Game Design & Development Curriculum: History & Future Directions

It has been nearly twenty years since the first undergraduate degree program in computer game development was established in 1998. Since that time, the number and size of programs in game design and development have grown at a rapid pace. While there were early efforts to establish curricular guidelines for the field, these face a number of challenges given the diverse range of academic homes for game-related programs. This panel will address the history of curricular development in the field, both in individual programs and across institutions. It will also explore the potential risks and rewards of developing curricular and/or accreditation guidelines for the field

ITiCSE'10 - Proceedings of the 2010 ACM SIGCSE Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education: Foreword

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Playing for Real: Designing Alternate Reality Games in Learning Contexts

Alternate Reality Game (ARG) represent a new genre of transmedia practice where players hunt for scattered clues, make sense of disparate information, and solve puzzles to advance an ever-evolving storyline. Players participate in ARGs using multiple communications technologies, ranging from print materials to mobile devices. However, many interaction design challenges must be addressed to weave these everyday communication tools together into an immersive, participatory experience. Transmedia design is not an everyday process. Designers must create and connect story bits across multiple media (video, audio, text) and multiple platforms (phones, computers, physical spaces). Furthermore, they must engage with players of varying skill levels. Few studies to-date have explored the design process of ARGs in learning contexts. Fewer still have focused on challenges involved in designing for youth (13-17 years old). In this study, I explore the process of designing ARGs as vehicles for promoting information literacy and participatory culture for adolescents (13-17 years old). Two ARG design scenarios, distinguished by target learning environment (formal and informal context) and target audience (adolescents), comprise the two cases that I examine. Through my analysis of these two design cases, I articulate several unique challenges faced by designers who create interactive, transmedia stories for – and with – youth. Drawing from these design challenges, I derive a repertoire of design strategies that future designers and researchers may use to create and implement ARGs for teens in learning contexts. In particular, I propose a narrative design framework that allows for the categorization of ARGs as storytelling constructs that lie along a continuum of participation and interaction. The framework can serve as an analytic tool for researchers and a guide for designers. In addition, I establish a framework of social roles that designers may employ to craft transmedia narratives before live launch and to promote and scaffold player participation after play begins. Overall, the contributions of my study include theoretical insights that may advance our understanding of narrative design and analysis as well as more practical design implications for designers and practitioners seeking to incorporate transmedia features into learning experiences that target youth

L’image des personnages dans les jeux mobiles du genre Josei-Muke : étude de cas sur Mr. Love : Queen’s Choice

Les joueuses (femmes) sont devenues plus actives sur le marché des jeux mobiles ces dernières années. Et les jeux vidéo pour femmes, qui étaient auparavant une catégorie de niche, ont fait leur entrée sur le marché en raison de l’augmentation de l’auditoire. Dans le même temps, cependant, peu de recherches ont été menées sur ces jeux dans le milieu universitaire, en particulier en Europe et aux États-Unis. Par conséquent, l’objectif principal de ce mémoire est d’analyser le design des personnages de cette catégorie de jeux, en abordant le cas de Mr. Love : Queen’s Choice, un jeu mobile pour femmes qui est devenu un grand succès sur le marché asiatique. Sur la base du cadre conceptuel des valeurs dans les jeux proposés par Mary Flanagan et Jonathan Belman (Flanagan et Nissenbaum, 2014) ainsi que la théorie sémiotique de Roland Barthes (1964), ce mémoire étudie les caractéristiques des personnages dans les jeux vidéo pour femmes, sous quatre aspects principaux : les caractéristiques de base du jeu, le gameplay (la façon dont on joue), l’esthétique et la narration. Le mémoire est divisé en six chapitres. Le premier chapitre est l’introduction, qui présente le contexte et la signification du sujet ; le deuxième chapitre est la revue de la littérature, qui vise à recenser les résultats de la recherche académique actuelle sur les jeux vidéo, les jeux mobiles, les questions de genre dans les jeux et les jeux orientés vers les femmes ; le troisième chapitre présente la problématique; le quatrième chapitre aborde la méthodologie et présente brièvement les principales idées directrices et la structure tout au long du processus de recherche. Le cinquième chapitre est entièrement consacré à l’analyse pour répondre à la problématique et le dernier chapitre est constitué d’une conclusion et des discussions.Female players (women) have become more active in the mobile game market in recent years. And women’s games, which used to be a niche category, have entered the public eye due to the increased audience. At the same time, however, not much research has been done on these games in academia, especially in Europe and the US. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to analyse the character design of this category of games, addressing the case of Mr. Love: Queen's Choice, a mobile game for women that has become a big hit in the Asian market. Based on the elements of game value research proposed by Belman, this paper will study the character design features in this category of games from four major aspects: basic game features, gameplay, aesthetics and narrative. At the same time, since the study of this paper does not involve any interviews, it mainly focuses on textual analysis. The ideas of textual analysis in it are mainly inspired by Roland Barthes’ mythology as well as semiotic theory. The paper is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is the introduction, which presents the context and meaning of the topic; the second chapter is the literature review, which aims to identify the results of current academic research on video games, mobile games, gender issues in games and women-oriented games; the third chapter presents the problematic; the next chapter discusses the methodology and briefly presents the main guiding ideas and structure throughout the research process. The fifth chapter is entirely devoted to the analysis to answer the problematic and the last chapter constitutes a conclusion and discussions