A Serious Games Development Environment

Un ambiente per lo sviluppo di Serious Game

Games Teachers Play: An investigation of upper secondary EFL teachers’ practices, beliefs, and attitudes regarding digital game-based language learning in Norway.

This master's thesis examined the attitudes, beliefs and practices of upper secondary school English (EFL) teachers in Norway towards digital game-based language learning (DGBLL). Additionally, it explored the current state of digital game utilization, particularly focusing on the games and genres employed. Digital games, which are games played using an electronic device, are combined with educational content, or learning principles through digital game-based learning (DGBL). DGBLL is a form of DGBL specifically tailored for language learning. The study that is part of this master’s thesis not only focuses on EFL teachers' use of and attitudes towards digital games but also recognizes the importance of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories in relation to DGBLL and teacher cognitions (i.e., what teachers know, believe, and think regarding the use of digital games in their EFL classrooms) as essential components. Data was collected through an online, mixed-methods questionnaire. The questions targeted information about attitudes towards and use of digital games in English as a foreign language (EFL) in formal learning contexts and were designed to collect information to answer the three research questions that guided the study which focused on the use of DGBLL, the attitudes towards DGBLL and the games and game genres employed in EFL instruction in the context of Norwegian upper secondary EFL classrooms, respectively. The questionnaire was comprised of three parts across a total of five pages with a total of 48 questions. A total of 219 upper secondary EFL teachers with diverse educational backgrounds from all parts of Norway participated in the study. Among them, women comprised the majority of respondents at 68.5%. Data analysis involved a combination of descriptive statistics and inductive content analysis, facilitating a comprehensive examination of both quantitative and qualitative data. Findings revealed that while only about half of the teachers in this study were familiar with the term DGBLL, a large majority believed digital games could be effectively used for teaching EFL. Almost 75% reported using digital games in their EFL instruction, mostly to target vocabulary, listening, speaking, and reading skills. Comparisons with previous studies suggests an increasing trend in the utilization of digital games for EFL education. Furthermore, the results suggested that the reported use of games in instruction varied by age and gender, with younger teachers and possibly female teachers being more likely to use games in the context of EFL. Also, EFL teachers in this study expressed generally positive attitudes towards DGBLL. Specifically, a large majority of the teachers believed that digital games could be used to meet the Norwegian curriculum and core pedagogical standards, serve as useful teaching and learning tools, and play a supporting role in EFL education. Despite the positive outlook, obstacles to DGBLL integration were also identified, including lack of time and inadequate knowledge and skills, the latter ascribed to insufficient or outdated teacher training. Additionally, a potential link between playing games for leisure and perceived competence for implementing DGBLL was also noted. However, personal gaming interest did not appear to be a deciding factor for the instructional use of DGBLL for EFL. Finally, the study revealed that teachers employed a variety of digital games in their EFL instruction, mostly from the Serious Games and Puzzle/Quiz genres. The most popular games included Spent, Fake News, Minecraft, Quizlet and Kahoot!. More than half of the twenty most popular games used by the teachers in this study are listed either on the Norwegian Digital Learning Arena or Statsped websites, along with supporting resources. The choice of games seems to reflect the beliefs and concerns about DGBLL expressed by the EFL teachers in this study, as the games were suitable for upper secondary students and EFL, their use was economical and time-efficient, and teachers possibly benefited from the availability of supporting resources from reliable sources. Moreover, the games did not require specialized technical expertise on the part of the teacher. In conclusion, the findings of this study contributed to the broader understanding of Norwegian EFL teachers' beliefs and practices, while also informing future teacher development in DGBLL in order to contribute to the effective implementation of Digital Games in EFL education

