A Domain-Specific Modelling Language for Adventure Educational Games and Flow Theory

Designing educational games is a complex task and needs collaboration between game developers and an educator. Domain-Specific Modeling Language (DSML) offers an approach to simplify the design activities of educational games and support the involvement of both game developers and educators. This paper presents an extension of Serious Game Logic and Structure Modeling Language (GLiSMo), a DSML that designs the logical and structural views of educational adventure games. The gap in the original GLiSMo is that it did not allow an educational game to be designed according to any learning theories. Furthermore, the original GLiSMo does not cover all concepts in the adventure genre. The authors intend to extend the original GLiSMo by adding the concepts of Flow Theory and concepts of the adventure genre to make it more expressive. The extended DSML is called FA-GLiSMo. The authors evaluated the expressiveness of FA-GLiSMo using Framework for Qualitative Assessment of DSLs (FQAD). The result shows that the expressiveness of FA-GLiSMo is still ‘incomplete’ due to the lack of clarity of semantics for several domain concepts. Improvements were performed, and the finalized FA-GLiSMo now has fifteen (15) concepts of the Logic diagram, nineteen (19) concepts of the Structure diagram, and a new diagram called the Flow diagram containing five (5) concepts of the Flow Theory. The authors also demonstrate in this paper the concrete syntax of FA-GLiSMo using the Tales of Monkey Island game as a case study

Analyzing the Impact of Spatio-Temporal Sensor Resolution on Player Experience in Augmented Reality Games

Along with automating everyday tasks of human life, smartphones have become one of the most popular devices to play video games on due to their interactivity. Smartphones are embedded with various sensors which enhance their ability to adopt new new interaction techniques for video games. These integrated sen- sors, such as motion sensors or location sensors, make the device able to adopt new interaction techniques that enhance usability. However, despite their mobility and embedded sensor capacity, smartphones are limited in processing power and display area compared to desktop computer consoles. When it comes to evaluat- ing Player Experience (PX), players might not have as compelling an experience because the rich graphics environments that a desktop computer can provide are absent on a smartphone. A plausible alternative in this regard can be substituting the virtual game world with a real world game board, perceived through the device camera by rendering the digital artifacts over the camera view. This technology is widely known as Augmented Reality (AR). Smartphone sensors (e.g. GPS, accelerometer, gyro-meter, compass) have enhanced the capability for deploying Augmented Reality technology. AR has been applied to a large number of smartphone games including shooters, casual games, or puzzles. Because AR play environments are viewed through the camera, rendering the digital artifacts consistently and accurately is crucial because the digital characters need to move with respect to sensed orientation, then the accelerometer and gyroscope need to provide su ciently accurate and precise readings to make the game playable. In particular, determining the pose of the camera in space is vital as the appropriate angle to view the rendered digital characters are determined by the pose of the camera. This defines how well the players will be able interact with the digital game characters. Depending in the Quality of Service (QoS) of these sensors, the Player Experience (PX) may vary as the rendering of digital characters are affected by noisy sensors causing a loss of registration. Confronting such problem while developing AR games is di cult in general as it requires creating wide variety of game types, narratives, input modalities as well as user-testing. Moreover, current AR games developers do not have any specific guidelines for developing AR games, and concrete guidelines outlining the tradeoffs between QoS and PX for different genres and interaction techniques are required. My dissertation provides a complete view (a taxonomy) of the spatio-temporal sensor resolution depen- dency of the existing AR games. Four user experiments have been conducted and one experiment is proposed to validate the taxonomy and demonstrate the differential impact of sensor noise on gameplay of different genres of AR games in different aspect of PX. This analysis is performed in the context of a novel instru- mentation technology, which allows the controlled manipulation of QoS on position and orientation sensors. The experimental outcome demonstrated how the QoS of input sensor noise impacts the PX differently while playing AR game of different genre and the key elements creating this differential impact are - the input modality, narrative and game mechanics. Later, concrete guidelines are derived to regulate the sensor QoS as complete set of instructions to develop different genres or AR games

