Group items tagged

"This paper presents a design methodology that allows technical leads in the game industry to introduce story designers with low technical background to generative techniques for automatic plot creation, in particular to a specific method of AI-based planning. The approach provides support to convey necessary technical knowledge by paper prototyping. Further, it demonstrates that paper prototypes are not only useful to learn these concepts but also as tools of creation."

"A data game is a game that allows the player(s) to explore data that is derived from outside the game, by transforming the data into something that can be played with. In other words, games as a form of interactive data visualisation."

Abstract: "In this work we investigate whether the innate visual recognition and learning capabilities of untrained humans can be used in conducting reliable microscopic analysis of biomedical samples toward diagnosis. For this purpose, we designed entertaining digital games that are interfaced with artificial learning and processing back-ends to demonstrate that in the case of binary medical diagnostics decisions (e.g., infected vs. uninfected), with the use of crowd-sourced games it is possible to approach the accuracy of medical experts in making such diagnoses. Specifically, using non-expert gamers we report diagnosis of malaria infected red blood cells with an accuracy that is within 1.25% of the diagnostics decisions made by a trained medical professional."

"Automated lm editing involves the generation of the position, orientation, motion and selection of virtual cameras in interactive 3D graphics applications. There is a pressing demand for techniques to assist and automate the control of virtual cameras in the computer games industry where the rapid development of personal computers and high performance consoles has led to substantial improvements in the visual delity of games. The goal of this survey is to characterize the spectrum of applications that require automated lm editing, present a summary of state-of-the-art models and techniques, and identify both promising avenues and hot topics for future research"

"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."

"This dissertation presents the use of procedural content generation to create expressive design tools: content generators that are accessible to designers, supporting the creation of new kinds of design tools and enabling the exploration of a new genre of game involving the deep integration of procedural content generation into game mechanics and aesthetics. The first of these tools is Tanagra, the first ever AI-assisted level design tool that supports a designer creating levels for 2D platforming games. Tanagra guarantees that levels created in the tool are playable, and provides the designer with the ability to modify generated levels and directly control level pacing. The second tool is Launchpad, which supports a designer controlling both component and pacing features of generated levels; its companion game Endless Web uses the generator to create an infinite world for players to explore and alter through their choices. Endless Web is one of a handful of games in a new genre enabled by content generation: PCG-based games. Finally, this dissertation presents a novel method for understanding, visualizing, and comparing a generator's expressive range, thus allowing designers to understand the implications of decisions they will make during the design process."

"Video games are a real revolution in the world of computers, programming and amusement. It all started from a small experiment of a programmer and has exploded into a great unstoppable industry producing even video games addicts. Basics: A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device."

"This paper focuses on the design and development of a gamebased forensics course using the game-based learning (GBL) approach building the game in a real computing environment that has direct access to actual forensics tools from a forensics machine and the evidence from a suspect machine. Interactive visualizations will be used to help students to understand the intangible and inaccessible abstract concepts such as deleted/hidden/encrypted/over-written digital evidence."

"Create the Gotham for your Batman, the African savannah for your Simba, or the bustling newsroom for your Clark Kent. Background, setting, environment...whatever you call it, it is the silent character in the visual story, and a dynamic and compelling setting can define and hone the action and drama of your story."

design of two games and observations on changes in spatial mobility and executive function

"Smartphone devices are becoming the de facto personal com- puting platform, rivaling the desktop, as the number of smartphone users is projected to reach 1.1 billion by 2013. Unlike the desktop, smartphones have a constrained energy budget, which is further challenged by increasingly sophisti- cated applications. Amongst the most popular applications on smartphone devices are games and virtual environments that rely on 3D graphics. Due to the computational inten- sity of geometry and rasterization, as well as the perpetually illuminated display, these applications are extremely power- hungry. To prolong the battery life of devices running these applications, we propose two new energy-aware adaptation schemes that can be employed in 3D graphics applications: lighting limitation and textural transformation. Our results show that we can conserve between 20% and 33% of energy with acceptable sacrices to a user's visual experience."

"visualizing the 48 hour game making challenge"

"Training was accomplished using a videogame paradigm that emphasizes associations among sound categories, visual information, and players' responses to videogame characters"