Abort, Retry, Fail? Why Computer Science is an Essential Part of Every Science Education

Scientists are often woefully unprepared for the rising use of computing in their work, according to research published in a recent edition of Nature [1]. In fact, survey results indicate that 45% of scientists spend more time developing software as part of their work than five years ago, and that 38% of all scientists spend at least one fifth of their time developing software. This is only natural, to assist in experimentation, interface with high tech equipment, or analyze a tremendous volume of measurements and results. The truly frightening part? Nearly all of what these scientists know of software development is self-taught, and they often lack even the base skills and background to realize just how bad they are at it. Formal Computer Science training was simply not a part of their educations. The results? Work is riddled with inaccuracies and errors, precious time and valuable resources are lost, and reputation in the scientific community dwindles as publications are retracted and proven wrong. The costs are staggering and only getting worse with time. The solution, fortunately, is fairly simple: Computer Science must be made an integral part of every science education. Delivering this solution, however, is not without its challenges. What instruction is required? How can it be tailored and made relevant to a variety of scientific disciplines? How can it be packaged and squeezed into already full curricula? How can this be done with already strained instructional resources? This presentation will delve into these and other issues, making the case for Computer Science as an essential part of science education. [1] Z. Merali. Computational Science: … Error … why scientific programming does not compute. Nature 467, 775-777 (2010). Available online at: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101013/full/467775a.htm

An Emergent Framework For Realistic Psychosocial Behaviour In Non Player Characters

This paper introduces a framework for emergent psychosocial behaviour in non player characters in video games. This framework uses concepts behind emergent gameplay to support the mechanics of designer-defined psychological and social concepts, undefined circumstances, and emergence. Based on this framework, a prototype system has been developed. This prototype has been evaluated for realistic emergent behaviour, and has been shown through experimentation to succeed in supporting emergent psychosocial behaviour. The work to date on the framework is encouraging and quite promising for continued work in this area in the future

Bringing New HOPE to Networked Games: Using Optimistic Execution to Improve Quality of Service

As more games of a wider variety of genres move online to provide multiplayer experiences to their players, there is an increasing need to improve the quality of service delivered to the players of these games. Players tend to have the same performance and consistency expectations of their online multiplayer games as they do of their single player games, without realizing the issues and problems introduced by networking their games together. This results in a tremendous challenge for developers of networked games, because issues such as latency work strongly against meeting the needs of players. In this paper, we discuss the concept of optimistic execution to help game developers mask or hide the effects of latency in their networked games. We introduce the notion of optimistic execution, present our work in this area, dubbed New HOPE, and comment on its ability to assist game developers in this important area

Patterns of optimism for reducing the effects of latency in networked multiplayer games

The video game industry has evolved in such a way that many users not only want, but also expect some form of multiplayer experience in games. More so, users anticipate the same quality of service online as they do offline, regardless of the limitations in the connection or infrastructure of the underlying network. This expectation is especially problematic in highly time sensitive multi-player games such as first person shooters and sports games. In many cases, the latency encountered forces gameplay to be very frustrating and breaks immersion for the player. While there have been solutions proposed to help mitigate this problem, they tend to focus on some particular game genre or gameplay element. To address this issue, this paper presents a new approach to reducing the effects of latency in networked multiplayer games that relies upon techniques in optimistic programming. In particular, this paper introduces software design patterns for building optimistic constructs into networked games, and reports on experiences in using these patterns in the development of a simple football game to validate their use in networked games

Software Design Patterns for Enabling Auto Dynamic Difficulty in Video Games

Abstract-Auto dynamic difficulty is the technique of automatically changing the level of difficulty of a video game in real time to match player expertise. In this paper, we describe a collection of software design patterns for enabling auto dynamic difficulty in video games. The benefits of a design pattern approach include more reusability and lower risk compared to traditional ad hoc approaches. We implemented these design patterns as a proof-of-concept prototype system using Pac-Man as a test-bed

Neomancer: An exercise in interdisciplinary academic game development

Academic interest in game development and game studies has grown steadily in recent years, with many institutions now offering courses or programs in this area. To provide a truly rich and realistic experience to students, some form of interdisciplinary or collaborative work is clearly needed as part of their education. Successful games draw upon a diverse set of talents and backgrounds from their creators, and so an interdisciplinary exposure is crucial to students studying games and game development. This paper presents the experiences from precisely this sort of academic exercise—an interdisciplinary game development project called Neomancer. This project has involved nearly 50 participants from the University of Western Ontario and Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology, working together for the past several months. This paper discusses the background and history of the Neomancer project, and presents some of the lessons learned to date from this collaborative venture

A realistic reaction system for modern video games

The substantial growth of the video game industry has fueled a search for new technologies and methodologies for providing rich and rewarding experiences for players of modern video games. Many of the most popular games offer visually rich and compelling environments to support a higher level of believability and immersion for the players. Recent generations of games have also offered great advancements in areas like realistic physics, engaging audio, and believable artificial intelligence. Our current work, however, focuses on oft-overlooked and neglected area of development– providing societal-like relationships between the characters and objects of the game world. A dynamic and reactive relationship system opens up new directions for interaction within a game world to be explored. In this paper, we discuss our work on the development of a realistic reaction system to support relationship modeling and representation in modern video games, and outline our experiences in using it to date