Literacy for digital futures : Mind, body, text

The unprecedented rate of global, technological, and societal change calls for a radical, new understanding of literacy. This book offers a nuanced framework for making sense of literacy by addressing knowledge as contextualised, embodied, multimodal, and digitally mediated. In today’s world of technological breakthroughs, social shifts, and rapid changes to the educational landscape, literacy can no longer be understood through established curriculum and static text structures. To prepare teachers, scholars, and researchers for the digital future, the book is organised around three themes – Mind and Materiality; Body and Senses; and Texts and Digital Semiotics – to shape readers’ understanding of literacy. Opening up new interdisciplinary themes, Mills, Unsworth, and Scholes confront emerging issues for next-generation digital literacy practices. The volume helps new and established researchers rethink dynamic changes in the materiality of texts and their implications for the mind and body, and features recommendations for educational and professional practice

Techno-historical limits of the interface: the performance of interactive narrative experiences

This thesis takes the position that current analyses of digitally mediated interactive experiences that include narrative elements often lack adequate consideration of the technical and historical contexts of their production.From this position, this thesis asks the question: how is the reader/player/user's participation in interactive narrative experiences (such as hypertext fiction, interactive fiction, computer games, and electronic art) influenced by the technical and historical limitations of the interface?In order to investigate this question, this thesis develops a single methodology from relevant media and narrative theory, in order to facilitate a comparative analysis of well known exemplars from distinct categories of digitally mediated experiences. These exemplars are the interactive fiction Adventure, the interactive art work Osmose, the hypertext fiction Afternoon, a story, and the computer/video games Myst, Doom, Half Life and Everquest.The main argument of this thesis is that the technical limits of new media experiences cause significant ‘gaps’ in the reader’s experience of them, and that the cause of these gaps is the lack of a dedicated technology for new media, which instead ‘borrows’ technology from other fields. These gaps are overcome by a greater dependence upon the reader’s cognitive abilities than other media forms. This greater dependence can be described as a ‘performance’ by the reader/player/user, utilising Eco’s definition of an ‘open’ work (Eco 21).This thesis further argues that the ‘mimetic’ and ‘immersive’ ambitions of current new media practice can increases these gaps, rather than overcoming them. The thesis also presents the case that these ‘gaps’ are often not caused by technical limits in the present, but are oversights by the author/designers that have arisen as the product of a craft culture that has been subject to significant technical limitations in the past. Compromises that originally existed to overcome technical limits have become conventions of the reader/player/user’s interactive literacy, even though these conventions impinge on the experience, and are no longer necessary because of subsequent technical advances. As a result, current new media users and designers now think of these limitations as natural.This thesis concludes the argument by redefining ‘immersion’ as the investment the reader makes to overcome the gaps in an experience, and suggests that this investment is an important aspect of their performance of the work

Archaeology of Digital Environments: Tools, Methods, and Approaches

Digital archaeologists use digital tools for conducting archaeological work, but their potential also lies in applying archaeological thinking and methods to understanding digital built environments (i.e., software) as contemporary examples of human settlement, use, and abandonment. This thesis argues for digital spaces as archaeological artifacts, sites, and landscapes that can be investigated in both traditional and non-traditional ways. At the core of my research is the fundamental argument that human-occupied digital spaces can be studied archaeologically with existing and modified theory, tools, and methods to reveal that human occupation and use of synthetic worlds is similar to how people behave in the natural world. Working digitally adds new avenues of investigation into human behavior in relation to the things people make, modify, and inhabit. In order to investigate this argument, the thesis focuses on three video game case studies, each using different kinds of archaeology specifically chosen to help understand the software environments being researched: 1) epigraphy, stylometry, and text analysis for the code-artifact of Colossal Cave Adventure; 2) photogrammetry, 3D printing, GIS mapping, phenomenology, and landscape archaeology within the designed, digital heritage virtual reality game-site of Skyrim VR; 3) actual survey and excavation of 30 heritage sites for a community of displaced human players in the synthetic landscape of No Man’s Sky. My conclusions include a blended approach to conducting future archaeological fieldwork in digital built environments, one that modifies traditional approaches to archaeological sites and material in a post/transhuman landscape. As humanity continues trending towards constant digital engagement, archaeologists need to be prepared to study how digital places are settled, used, and abandoned. This thesis takes a step in that direction using the vernacular of games as a starting point

