“Playable” Nationalism: Nusantara Online and the “Gamic” Reconstructions of National History

Abstract: Nusantara Online is an Indonesian-made massively multiplayer online role-playing game that imaginatively reconstructs the history of the archipelago. As an “allegorithm” for the Indonesian nation, the game suggests a distinct model of digital nationalism, here dubbed “playable” nationalism. This concept captures the formulation of “Nusantara” as the idealized yet playful version of the Indonesian archipelago, a version emphasizing the principles of digital collaboration. The promotion of this model of “digital nationalism” as an egalitarian model of Indonesian popular nationalism has certain limitations

Living City, A Collaborative Browser-Based Massively Multiplayer Online Game

This work presents the design and implementation of our Browser-based Massively Multiplayer Online Game, Living City, a simulation game fully developed at the University of Messina. Living City is a persistent and real-time digital world, running in the Web browser environment and accessible from users without any client-side installation. Today Massively Multiplayer Online Games attract the attention of Computer Scientists both for their architectural peculiarity and the close interconnection with the social network phenomenon. We will cover these two aspects paying particular attention to some aspects of the project: game balancing (e.g. algorithms behind time and money balancing); business logic (e.g., handling concurrency, cheating avoidance and availability) and, finally, social and psychological aspects involved in the collaboration of players, analyzing their activities and interconnections

PROMOTING ECOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN METAL GEAR SOLID V: SOCIAL SEMIOTIC APPROACH

Video game is a new media of telling stories to young people and adults and it is no longer seen as gameplay only but gameplay with story. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain took Cold War as the main story background tells the story differently. The game system of this video game offers freedom to players to interact with anything during the gameplay, but this freedom has consequences. Applying social semiotic approach, this paper aims to identify how appraisal theory and narrative representation can be used to promote ecological awareness. After observing, collecting and viewing, transcribing and analyzing multimodal data, the researchers find that killing non-playable characters in form of human and animals and even enemy will reduce the score which is important in developing the playable characters’ weapons and equipment. Adopting the theory from Martin White in appraisal theory and Kress and van Leewuen, Caple in narrative representation, this paper also finds that appraisal theory is used to guide the players to play in ethical way such as using non-lethal weaponry, capturing wild animals to protect them from war, and collecting medical plants as needed only, besides, the enemy soldiers can be hired and give beneficial results to the players when they are used to play. In narrative representation, the freedom of choices is designed to make ethical play more plausible

Choice-based Games and Resilience Building of Gender Non-conforming Individuals: An Exploratory Study

Research on gaming and user experience of the general population has been abundant, but gender non-conforming (GNC) individuals’ experiences had been largely overlooked until recent years. Using a phenomenological approach, the goal of this study is to find deeper understanding of this phenomenon by exploring what gaming experiences shape the identity of the participants. The exploration of gaming and gender non-conforming experiences through interviews can fill a gap in the current literature on gaming culture regarding this specific population. By taking a closer look at this topic, patterns and themes within games may provide insight to potential resilience building activities for GNC people

The Corridor Des Arts

Arnaudville is a small rural town in south central Louisiana with a population of 1200. In 2010, the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) named Arnaudville as one of fourteen cities that were classified as a successful case study of “Creative Placemaking.” The NEA defines creative placemaking as community partnerships that use arts and culture to shape the social, environmental, and economic identity of a place. The NUNU Arts and Culture Collective, a Louisiana Cajun French non-profit arts organization centered in Arnaudville, is the main catalyst of this effort. Members of NUNU have identified five other rural towns within close proximity to Arnaudville as locations of cultural value, all just west of the Atchafalaya Basin: Sunset (2,298), Grand Coteau (935), Arnaudville (1,067), Cecilia (1,980), and Henderson (1,722), and they are connected by what they call the “Corridor des Arts.” These five communities represent an arc of 21.7 miles envisioned as the first phase of an eventual circle that will include, when complete, a number of communities in the region. Each rural town represents a different aspect of Louisiana French culture, including art, crafts, music, and food. The mission of the Corridor des Arts is to tie these towns together via an art and culture trail through the connecting roads and highways. The aim of this research is to explore how the concept of creative placemaking can be applied through the practice of landscape architecture to conserve the communities’ unique cultural heritage, increase economic activity, and establish environmental stability. The scope of work will focus on the design of projects in the town of Arnaudville as the center of the Corridor des Arts

Proceedings of the CUNY Games Conference 4.0: The Interactive Course

Proceedings of the CUNY Games Conference, held from January 22-23, 2018, at the CUNY Graduate Center and Borough of Manhattan Community College. Critical Play with History (Panel) - Composition & Storytelling - Health & Cognitive Sciences - Gaming Anthropology: Teaching Culture and Power Through Games and Design (Panel) - Twine & Writing Games - Easy Ideas II - STEM Games - Global Games for Change Catalog (Panel) - Comics & Active Learning - Fact Checking & Research - Computer Science & Game Design - SimGlobal: Building a Serious Roleplay Course for the Social Sciences (Panel) - Role Playing Games, Narrative, & Story - Course Review Through Games - Business & Finance Games - Game Design and Programming in Unity - What’s Your Game Plan? - The Allure of Play in the Classroo

Representations of gender in Warhammer 40,000

This thesis explores the representations of gender in the miniature tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000. Warhammer 40,000 is the world's most popular miniature wargame, and has spawned a sprawling transmedia franchise including novels, digital games, films, and even music. Despite being the world’s most popular miniature wargame, Warhammer 40,000 has received little academic study. Through a combination of visual, narratological, and ludic analysis, this thesis explores the representations of gender as they manifest in the game’s models, the transmedia franchise’s narrative fiction, and the gameplay mechanics of the wargame itself. This study finds that while many of the representational aspects of the game and franchise align with the typical sexualized and erased representations of gender within digital and analog games, the particularities of the miniature wargame medium provide nuances to representation which are not afforded by other games mediums.Master's ThesisMEVI350MASV-MEV

Altruism Online: An Ethnographic Exploration into League of Legends

If League of Legends can provide a social model for cooperation and altruistic behavior, the source of this behavior can be easily derived for future applications. What allows five strangers from all walks of life to come together, or fall apart may also be indicative of what allows global leaders to cooperate in a gg, or be confronted with defeat. League of Legends has provided for five possible ways by which a diverse population can come together to achieve a state of cooperative altruism. Through a shared identity, and an efficient communal dialect, players from around the world can relate to each other and communicate effectively. Through exposure and representation of minority identities, players can overcome preexisting stigmas that would otherwise interfere with cooperation. With values that mirror global capitalism, and a character roster that is relatively diverse, League of Legends provides for an environment that most players can relate to furthering their ability to cooperate. Finally, a shared justice system maintains and molds player behavior to allow for smoother cooperation and a more pleasant experience overall. Through lessons such as these, we are able to better our own understanding of what can make, or break cooperation in the globalized context that our world exists in