History of Escape Games : examined through real-life-and digital precursors and the production of Spygame

The focus of this master’s thesis is on forming an image of history of modern escape games based on real world-and digital precursors of this genre of games and on recording what escape game phenomenon is like in late 2010s, roughly a decade after these games first started appearing. The research is based on previous work on the topic mostly by Dr. Scott Nicholson, to which I add my own insight and build a broader, more in depth portrayal of the history through presenting examples of each precursor and linking the precursor’s features to features of modern escape games. The most important academic background of this thesis is Dr. Scott Nicholson’s white paper Peeking behind the locked door: A survey of escape room facilities (2015). Other academic background of this thesis comes from research regarding the different precursors and from the field of game design, such as Fundamentals of Game Design (2010) by Dr. Ernest Adams. Since the history of escape game genre has to my knowledge not been researched and recorded to this extent earlier, a big part of the references used in this thesis consists of non-academic sources: escape room related websites, -blogs-posts and -videos, which I used to collect and analyze information. I use the production of Spygame, which is a modern escape game with influences of especially interactive theater, as a case study to illustrate ways the history of escape games can be concretely seen in modern escape games. I worked as the project manager in the production of Spygame in 2017 and hence have access to large amount of unique data regarding the production of the game, including notes from game testings, internal emails, notes from game development meetings etc. I analyze this data and connect the history with this modern game through examples of how the influences of history can be seen in our game design choices and expectations of the game testers. According to Nicholson, precursors of escape rooms include live action role-playing, point-and-click adventure games, puzzle- and treasure hunts, interactive theater and haunted houses, adventure game shows and themed entertainment industry. I divide the precursors to digital-and real-life precursors and add themed restaurants, team building activities, pervasive games and alternate reality games to this list of precursors of escape rooms. I also state that the escape room-name of these games likely originates from digital escape-the-room games, which is a sub-genre of point-and click adventure games

Dynamic story writer for computer role-playing games

Applied project submitted to the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Ashesi University, in partial fulfillment of Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, April 2019Computer Role-Playing Games (CRPG) are a genre of video games were the player controls at least one character, the character has attributes and relationships with other game objects and is important to the story. They are one of many entertainment media that have storytelling as one of its major components. The better the story component of a game the better the gameplay experience is. This project explores an approach to improving gameplay of RPG games by personalization of game stories. This is achieved by having an AI system generate the game story at run time by considering the decisions and choices the player makes. A benefit of this will be that all players will have unique stories and whenever a player restarts the game they will get a new story. This creates an amount of gameplay experience with each story and players get to be actively involved in the narrative direction of the game.Ashesi Universit

Film policy and the emergence of the cross-cultural: exploring crossover cinema in Flanders (Belgium)

With several films taking on a cross-cultural character, a certain ‘crossover trend’ may be observed within the recent upswing of Flemish cinema (a subdivision of Belgian cinema). This trend is characterized by two major strands: first, migrant and diasporic filmmakers finally seem to be emerging, and second, several filmmakers tend to cross the globe to make their films, hereby minimizing links with Flemish indigenous culture. While paying special attention to the crucial role of film policy in this context, this contribution further investigates the crossover trend by focusing on Turquaze (2010, Kadir Balci) and Altiplano (2009, Peter Brosens & Jessica Woodworth)

Creation and composition of different narrative and graphic components of a video game

Treball final de Grau en Disseny i Desenvolupament de Videojocs. Codi: VJ1241. Curs acadèmic: 2019/2020This document is the report of the project presented for the bachelor’s thesis, which has been written in order to record the development process of all the parts that make up the final result, as well as to present the information that can be extracted through it. The project, as will be revealed during its reading, is focused on the creation of graphic assets (models, animations, etc.), the drafting of a valid narrative framework for a video game, the elaboration of complex scenarios in the game engine (and the resolution of all the problems involved) and the subsequent assembly of all these elements through key scripts. There will also be a small section dedicated to sound, which corresponds to the last of the groups of assets into which the document is divided

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

"It Felt Like Having a Second Mind": Investigating Human-AI Co-creativity in Prewriting with Large Language Models

Prewriting is the process of discovering and developing ideas before a first draft, which requires divergent thinking and often implies unstructured strategies such as diagramming, outlining, free-writing, etc. Although large language models (LLMs) have been demonstrated to be useful for a variety of tasks including creative writing, little is known about how users would collaborate with LLMs to support prewriting. The preferred collaborative role and initiative of LLMs during such a creativity process is also unclear. To investigate human-LLM collaboration patterns and dynamics during prewriting, we conducted a three-session qualitative study with 15 participants in two creative tasks: story writing and slogan writing. The findings indicated that during collaborative prewriting, there appears to be a three-stage iterative Human-AI Co-creativity process that includes Ideation, Illumination, and Implementation stages. This collaborative process champions the human in a dominant role, in addition to mixed and shifting levels of initiative that exist between humans and LLMs. This research also reports on collaboration breakdowns that occur during this process, user perceptions of using existing LLMs during Human-AI Co-creativity, and discusses design implications to support this co-creativity process.Comment: Under review at CSCW after a Major Revisio

Messaging in the noosphere: theatre art, integrated media, and human-comupter interaction

Bibliography: p. 188-19

Dialogue with computers: dialogue games in action

With the advent of digital personal assistants for mobile devices, systems that are marketed as engaging in (spoken) dialogue have reached a wider public than ever before. For a student of dialogue, this raises the question to what extent such systems are genuine dialogue partners. In order to address this question, this study proposes to use the concept of a dialogue game as an analytical tool. Thus, we reframe the question as asking for the dialogue games that such systems play. Our analysis, as applied to a number of landmark systems and illustrated with dialogue extracts, leads to a fine-grained classification of such systems. Drawing on this analysis, we propose that the uptake of future generations of more powerful dialogue systems will depend on whether they are self-validating. A self-validating dialogue system can not only talk and do things, but also discuss the why of what it says and does, and learn from such discussions