Authoring of Adaptive Single-Player Educational Games

Digital Educational Games, as one of the most important application areas of Serious Games, combine positive properties of digital games, such as strong motivation for players and inherent learning processes, with educational methods and technologies. Adaptive algorithms allow such games to be aligned automatically to the needs of different players, thereby increasing the learning efficacy. However, educational games are among the most complex game production endeavors, since they are often faced with small budget on the one hand and special requirements with impacts on all aspects of game development, from design through programming to asset production, on the other. Authoring tools have been successfully created and used in fields related to Serious Games and educational games, including e-Learning, multimedia, interactive storytelling and entertainment games. These tools incorporate parts of the production workflows in their respective areas and allow all authors, including non-programmers, to create applications. While it appears beneficial to create authoring tools for educational games, we find that authoring tools for educational games have to account for the higher complexity and interactivity of games compared to other forms of multimedia and that they have not been researched thoroughly in the past. These challenges are addressed in this thesis by presenting a concept for an authoring tool for adaptive educational single-player games that accounts for the specifics of educational game development. Major results are an educational game description model, concepts for adaptive control of educational games and author support mechanisms specifically for adaptive educational game authoring. These concepts are implemented in the authoring tool "StoryTec", which is validated in the course of a set of evaluation studies. The novel features of StoryTec include the specific support for adaptive educational games, a concept for structural and interaction templates shown to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the authoring tool, as well as the support for collaborative work. It builds the foundation for a number of current and future research and development projects, including the extension towards authoring of multiplayer games, and is tested and used by over 120 members of an open community

Autorenumgebung für Serious Games - StoryTec: Eine Autorenumgebung und narrative Objekte für personalisierte Serious Games

Serious Games vereinen die Charakteristik von Unterhaltungsspielen mit einem „characterizing goal“ und Spezifika dedizierter Serious Games Anwendungsbereiche. Das Potential von Serious Games ist groß, dennoch ist die Qualität oftmals nicht optimal und die Nutzerakzeptanz entsprechend gering. Auch gibt es oftmals eine falsche Erwartungshaltung gegenüber Serious Games im Hinblick auf das Kosten-Nutzenverhältnis und auf notwendige Entwicklungsbudgets für Serious Games. Daher sind innovative Methoden, Konzepte und Technologien erforderlich, die signifikant zur Qualitätssteigerung und der erfolgreichen Verbreitung von Serious Games beitragen. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden hierfür mit der Autorenumgebung StoryTec und dem Modell für narrative Objekte eigene Forschungsbeiträge zur Erstellung, Steuerung und Evaluation von personalisierten, adaptiven Serious Games vorgestellt. Basierend auf dieser Ausgangssituation werden in Kapitel 2 Serious Games Technologien als Lösungsansätze zur Erstellung, Steuerung und Evaluation von Serious Games beschrieben und die eigene Arbeit in dieses komplexe Forschungsfeld eingeordnet. Kapitel 3 und 4 beschreiben die Autorenumgebung „StoryTec“ und das Modell der „Narrative Game-based Learning Objects“ (NGLOB). StoryTec fungiert als Rapid Prototyping Umgebung, bestehend aus dem Authoring Tool „StoryTec Editor“ und den beiden Abspielkomponenten (Player) „StoryPublish“ und „StoryPlay“, die speziell Autoren ohne Programmierkenntnisse bei der Entwicklung von Serious Games unterstützen. NGLOBs dienen als konzeptionelle Grundlage von personalisierten Story-basierten Lernspielen; sie vereinen narrative dramaturgische Aspekte mit benutzerindividuellen Spieler- und Lernermodellen. Das NGLOB-Konzept wurde prototypisch realisiert und vollständig in StoryTec integriert. In Kapitel 5 „Serious Games für Bildung und Gesundheit“ werden die erarbeiteten Methoden und Konzepte anhand des Geographie-Lernspiels „80Days“ und dem personalisierten Bewegungsspiel „ErgoActive“ validiert. Abschließend werden die wesentlichen Ergebnisse der Arbeit zusammengefasst und ein Ausblick für weiterführende Forschungsarbeiten skizziert – u.a. im Hinblick auf die Konzeption eines Metadaten-gestützten Informationssystems für Serious Games, das eine (standardisierte) Beschreibung und (individuelle) Suche nach (geeigneten) Serious Games ermöglicht

