Cookie Clicker

Cookie Clicker is a popular online incremental game where the goal of the game is to generate as many cookies as possible. In the game you start with an initial cookie generation rate, and you can use cookies as currency to purchase various items that increase your cookie generation rate. In this paper, we analyze strategies for playing Cookie Clicker optimally. While simple to state, the game gives rise to interesting analysis involving ideas from NP-hardness, approximation algorithms, and dynamic programming

Cookie Clicker: Gamification

Incremental games like Cookie Clicker are a perfect exemplar of gamification, using progress mechanics and other game features to make the rote act of clicking compelling. Hence, this chapter reads the game Cookie Clicker for its motivating features to illustrate the logic and limits of gamification

Interpassivity and the joy of delegated play in idle games

This paper examines the youngest video games genre, the so called idle (incremental) game, also referred to as the passive, self-playing or clicker game, which seems to challenge the current understanding of digital games as systems, based on a human-machine interaction where it is the human who actively engages with the system through meaningful choices. Idle games, on the other hand, tend to play themselves, making the player’s participation optional or, in some cases, entirely redundant. Interactivity and agency – qualities extensively theorised with reference to digital games – are questioned in the context of idling. In this paper the author will investigate the self-contradictory genre through the lens of interpassivity, a concept developed by Robert Pfaller and Slavoj Žižek to describe the aesthetics of delegated enjoyment. This contribution aims at introducing interpassivity to a wider Game Studies community, and offers an alternative perspective to reflect upon digital games in general and self-playing games in particular

Automation of play:theorizing self-playing games and post-human ludic agents

This article offers a critical reflection on automation of play and its significance for the theoretical inquiries into digital games and play. Automation has become an ever more noticeable phenomenon in the domain of video games, expressed by self-playing game worlds, self-acting characters, and non-human agents traversing multiplayer spaces. On the following pages, the author explores various instances of automated non-human play and proposes a post-human theoretical lens, which may help to create a new framework for the understanding of videogames, renegotiate the current theories of interaction prevalent in game studies, and rethink the relationship between human players and digital games

Games to live with: speculations regarding NikeFuel

In this paper I offer an alternative way to look at games that require no form of play. The player of these games is only supposed to keep them always up-to-date and running, but no specific action is required. NikeFuel is a significant example of this kind of game. NikeFuel, a technology for the quantification of body movement developed by the sports company Nike, is applied in a series of gadgets. The most popular, Nike+, is a wristband that quantifies the movements of the user and converts them into a NikeFuel score, which can later be visualised on a laptop or mobile phone. The act of moving throughout the day is transformed into a game-like experience, according to the principles of gamification. Gamification and quantified-self technologies have been noted for their performative potential and their capacity to control and inform our bodies (Whitson 2015). From a Foucauldian perspective, quantified-self technologies are attempts to rationalise the practices and movements of living organisms, as forms of biopolitical control (Foucault 2005, Schrape 2014). However, these are also spaces of transformation of the conditions under which the self becomes possible. Through NikeFuel, and other examples that I explore in this paper (Farmville, Cookie Clicker, CarnageHug), the player has to come to terms with games that act as parasites on their own lives. Thus, I argue that Nike+ can also be seen to complicate our thoughts about the contemporary digital technologies that surround us on an everyday basis. In this paper I will argue, possibly counter-intuitively, that gamification and quantified-self technologies are not necessarily tools that we use for a specific purpose; these are technologies we carry around with us and live with. As such, we are transformed by them as much as we transform them. Thus, the problem raised in this paper is about how we can co-habit and be hospitable with these ‘parasites’ (Serres, 1982)

Using technology to enhance writing in primary grades

Computers in the primary classroom have been a controversial topic for many years. Many believe that computers do not benefit young children. In the past, very little research has been done in the primary classroom to prove or disprove the critics. Most of the studies focused on upper elementary, middle school, and high school. Three years ago, the federal government sought to validate the need for computers in the primary classroom. In doing so, the Natie (all names are pseudo names) Community Schools received a federal grant to study computers in the primary classroom. As a teacher in that school district, I was asked to participate in the implementation of this project. What quickly became apparent was that my on-the-job experience with computers and my academic research at the university could be combined to more fully explore the question of viability of computers in the classroom. My final project is, thus, the culminating point of my research and experience to date with these endeavors. It is my hope, however, that it will also be a beginning point for others to explore these matters at greater depth and application

The design of a clicker game for text labelling

Games for text annotation / labelling are becoming more common, but it's difficult to find a mechanics that fits. In this work we discuss a clicker game that can support text annotation. We believe this type of game is uniquely suited to addressing some of the challenges faced by games featuring text annotation as a core task

07. Business Structure and Scaling

This module causes students to further expand upon their product/service by exploring different types of business structures (non-profit vs not-for-profit vs for-profit) and the five stages of scaling their business after its initial implementation. These skills are vital for the students to be able to adequately plan for their businesses

Making Text Annotation Fun with a Clicker Game

In this paper we present WordClicker, a clicker game for text annotation. We believe the mechanics of 'Ville type Free-To-Play (F2P) games in general, and clicker games in particular, is particularly suited for GWAPs (Games-With-A-Purpose). WordClicker was developed as one component of a suite of GWAPs meant to cover all aspects of language interpretation, from tokenization to anaphoric interpretation. As such, WordClicker is intended to have a dual function as part of this suite of GWAPs: both for parts-of-speech annotation and for teaching players about parts of speech so that they can go on and play GWAPs for more complex syntactic annotation. Therefore, game-based language learning platforms also had a strong influence on its design

Transmedializando lo fantástico: una aproximación basada en el usuario

This article deals with some methodological issues regarding the relationship between medium (more specifically the question of transmediality) and use (more specifically the issue of interactivity) in the field of the fantastic. More specifically, it discusses some fundamental hypotheses on the way the interactive dimension of transmedial adaptations can either increase or diminish the fantastic effect. A special emphasis will be put on issues of time and narrative, on the one hand, and context and medium traditions, on the other hand.Este artículo aborda algunas cuestiones metodológicas concernientes a la relación entre medio (más en concreto, el asunto de la transmedialidad) y uso (más en concreto, el tema de la interactividad) en el área de lo fantástico. En particular, reflexiona sobre ciertas hipótesis fundamentales en torno a la manera en la que la faceta interactiva de las adaptaciones transmediales puede incrementar o disminuir el efecto fantástico. Se prestará especial atención a las cuestiones de tiempo y narración, por una parte, y de contexto y tradiciones mediáticas, por otra