Group items tagged

Abstract: "Serious Games are increasingly used as a training and educational tool. Fire keeps claiming a high number of victims. Some authors allege failures during the evacuation process as the main cause that contributes for that number. Fire drills are used to train buildings' occupants for emergency situations. However, fire drills' participants often have prior knowledge of their schedule and as result they are not as focused as they should. Moreover, fire drills require the mobilization of some resources, leading to financial costs. Performing a fire drill will always affect the normal functioning of the place where they take place; for this reason, sometimes they are not performed at all. In some special locations, like hospitals, fire drills are unsuitable. Emergency planning is crucial to prevent and minimize damage and victims. Albeit the improvement on safety measures, many occupants and employers in this type of buildings still lack adequate knowledge and training on how to behave in such hazardous situations. EVA is presented as a possible solution, which is based on the concept of Serious Game that can be used as a training tool for healthcare professionals. A preliminary prototype was developed. A sample of 20 subjects was selected to test it giving promising results. Results also showed that users who had training in fire prevention appear to perform better in the course. Moreover, participants who regularly play computer games overcame easily the game challenges. Further research and development are still to be explored, which are discussed in the concluding part of this paper."

"Physics engines have created a whole new source of emergence and fun for digital games. Water simulation could add another similar emergent interaction element, but it is currently only rarely used as a part of gameplay. The reasons for this are analysed and different water simulation methods are compared, focusing on actual game usage. Based on this, we suggest using the extremely simple but fast pipe model. The simplicity of the underlying simulation can be masked in many ways using modern shader effects and other tricks. An example of the pipe method in action is given and compared to more sophisticated fluid solvers."

"One of the emerging fields in the Creative Industry is Serious Gaming. In the Municipality of Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, a small number of (Serious) gaming companies is established. One of the fields of Interest, the Municipality tries to develop, is the health care sector. Despite the foreseen growing demand for Serious game products in this sector, the Gaming segment of the Creative Industry has not developed to an economically sustainable entity yet. In this paper we will describe the efforts that were undertaken to develop the Creative Industry and especially the Serious Gaming segment. This choice was made because of seemingly inconsistent policy decisions of some key stakeholders concerning this emerging field. Following we will present a theoretical framework how a cluster could be formed that will be able to survive without governmental aid. This framework is based on a theoretical review and on two examples of existing clusters in Japan and Germany. The paper will end by raising some questions for future research and discussion."

"a welcome trend in game design"

"This thesis proposes the development of a video game platform to increase the publics knowledge of required protective actions in the event of a nuclear terrorism attack. Current scientific analyses have identified elementary steps the public should take to increase the likelihood of survival in the event of a nuclear terrorism incident; however, a knowledge gap currently exists with regard to the publics understanding of these required actions. Unfortunately, todays preparedness initiatives do not have the efficacy required to impact significant improvements in this area. Video games, more specifically a sub-genre of games known as serious games, are uniquely postured to address this knowledge gap. Not only do video games provide a motivating, enriching and engaging educational medium, but also they are unique in that they address the emerging educational needs of todays games generation, which desires more interactive educational environments since they have been immersed in technology for the majority of their lives. As such, leveraging this technology can help close the current knowledge gap and increase the nations resilience to nuclear terrorism."

A bill in the Oklahoma Legislature "proposed under "emergency" rules because it is "immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety," according to the text. After being read on the House floor next week, the bill will need majority votes in both the Oklahoma House of Representatives and Senate before being sent to the governor. After that, if it doesn't receive a three-fourths majority in both houses, it will be put on a November ballot to be approved or rejected by Oklahoma voters."

An emerging game company in the Western MA area focusing on social games

2012 Challenge announced, entries open in Nov. 2011, The Middle School Stream aims to motivate and engage middle school students (grades 5 through 8) in STEM learning, 21st Century Literacy Skills and Systems Thinking by challenging them to design original video games. The High School Stream aims to motivate and engage high school students (grades 9 through 12) in STEM learning, 21st Century Literacy Skills and Systems Thinking by challenging them to design original video games. The Collegiate Stream challenges emerging game developers at the graduate and undergraduate levels to design video games for children (grades pre-K through 8) that teach key STEM concepts and foster an interest in STEM subject areas. The Educator Stream challenges educators to design video games for children (grades pre-K through 12) that teach key STEM concepts and foster an interest in STEM subject areas.