Exploring How Individual Traits Influence Enjoyment in a Mobile Learning Game

This study investigated individual traits as predictors of game enjoyment by including learning style, intrinsic motivation, collaboration skills, and computer game attitude as key parts of a model that also included achievement. Results of correlation and regression analyses revealed that intrinsic motivation was the only variable to predict game enjoyment. This supports the conceptualization of enjoyment as need satisfaction of intrinsic needs. Enjoyment was also found to be positively correlated with achievement. Other significant relations emerged, particularly how a player’s attitude toward games predicted intrinsic motivation. The present study examined children’s enjoyment experiences in the mobile version of the Minecraft game. It also highlights the complexity of game enjoyment as it relates to mobile learning games

Annual Report 2018-2019

LETTER FROM THE DEAN I am pleased to share with you the 2018-19 College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM) annual report, highlighting the important work done by our faculty, students, and staff. We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: it was a big year. In 2018-19, programs across all three of our schools (Computing, Cinematic Arts, and Design) were ranked nationally. Our faculty were published in dozens of scholarly journals, screened their films over 100 times, and had their work exhibited globally. Student and alumni accomplishments included an Emmy nomination, a first place win in a Department of Energy competition, and features in trade publications--to name just a few. We worked to create new programs (including undergraduate and graduate comedy filmmaking programs in collaboration with The Second City) and continued our work in others (our NSF- funded Medical Informatics Experiences program celebrated its fifteenth year). Our makerspace, the Idea Realization Lab, clocked its 10,000th visit as we made plans to open a new IRL in Lincoln Park. And, we will continue to create the innovative programs and facilities that make us CDM. You can look forward to new programs like industrial design, and new labs that focus on everything from Internet of Things to design industry collaborations. I am proud of our CDM community, and I hope you feel that same sense of pride as you read through this report. David MillerDeanhttps://via.library.depaul.edu/cdmannual/1002/thumbnail.jp

Vision 2013

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/vision/1001/thumbnail.jp

Future bathroom: A study of user-centred design principles affecting usability, safety and satisfaction in bathrooms for people living with disabilities

Research and development work relating to assistive technology 2010-11 (Department of Health) Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 197

Bosses, Mobs, and Trash: A Transactional Approach to Videogame Narrative through Cooposition

This dissertation project presents a novel approach to videogame narrative studies through the lens of the active opposition of enemies, from boss monsters and villains down to the lowliest encounters with irritating “trash” enemies. Using transactionism—a theory of existence and aesthetics that claims all experience moves across a single physical plane—this dissertation coins and defines the concept of cooposition, a phenomenon in videogames that allows for narrative activity as co-constituted by the player and the game through active, productive antagonism. After identifying and exploring the lingering difficulties in accounting for videogame narrative in a complete and satisfying theory, this project establishes cooposition as an essential and powerful force of videogame experience before breaking down four permeable categories of videogame enemies. Through extensive examples, key texts, and gameplay experience, this project explores ideas related to how videogame narratives construct player identity, set aesthetic rhythms, and establish and manipulate narrative space and time. At issue is how games use enemies as narrative technique, how narrative in videogames emerge through cooposition, and how players co-create narrative phenomenon by “defeating” the game, productively. This is a first step towards a new theory of game narrative that emerges from gameplay experience, rejecting cognitive theories of literary narratology and suggesting new design strategies for game narrative that fully capitalize on coopositional dynamics