The Ethics of Choice in Single-Player Video Games

Video games are a specific kind of virtual world which many engage with on a daily basis; as such, we cannot ignore the values they embody. In this paper I argue that it is possible to cause moral harm or benefit within a video game, specifically by drawing attention to the nature of the choices both players and designers make. I discuss ways in which games attempt to represent morality, arguing that while flawed, even games with seemingly superficial devices such as morality meters can attempt to promote moral reflection. Ultimately, I argue that the moral status of the actions depends on the effects of those actions on the player herself; if those actions make us less ethical then the actions are wrong. Unfortunately, it is not clear to me that players are always in a position to tell whether this is the case

Thinking and Doing: Challenge, Agency, and the Eudaimonic Experience in Video Games

The nascent growth of videogames has led to great leaps in technical understanding in how to create a functional and entertaining play experience. However, the complex, mixed-affect, eudaimonic entertainment experience that is possible when playing a video game—how it is formed, how it is experienced and how to design for it, has been investigated far less than hedonistic emotional experiences focusing on fun, challenge and ‘enjoyment.’ Participants volunteered to be interviewed about their mixed-affect emotional experiences of playing avant-garde videogames. New conceptions of agency emerged (Actual, Interpretive, Fictional, Mechanical) from the analysis of transcripts and were used to produce a framework of four categories of agency. This new framework offers designers and researchers the extra nuance in conversations around agency, and contributes to the discussion of how we can design video games that allow for complex, reflective, eudaimonic emotional experiences

Dynamic Plane Shifting BSP Traversal

Interactive 3D applications require fast detection of objects colliding with the environment. One popular method for fast collision detection is to offset the geometry of the environment according to the dimensions of the object, and then represent the object as a point (and the object's movement as a line segment). Previously, this geometry offset has been done in a preprocessing step and therefore requires knowledge of the object's dimensions before runtime. Furthermore, an extra copy of the environment's geometry is required for each shape used in the application. This paper presents a variation of the BSP tree collision algorithm that shifts the planes in order to offset the geometry of the environment at runtime. To prevent unwanted cases where offset geometry protrudes too much, extra plane equations, which bevel solid cells of space during expansion, are added by simply inserting extra nodes at the bottom of the tree. A simple line segment check can be used for collision detection of a moving object of any size against the environment. Only one BSP tree is needed by the application. Successful usage within commercial entertainment software is also discussed

Dragon Age: Origins - Maps & Benchmark Problems

Maps extracted from Dragon Age: Origins with help and explicit permission from BioWare Corp. for use and distribution as benchmark problems. Contains 156 maps and benchmark problem sets.https://digitalcommons.du.edu/gridmaps2D/1000/thumbnail.jp

Baldur\u27s Gate II - Maps & Benchmark Problems

Maps extracted by Yngvi Björnsson from Baldur\u27s Gate II with explicit permission from BioWare Corp. for use and distribution as benchmark problems. Contains 75 maps and benchmark problem sets scaled to 512 x 512 and 120 original scale maps.https://digitalcommons.du.edu/gridmaps2D/1001/thumbnail.jp

Directing narrative in gameplay: Player interaction in shaping narrative in the Witcher 3

The overall aim of this research was to explore how players interact with narrative in videogames. This paper reports on results from a diary study over a two-week period while playing one narrative-drive game. An analysis of participants' diary entries suggests that those who engaged in directing narrative activities in The Witcher 3 described their interactions in three key ways: passive interaction, active interaction, and dialogue choices. These results demonstrate the combined narrative structures (linear and branching) in The Witcher 3. The identified interactions also represent the narrative as a gameplay element given how players describe interacting with story element even when completing other activities.</p