Dynamic Procedural Music Generation from NPC Attributes

Procedural content generation for video games (PCGG) has seen a steep increase in the past decade, aiming to foster emergent gameplay as well as to address the challenge of producing large amounts of engaging content quickly. Most work in PCGG has been focused on generating art and assets such as levels, textures, and models, or on narrative design to generate storylines and progression paths. Given the difficulty of generating harmonically pleasing and interesting music, procedural music generation for games (PMGG) has not seen as much attention during this time. Music in video games is essential for establishing developers\u27 intended mood and environment. Given the deficit of PMGG content, this paper aims to address the demand for high-quality PMGG. This paper describes the system developed to solve this problem, which generates thematic music for non-player characters (NPCs) based on developer-defined attributes in real time and responds to the dynamic relationship between the player and target NPC. The system was evaluated by means of user study: participants confront four NPC bosses each with their own uniquely generated dynamic track based on their varying attributes in relation to the player\u27s. The survey gathered information on the perceived quality, dynamism, and helpfulness to gameplay of the generated music. Results showed that the generated music was generally pleasing and harmonious, and that while players could not detect the details of how, they were able to detect a general relationship between themselves and the NPCs as reflected by the music

Embodying environmental relationship: a comparative ecocritical analysis of journey and unravel

Departing from Jane Suzanne Carroll’s contention that “Landscapes are at once geographical and historical, natural and cultural, experienced and represented, and present a spatial interface between human culture and physical terrain” (2), this article draws on game studies (Aarseth; Sicart; Yee; Isbister) and on discussions of game design (Schell; Chen; Sahlin) to analyse the landscape and avatar design of “Journey” and “Unravel”. Developing the term “semiotic register” as an analytical lens, the article seeks to pin-point the means by which the two games move the player to adopt distinctly different attitudes and relationships to the games’ natural scenes. The article starts by positioning the study in relation to previous ecocritical analyses of games (Backe; Bianchi; Bohunicky; Chang; Lehner; Parham) and by discussing some aspects of indirect player management before analysing and comparing the two games in more detail.Alejándose de la afirmación de Suzanne Carroll de que “Los paisajes son al mismo tiempo geográficos e históricos, naturales y culturales, experimentados y representados, y presentan una interfaz espacial entre la cultura humana y el terreno físico” (2), este artículo se basa en los estudios sobre videojuegos (Aarseth; Sicart; Yee; Isbister) y en los debates sobre el diseño de videojuegos (Schell; Chen; Sahlin) para anlizar el diseño de los paisajes y de los avatares de “Journey” y “Unravel”. Desarrollando el término “registro semiótico” como lente analítica, el artículo busca precisar los medios por los que ambos juegos llevan al jugador a adoptar actitudes y relaciones con las escenas naturales de los juegos claramente diferentes. El artículo comienza posicionando el estudio en relación con análisis ecocríticos ya existentes de juegos (Backe; Bianchi; Bohunicky; Chang; Lehner; Parham) y discutiendo algunos aspectos de la gestión indirecta del jugador antes de analizar y comparar los dos juegos en más detalle

Modding the Apocalypse: (Re)Making Videogames as Post-Structuralist Free Play

This dissertation is about seeing videogames, and videogame design, through the lens of Gregory Ulmer ™s electracy apparatus theory. Videogame modding is emphasized an electrate approach to intervening in existing media. Mods have the potential to make potent rhetorical arguments, but they are little-understood in the field of rhet-comp, and there are numerous obstacles to carving a space for them in academic curricula; nevertheless, they are an increasingly common form of participatory engagement that make use of a broad digital skillset. Modders fit into Gregory Ulmer ™s electracy apparatus as egents ”agents of change in the Internet age ”and their playful appropriation of objects from various archives resembles the electrate genre of MyStory (personal alternative-history). By positioning modding as electrate composition praxis, a new gateway for academic game study and production is opened, one where play is integral to the process of knowledge formation. Fallout 4 (2016) serves as an example of a moddable game whose rhetorical affordances can be adapted to craft MyStories and MEmorials

Serious game in VR to improve the visuospatial ability

Treball final de Grau en Disseny i Desenvolupament de Videojocs. Codi: VJ1241. Curs acadèmic: 2022/2023This document presents the project report of the Video Games Design and Development Degree Final project conducted by Óscar Silvestre Payá. The project focuses on the development of a serious game leveraging virtual reality (VR) technology, with the explicit purpose of enhancing diverse visuospatial abilities inherent to individuals. The core gameplay revolves around a series of intricately designed mini-games, which engage players in the application of logical thinking and ingenuity, thereby facilitating substantial improvements in their visual-spatial capabilities. Moreover, the project endeavors to seamlessly integrate psychoeducational principles into the gaming experience, engendering an effective serious game that engrosses players within an immersive virtual reality environment. To ascertain progress in the aforementioned abilities, the game incorporates parameter tracking and assessment mechanisms. The development process entailed the utilization of Unity 3D, today’s most widely used game engine, in conjunction with a VR device, to deliver an elevated computerbased gameplay experience. By embracing innovative technologies and adopting a multifaceted approach that combines gaming elements with educational objectives, this project contributes to the expanding realm of serious games, while simultaneously offering a captivating avenue for players to augment their visual-spatial proficiencies

