offer, then you spend the next few hours grinding them out as efficiently as possible, sometimes while simultaneously watching TV. The Secret World changes all of that by restricting the number of active missions you can have at one time. While some players will find this too limiting, I think it's a good thing. The Secret World is a story-driven game, complete with cutscenes and voiced dialogue. Many of its missions require attention, thought, and the occasional Google search."

Abstract: "Non-player Characters (NPCs) that accompany the player en- able a single player to participate in team-based experiences, improving immersion and allowing for more complex game- play. In this context, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) teammate should make good combat decisions, supporting the player and optimizing combat resolution. Here we investigate the target selection problem, which consists of picking the op- timal enemy as a target in a modern war game. We look at how the companion's different strategies can influence the outcome of combat, and by analyzing a variety of non-trivial First Person Shooter (FPS) scenarios show that a mathemat- ically simple approach significantly improves over common strategies typically found in games, and can achieve results similar to much more expensive look-up tree approaches. This work has applications in practical game design, show- ing that simple, computationally efficient target selection can make an excellent target selection heuristic"

abstract: "Demon Dissension provides a strategic twist on the traditional fighting game experience to players and showcases co mplex game logic, networking, and fighting game design principles. Built entirely in the Unity engine and programmed in C#, Demon Dissension pits two players against one another in a battle for glory, challenging them to not only fight against the charact er in game, but the strategies being employed by the actual opponent . A team of two artists and two programmers took four terms to create a deep multiplayer battle experience." Becker student Breeze Grigas participated in this project.

"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."

From the abstract: "Here we demonstrate for the first time the iterative development of agent behaviour for a real-time strategy game (here StarCraft) utilising Behaviour Oriented Design (BOD) [7]. BOD provides focus on the robust creation and easy adjustment of modular and hierarchical cognitive agents. We demonstrate BOD's usage in creating an AI capable of playing the StarCraft character the Zerg hive mind, and document its performance against a variety of opponent AI systems. In describing our tool-driven development process, we also describe the new Abode IDE, provide a brief literature review situating BOD in the AI game literature, and propose possible future work."

Abstract: "How much time will a player spend in an interactive scene? For the majority of game scenarios this is impossible to predict. Therefore, their musical accompaniment is usually disposed to continuously loop until player interaction triggers a change. This approach involves an existential danger: Sooner or later the player becomes aware of the repetitive character of the ambience design; the game scenario emerges as a mere mechanical arrangement and loses much of its integrity. In this survey paper we systematize and discuss the common approaches to conceal musical repetition. Furthermore, we complement them by a number of approaches that incorporate arrangement techniques, aspects of expressive music performance, and generative variation methods that work actively against repetitiveness."