Interdisciplinary team at University of Albany, supported by Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), in partnership with a local game company
Abstract: "This article discusses the application of an Alexandrian pattern
language to the design of interactive systems. It grew out of an
University course titled A Pattern Approach to Action Game
Design, which was offered as an elective in the Creative
Technologies program at Auckland University of Technology,
NZ, in 2011. We sketch out the idea of design patterns and
describe our experiences with the process of using them for
designing oldschool action games, that is, finding patterns,
making a language, using it for creating several game designs
and realizing one of these designs collaboratively. We discuss
the concept of the course and present our pattern language and
the game we made. While the language is arguably more like a
patchy pattern collection, the various game designs quite loose
and the realized game unfinished, the process was challenging
and intense, and offered students a new perspective on design.
In the spirit of design patterns, we only did what the task at
hand required, not artificial exercises. We attempted to connect
theory and practice in a natural, direct way as we presented,
discussed and used everything we did in order to continue our
journey. Our course was not aimed at fixed or frozen products,
but on a process that is constantly in flux through collaboration
by people who interact and share a common pattern language,
use, test, revise and refine it while moving on."
"June 19, 2012 - Students in the University of Utah's Entertainment Arts and Engineering (EAE) program have pulled more firsts out of their impressive hats. This time, it is the release of "Heroes of Hat," the first game produced by students in the EAE program that can be played by up to four people in what is called "multiplayer co-op mode.""
"Tom Baranowski of Baylor College of Medicine, Willis Gee of Cigna, Cameron Lister of Brigham Young University, Kevin Werbach of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and Rhett Woods of Rally Health spoke with iHealthBeat about the growing use of digital gaming to encourage healthy behaviors and reduce costs."
"a video game developed at the University of Utah to help children with cancer during their treatment." Results of making connection between medical devices used to encourage healing and video game technology.
"The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) has launched the Center for Digital Games Research to study digital media and games from a multidisciplinary approach. Launched with seed funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the center brings together 30 faculty members with expertise in "human-computer interaction, virtual environments, simulations, social networks, data mining, interactive storytelling and narrative, media neuroscience and behavioral health," among others, according to a news release."
"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."
"Seth Cooper is the lead designer of Foldit, and one of the original creators of the game. He is currently the creative director for the Center for Game Science at the University of Washington. In a recent Science Observer, American Scientist associate editor Katie Burke discussed Foldit and other citizen science games. The following is an extended version of her conversation with Cooper"
Abstract: "We introduce ALE, a new framework for writing games for the An-
droid platform. The primary motivation behind ALE is to empha-
size reading code before writing it. Beginners read game code to
learn how levels can be made, and advanced users read the code of
ALE itself to learn how to create useful and extensible libraries. To
date, roughly 200 students at our university have used ALE, rang-
ing from first-semester engineering undergraduates through Mas-
ters students. ALE has proven useful in teaching non-majors about
CS, in making introductory CS programming courses more excit-
ing, and in encouraging creativity, entrepreneurship, and good pro-
gram design in upper-level electives. Based on these experiences,
we encourage educators at all levels to consider using ALE to im-
prove students' ability to learn by reading code."
Abstract: "Preparing medical students for the takeover or the start-up of a medical practice is an
important challenge in Germany today. Therefore, this paper presents a computer-aided
serious game (eMedOffice) developed and currently in use at the RWTH Aachen University
Medical School. The game is part of the attempt to teach medical students the organizational
and conceptual basics of the medical practice of a general practitioner in a problem-based
learning environment. This paper introduces methods and concepts used to develop the
serious game and describes the results of an evaluation of the game's application in curricular
courses at the Medical School."
From the abstract: "this study investigated how the perspectives of the non-computer science educators changed after learning game-programming and how it could be fitted into the K-12 curriculum. Fourteen non-computer science educators and/or administrators in the K - 16 educational systems who made up a cohort at Sam Houston State University, Master of Education/Instructional Technology Program participated in this study. The participants were required to learn two free Web 2.0 game-programming applications and reflect on an article related to reviving interest in math and science as part of their program. Qualitative data consisted of online reflections, and peer-review processes through Facebook. A quantitative component was added to the analysis. The findings indicated that: (a) the perspectives of the participants changed from negative to positive as they reflected on their own game-programming learning experiences; (b) participants came to understand how game programming could build up students' logical concepts and critical thinking skills improving performances in math, science, and other subjects; and (c) due to the benefits of logical concepts and critical thinking skills game programming could have immense benefits if built into the K-12 curriculum."
Abstract: "This paper discusses the theoretical choices underpinning the creation of a video game called Medicina. This game is designed to broadly foster better language skills among international nursing students with English as a Second Language (ESL) and more specifically to teach confusable medication names and improve reaction time to verbal orders. Research shows that the intentional learning of vocabulary is important to language learning. Without adequate vocabulary knowledge, it is difficult for an international student to interact in professional and university settings. This situation is compounded by the expectation that students will learn key vocabulary incidentally through academic pre-readings, despite the research demonstrating this to be an inefficient and inadequate method of learning. Moreover, medication names are low-frequency vocabulary. Thus, the international student who seeks to enter the health profession encounters the task of learning an entire subset of language but without the amount of exposure theorised as being necessary to it. Repeated exposure to these words is needed, leading to automaticity. The paper will outline how the language-learning video game is designed to encourage discrimination between word forms, allowing for multiple exposures to both written and spoken vocabulary, and promoting automaticity in pharmacological terminology."
Abstract: "Gamification is the "use of game design elements in non-game contexts"
(Deterding et al, 2011, p.1). A frequently used model for gamification is to equate an
activity in the non-game context with points and have external rewards for reaching
specified point thresholds. One significant problem with this model of gamification is that
it can reduce the internal motivation that the user has for the activity, as it replaces
internal motivation with external motivation. If, however, the game design elements can
be made meaningful to the user through information, then internal motivation can be
improved as there is less need to emphasize external rewards. This paper introduces the
concept of meaningful gamification through a user-centered exploration of theories
behind organismic integration theory, situational relevance, situated motivational
affordance, universal design for learning, and player-generated content."
Excitement is building on the campus of LIU Post, as the university prepares to host PlayExpo, a juried show of games and other interactive digital entertainment, on Sunday, April 15, 2012.