Agency in and around videogames

This thesis conceptualises player agency in avatar-based videogames as an affordance of game design (Gibson 1979). By examining how agency is discussed in different discourses surrounding videogames, such as those of game studies and game design, it puts forward a multidimensional heuristic framework for conceptualising agency in avatar-based games. Game studios with a particular design focus that draw on ‘game design lineages’ (Bateman and Zagal 2018) feature as case studies to demonstrate the analytical power of this framework, examining how agency is designed, and how developers discuss how it is designed. The combined methods of textual and paratextual analysis provides insight not only into how game designers think about agency but also into how design intentions can translate into features of the released game. Such an approach facilitates a way of looking at agency as designed, which is informed by the vocabularies of academic discussions concerning videogames, as well as the language used to refer to these phenomena by industry practitioners, thereby grounding abstract theory in production practices and discourses

Development and empirical testing of a game engagement scale : case r/Stopgaming

The thesis conceptualises gaming from leisurely and labour-like starting points and both measures and develops this perspective by pioneering a concept of game engagement. Putting forth this perspective is grounded by appeals to burnout in and out of professional contexts in the videogame industry, ludology and research on player experiences. These views coming together prompted a need to verify whether games are to be normatively held as engaging in only popular belief, or verifiably so in actuality. In so doing, both methodological and theoretical insight is provided. The engagement construct was adapted from the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale -9 (short form) and a survey study was conducted. Data was analysed using ordinal logistic regression and exploratory factor analysis. Results showed those not holding games dear to them may require substantial investment increases to reap adequate increases in engagement, if playtime is low, while a committed orientation towards gaming (in terms of subjective gamerhood and hours played) showed marked differences in engagement per incremental increase in playtime. These results are considered descriptive, rather than predictive. Future directions for game studies are suggested to uncover how players become disengaged and how rationalisation affects the gaming experience

Sonic Rhetoric and Meaning Making in Video Game Sound Design

This thesis examines the rhetorical impact of sound in video games from an interdisciplinary perspective. By synthesizing game studies research with rhetorical theory, the thesis puts the works of notable game scholars, such as Karen Collins, Ian Bogost, Iain Hart, and Paul Cairns in conversation with research on sonic rhetoric by scholars such as Tanya K. Rodrigue et. al and Steph Ceraso. The thesis uses a ludomusicological lens to analyze several video games in which sound and music are heavily emphasized elements within the gameplay experience, such as Banjo-Kazooie (Rare, 1998) and Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall, 2015). Through the analyses, the thesis argues that sound in these games contributes to their immersive and engaging game worlds as well as their rhetorical storytelling. The thesis also illustrates how game sounds (or a lack thereof) can function as symbolism and metaphor, help players express themselves through interactivity, and support the medium’s other narrative elements. Finally, the thesis describes the broader implications of its arguments for game studies and rhetorical research, including how sonic rhetoric can function with or against other modalities in games and how sound might be used to engage audiences in other forms of interactive media

Videogames, Informal Teaching, and the Rhetoric of Design

abstract: This dissertation is about videogames. It is also about teaching, and the ways videogame design represents good teaching. However, this dissertation is not about videogames alone. It makes broad claims about teaching in- and out-of-schools in the 21st Century. Over the last few decades many scholars have been impressed by the rich forms of learning going on out-of-school. In particular, the emergence of digital and social media has fueled interest in informal learning while often ignoring or effacing the critical role of teaching. Indeed, the term “informal learning” is common while the term “informal teaching” barely exists. At the same time, the learning sciences have made progress on understanding how learning works based on empirical evidence of how the mind operates. While this research is not well implemented in many of our schools, it is well represented in much out-of-school learning (such as in videogames). This dissertation argues that there is a body of evidence germane to good teaching, that many learning principles celebrated today in out-of-school learning are actually teaching principles, and that good videogames can give us insights into how teaching can work as a form of design with or without games. The dissertation then develops a model of distributed teaching and learning systems which involve designed- and emergent organization of various teaching and learning “sites”. Finally, the dissertation looks at the rhetorical function of teaching in building a “deliberate learner,” one whose goal is not simply to know and do things, but to become a certain type of person committed to new ways with words, forms of interaction, and values. Rhetoric, teaching, learning, and design of all sorts have been set free from institutions and turned loose into a market place of ideas and sites. In the face of this market place we need to engage in discussions about who we want to be, who we want others to be, and what world we want all of us to live in. These discussions will center not just on “truth”, but on values as well—which is exactly where, in a high-risk imperiled world, they should be centered.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation English 201