Enhancing automatic level generation for platform videogames

This dissertation addresses the challenge of improving automatic level generation processes for plat-form videogames. As Procedural Content Generation (PCG) techniques evolved from the creation of simple elements to the construction of complete levels and scenarios, the principles behind the generation algorithms became more ambitious and complex, representing features that beforehand were only possible with human design. PCG goes beyond the search for valid geometries that can be used as levels, where multiple challenges are represented in an adequate way. It is also a search for user-centred design content and the creativity sparks of humanly created content. In order to improve the creativity capabilities of such generation algorithms, we conducted part of our research directed to the creation of new techniques using more ambitious design patterns. For this purpose, we have implemented two overall structure generation algorithms and created an addi-tional adaptation algorithm. The later can transform simple branched paths into more compelling game challenges by adding items and other elements in specific places, such as gates and levers for their activation. Such approach is suitable to avoid excessive level linearity and to represent certain design patterns with additional content richness. Moreover, content adaptation was transposed from general design domain to user-centred principles. In this particular case, we analysed success and failure patterns in action videogames and proposed a set of metrics to estimate difficulty, taking into account that each user has a different perception of that concept. This type of information serves the generation algorithms to make them more directed to the creation of personalised experiences. Furthermore, the conducted research also aimed to the integration of different techniques into a common ground. For this purpose, we have developed a general framework to represent content of platform videogames, compatible with several titles within the genre. Our algorithms run over this framework, whereby they are generic and game independent. We defined a modular architecture for the generation process, using this framework to normalise the content that is shared by multiple modules. A level editor tool was also created, which allows human level design and the testing of automatic generation algorithms. An adapted version of the editor was implemented for the semi-automatic creation of levels, in which the designer may simply define the type of content that he/she desires, in the form of quests and missions, and the system creates a corresponding level structure. This materialises our idea of bridging human high-level design patterns with lower level automated generation algorithms. Finally, we integrated the different contributions into a game prototype. This implementation allowed testing the different proposed approaches altogether, reinforcing the validity of the proposed archi-tecture and framework. It also allowed performing a more complete gameplay data retrieval in order to strengthen and validate the proposed metrics regarding difficulty perceptions

Design de um jogo de computador para a disciplina de informação e tecnologia

Mestrado em Comunicação MultimédiaActualmente algumas fontes de investigação científica consideram que o ensino tradicional, ao longo das décadas, tem sido menos apelativo (Foreman, 2003). Os alunos encontram-se rodeados por outros estímulos causados pelas novas tecnologias, novas formas de entretenimento e redes sociais (Prensky, 2001a; Raines, 2002), estímulos que se tornam mais apelativos do que o ensino tradicional. Uma das soluções apontadas e proposta pelos peritos na matéria é a inserção de jogos, um dos principais estímulos do entretenimento actual, como ferramentas de aprendizagem em ambientes formal escolar, como a sala de aula (Eck, 2006; Paras & Bizzocchi, 2005). O projecto que se apresenta foi desenvolvido no Departamento de Educação Física e Ciências do Desporto pertencente à Universidade de Thessaly e localizado em Trikala, Grécia, e apresenta um estudo sobre a aplicação do jogo como ferramenta de aprendizagem em contexto educacional. Este projecto consiste na conceptualização, desenvolvimento e avaliação de um protótipo de um jogo criado com o objectivo de motivar os estudantes do Departamento de Educação Física e Ciências de Desporto da Universidade de Thessaly, Grécia, a aprender conceitos da unidade curricular de Tecnologias da Informação. Considerado o propósito do jogo os conteúdos da unidade curricular foram adaptados para o jogo. Integrou-se a narrativa como elemento de motivação para os estudantes, foram conceptualizados cenários, personagens e level design, juntamente com a inserção de puzzles relacionados com os conteúdos da unidade curricular, mecânica do jogo e regras. O protótipo desenvolvido é constituído por um conjunto de puzzles com os quais se efectuou uma avaliação preliminar em dois grupos focais. A avaliação preliminar foi efectuada na Universidade de Thessaly, no pólo Trikala e na Universidade de Aveiro, com amostras de conveniência do público-alvo primário e secundário, respectivamente, para perceber se a estratégia do jogo e respectiva narrativa poderiam funcionar na unidade curricular em causa. Os resultados apontam que o jogo pode ser uma ferramenta a incluir na unidade curricular, depois das amostras do público-alvo primário terem demonstrado uma recepção positiva ao jogo e os seus conteúdos, sobretudo a narrativa e gráficos, e esperam que as próximas versões tragam mais puzzles e desafios como os que estiveram presentes no protótipo