From the abstract: "This thesis is dealing with what have been identified as "pervasive games". Investigation and analysis of reasons behind their appearance, popularization is made. Different trends within classical game-development and theory of classical game-design are investigated to establish similarities and differences, challenges and solutions this newly emerged type of games is introducing. Knowledge presented in theoretical sections is used to design, develop, deploy and test a game-environment for mobile platforms that is adjusted for campus area. This designed game-environment consists of two essential components: Front-End, which is represented by Android mobile application and Back-End server logic. Both of components were designed, tested and implemented. Designed game-environment received a name "DTU GoblinsNGold and has been launched. It is made available publicly worldwide through Google Play market. All of these aspects and milestones are described in details inside practical part of this thesis. During game-environment testing valuable data was received that described all aspects of functionality of implemented system together with behavioral patterns of players. These results of deployment together with conclusions are presented in later sections."

From the introduction "The method described in this review is based on the Machinations tool, written based on the book by Dormans (2012) and the accompanying paper, also by Dormans (20 11). After having researched the necessary elements to create this tool and created the first iterations (Dormans, 2008; 2009), Dormans created Machinations as a response to the call of Doug Church (Dormans, 2012, 21) for "formal abstract design tools" whi ch Church (1999) posted on Gamasutra, a game developer website. Machinations is a framework that uses automated, interactive diagrams to simulate and test the gameplay of a game before development, to see if there are any serious flaws in the design and if the game would have plausible (and more importantly, entertaining) progression and emergence. The diagrams represent the flow of resources in a game during, and the feedback structures that exist in, the gameplay, which can be interacted with during the d iagram's runtime."

Abstract: "The Global Games Jam (GGJ) attracts many people who are passionate about games development , co ming from a range of educational backgrounds. Therefore , the event can be experienced by novices and student developers as an opportunity for learning. This provi des an op ening to promote themes and ideas that could help form future thinking about games design, emerging as a form of induction on key design issues for new practitioners . Such an approach aims to raise awareness about issues which learners c ould help develop and take with them into industry . However, t he experience itself affords a deep experiential rhetoric and dialogue with experts that could be an effective pedagogical tool for issues seldom addressed deeply in formal educational settings . This pape r describes an account by one such individual, being introduced to game accessibility through participation in the GGJ . As such, it is not intended as a rigorous empirical analysis , but rather a perspective on one way a game jam can be experienced , invitin g further research on the topic."

Abstract :"Immigrants entering the European Community face a range of challenges in adapting to and understanding the culture of their host nation. Failure to address these challenges can lead to isolation and difficulties integrating into the society of the host country, leading to fragmented communities and a range of social issues . As part of a comprehensive suit e of services for immigrants , the European - funded M obile Assistance for Social Inclusion and Empowerment of Immigrants with Persuasive Learning Technologies and Social Network Services (MASELTOV) project seeks to provide both practical tools and le arning services via mobile devices, providing a readily usable resource for immigrants . In this workshop paper, the game - based learning aspect of the MASELTOV project is introduced, with the rationale behind its design presented. In doing so, the b enefits and implications of mobile platforms and emergent dat a capture techniques for game - based learning are discussed, as are methods for putting engaging gameplay at the forefront of the experience whilst relying on rich data capture and analysis to pro vide an effective learning solution. Through comparison to several other projects, a number of recommendations are put forward for games deployed in contexts similar to that of MASELTOV: a focus on establishing a significant audience with which to conduct ethical research into efficacy, the need for robust pedagogical frameworks suited to the learning context, and the evolution of methods for data capture and analysis of player activity."

Abstract: "This paper presents data analysis from a course on Software Engineeri ng in an effort to identify metric s and techniques that would allow instructor to act proactively and identify patterns of low engagement and inefficient peer collaboration . Over the last two terms, 106 students in their second year of studies formed 20 groups and worked collaboratively to develop video games. Throughout the lab, students have to use a variety of tools for managing and developing their projects, such as software version control , static analysis tools , wikis, mailing lists, etc . The students are also supported by weekly meet ings with teaching assistants and instructors regarding group progress, code quality, and management issues. Through these meeting s and their interactions with the software tools, students leave a detailed trace of data related to their individual engageme nt and their collaboration behavior in their groups . The paper provides discussion on the different source of data that can be monitored , and present preliminary results on how the s e data can be used to analyze students' activity."