Design and Evaluation of Intelligent Reward Structures in Human Computation Games

Despite the ubiquity of artificial intelligence, some problems and procedures— such as building commonsense knowledge understanding or generating creative works— have no or few effective algorithmic solutions, yet are considered straightforward for humans to solve. Human computation games (HCGs) are playful, game-based interfaces for tackling these problems through crowdsourcing. HCGs have been used to solve tasks that were and still are considered complex for computational algorithms such as image tagging, protein synthesis, 3D structure reconstruction, and creative artifact generation. However, despite these successes, HCGs have not seen broad adoption compared to other types of serious digital games. Among the many reasons for this lack of adoption is the reality that these games are typically not seen as engaging or compelling to play, as well as the fact that creating HCGs comes at a high development cost to task providers who are typically not game development experts. This thesis is a step towards building and establishing a more formalized design understanding of how to create HCGs that both provide a compelling player experience and complete the underlying task effectively. In this thesis, I explore reward mechanics in HCGs. Reward mechanics are integral to HCGs due their associations with player motivation, compensation, and task validation. I first propose a framework for understanding HCG mechanics and advocate for an experimental methodology evaluating both player experience and task completion metrics to understand variations in HCG mechanics. I then use these tools to frame and design three experiments that explore small-scale variations of reward systems in HCGs: reward functions, reward distribution, and reward personalization. These studies demonstrate that even small variations in rewards (i.e., offering players the ability to choose the type of reward) may have significant positive effects on both player experience and task completion metrics. I also show that some variations (i.e., co-located, competitive reward scoring) may have both positive and negative tradeoffs across these metrics. Moreover, this work observes that existing, anecdotal design wisdom for HCGs may not always hold (i.e., allowing players to verbally collude actually predicts higher task solution accuracy). Altogether, this thesis demonstrates that certain aspects of reward systems in HCGs can be varied to improve the player experience without compromising task completion metrics, and builds more empirically-tested design knowledge for creating more engaging, effective HCGs.Ph.D

Advertising in computer games

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaves [67]-[74]).This paper suggests advertisers should experiment with in-game advertising to gain skills that could become vital in the near future. It compiles, arranges and analyzes the existing body of academic and industry knowledge on advertising and product placement in computer game environments. The medium's characteristics are compared to other channels' in terms of their attractiveness to marketers, and the business environment is analyzed to offer recommendations on the relative advantages of in-game advertising. The paper also contains a brief historical review of in-game advertising, and descriptions of currently available and emerging advertising formats. Keywords: Advertising, marketing, branding, product placement, branded entertainment, networks, computer games, video games, virtual worlds.by Ilya Vedrashko.S.M

CREATING A COHERENT SCORE: THE MUSIC OF SINGLE-PLAYER FANTASY COMPUTER ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

This thesis provides a comprehensive exploration into the music of the ludic genre (Hourigan, 2005) known as a Computer Role-Playing Game (CRPG) and its two main sub-divisions: Japanese and Western Role-Playing Games (JRPGs & WRPGs). It focuses on the narrative category known as genre fiction, concentrating on fantasy fiction (Turco, 1999) and seeks to address one overall question: How do fantasy CRPG composers incorporate the variety of musical material needed to create a coherent score across the JRPG and WRPG divide? Seven main chapters form the thesis text. Chapter One provides an introduction to the thesis, detailing the research contributions in addition to outlining a variety of key terms that must be understood to continue with the rest of the text. A database accompanying this thesis showcases the vast range of CRPGs available; a literature review tackles relevant existing materials. Chapters Two and Three seek to provide the first canonical history of soundtracks used in CRPGs by dissecting typical narrative structures for games so as to provide context to their musical scores. Through analysis of existing game composer interviews, cultural influences are revealed. Chapters Four and Five mirror one another with detailed discussion respectively regarding JRPG and WRPG music including the influence that anime and Hollywood cinema have had upon them. In Chapter Six, the use of CRPG music outside of video games is explored, particularly the popularity of JRPG soundtracks in the concert hall. Chapter Seven concludes the thesis, summarising research contributions achieved and areas for future work. Throughout these chapters, the core task is to explain how the two primary sub-genres of CRPGs parted ways and why the music used to accompany these games differs so drastically