"Abstract The eective information processing (e.g. search, organi- zation) of the heterogeneous information spaces requires metadata layer above the resources. However, the acqui- sition of resource metadata and domain models are chal- lenging tasks. Here, the crowdsourcing has emerged as an alternative to expert-based and automated semantics acquisition approaches. One of its branches are the games with a purpose (GWAPs) which encapsulate the seman- tics acquisition tasks into the game processes. We analyze existing GWAPs and propose their classication. Fur- thermore we devised our own GWAP-based approaches. For acquisition of lightweight term relationship network, we devised a search query formulation game, usable also for specic domain models. For acquisition of (personal) image tags, we devised a card game, where players mem- orize positions of concealed cards and identify identical pairs. For validation of music metadata, we devised a multi-choice question-based game, where players identify tag sets that are characteristic to music tracks they hear. We also looked at the GWAPs from their design per- spectives. We present a design oriented classication sys- tem for GWAPs, adress several design issues recurring in GWAPs and present new design patterns to solve them"

Abstract: "In digital games and virtual worlds, like in other digital media, the structure of the medium, its code, influences the emerging interaction and culture. A deliberate modification of this code to facilitate democratic decision making might thus lead to more meaningful interaction in games. If we see virtual worlds as learning environments this might even help players to understand and question real-world power structures. A way to modify the code of a virtual world is by extending its interface with an add-on that interacts with the application programming interface of the game. In this paper we present the design vision and theoretical framework of a digital tool for ethical decision making that will be implemented in the virtual world World of Warcraft. Its purpose will be to supply players with means to modify the power structure built into the code of this virtual world and to support more ethical and democratic decision making in the game."

Abstract: "In 2010, the authors (Jacobs, a game design professor, Sugarman, a pediatrician, and Rice, a psychotherapist ) started meeting to brainstorm design and play concepts for a therapeutic, physiologically-controlled videogame intended for use by people diagnosed with anxiety and/or autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The goal was to combine cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), narrative therapy (NT) and biofeedback supported psychophysiological selfregulation (PSR) into a game that would engage adolescents and provide hard data on a player's physical and emotional states during a therapy session. The game concept that emerged is "MindGamersTM in School" (MG), a therapeutic game prototype being developed and tested across two 6-month sessions by the authors and two teams of undergraduate game design and development students at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Pursuing the design required half the team to learn principles, terms and methods of strength-based, client-centered psychotherapy and their application to psychophysiological selfregulation and biofeedback theory and practice. The other half of the team needed to engage in understanding the current state of role-playing videogames, avatar creation systems and game design/development processes. This paper will describe the current game prototype and then focus on MG's design and development process by looking at how the initial design period brought the game design to its current state and how it has continued to influence the production process."

"The indie videogame scene is playing host to a new trend - competitive multiplayer sports themed games. Titles like Hokra, BaraBariBall, Tennnes, and GIRP, among others, have been challenging traditional notions of what constitutes a sports themed videogame. The emergence and popularity of these games raises questions about how the culture of traditional sports relates to the still developing community of independent developers, journalists, scholars and enthusiasts that comprise the nascent indie scene. Looking through the lens of performance and performativity, this paper unpacks this new sports game trend, examining design, spectatorship, and group identity by way of interviews with key members of the indie game scene.

Abstract: "Game design and development still needs complex technical skills that only some people master. This can be a huge barrier to game creation by end-users limiting the emergence of a participatory culture around games - similar to the one we have seen with Web 2.0. While there have been approaches to lessen that problem, such as level editors and content creation tools, we think we could go further. We propose that considering and developing design interfaces that make use of common natural skills such as drawing could be a key step to achieve that phenomenon. Therefore we describe and present the Playsketch concept, and it's current implementation, a game creation approach based on the Paper Prototyping concept which invites the users to create simple personalized games."

"Abstract: U nderstanding how younger students can learn to collaborate , and affordances of the learning environment that can effectively support this , are critical questions for knowledge sharing, networking and innovation in education. E xploratory research results o n emergent middle schooler collaborative activity in a guided discovery - based learning program are reported . Students in self - organizing game design teams experience certain challenges (e.g., version control), and innovat e solutions. Some indicate meta - knowledge development and socialization gains. We conclude with ongoing questions."

"we analyze two different trends that have informed technology for learning in cultural institutions during recent years: one more established trend, supporting the information consumption metaphor and the other one, emerging recently, that invites visitors to participate in the process of culture creation. We discuss then game design as an example of participatory activity and we identify its learning dimensions. In particular, we elaborate on the role of technology in providing a scaffold that can help museum audience to construct games which can function as "public artefacts" and can be added to the museum's assets, enhancing audience engagement and community building."