Game design research: an introduction to theory & practice

Design research is an active academic field covering disciplines such as architecture, graphic, product, service, interaction, and systems design. Design research aims to understand not only the designed end products but also how design as an activity unfolds. The book demonstrates different approaches to design research in game design research

Vallan Jäljet - lähtökohtia pelin ja draamallisen tv-sarjan yhdistämiseen

Lopputyöni käsittelee pelin ja tarinan yhdistämistä television kontekstissa. Lähtökohtana on Vallan jäljet -konsepti, jossa draamallinen televisiosarja ja peli on yhdistetty yhdeksi kokonaisuudeksi. Katsoja voi valita haluamansa osallistumisen tason: Sarjaa voi katsoa pelaamatta, peliä voi pelata katsomatta sarjaa tai pelaamisen ja sarjan seuraamisen voi yhdistää. Peliä ja sarjaa yhdistää sama kuvitteellinen maailma. Sarjaa seuraamalla on mahdollista saada vihjeitä siitä, miten pelissä voi menestyä. Toisaalta pelin tapahtumat voivat vaikuttaa sarjan tapahtumiin: sarjassa esiintyvien sivuhenkilöiden kohtalot voivat määrittyä pelin tapahtumien perusteella. Konseptin testaus antoi todisteita siitä, että sarjaan peliä varten piilotettuja vihjeitä voidaan käyttää pelin ja sarjan yhdistämiseen. Pelin vaikutukset sarjaan pitää tehdä hyvin näkyviksi, jotta pelaajat huomaavat ne. Sarjan seuraaminen, testauksessa sarjakuvamuotoinen jatkotarina, tekee pelistä mielenkiintoisemman kuin mitä peli olisi ilman sarjaa. Testauksen perusteella peli ja sarja kokonaisuutena on mielenkiintoisempi kuin peli yksinään

Platform-produced Heteronormativity : A Content Analysis of Adult Videogames on Patreon

This article examines the prominent role of Patreon in the rapidly growing sector of crowdfunded pornographic games. Recent research has indicated that, on average, more people (patrons) are funding pornographic digital games on Patreon than other (non-adult) digital games (Lankoski & Dymek, 2020). Graphtreon’s ‘Top Patreon Creators’ list from 9 June 2021 includes six NSFW game projects among the top 50 projects (ranked by number of Patrons).1 For example, Summertime Saga (Dark Cookie), the highest-ranked pornographic game, is third in terms of the number of funders, with 27,791 patrons funding $74,657 per month. While Wild Life – An Adult RPG (Adeptus Steve), which reportedly only had 9417 patrons as of 9 June 2021, receives a monthly income of$94,129 from those pledges.2 The current funding levels for both Patreon projects are considerably higher than when we began our sampling: since January 2020, the funding level for Summertime Saga has risen by 27.86%, while for Wild Life – An Adult RPG it has risen by 21.45%.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Novella 2.0: A Hypertextual Architecture for Interactive Narrative in Games

The hypertext community has a history of research in Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN), including experimental works and systems to support authoring. Arguably the most prevalent contemporary form of IDN is within the world of computer games where a mixture of large-scale commercial works and smaller indie experimental pieces continue to develop new forms of interactive storytelling. We can explore these pieces through the lens of hyper- textual theory and support them with hypertextual architectures, but there are unique challenges within modern game-based storytelling that these frameworks sometimes struggle to capture on a content level, leaving us in some cases with insufficient models and vocabulary. In this paper, we build upon previous work by presenting a discussion on techniques of modeling video game narrative. This is followed by thorough presentation and demonstration of our game-centric theoretical model of interactive narrative, Novella 2.0, which builds upon our previous contributions. This model is then positioned within a novel architecture for the authoring, interchange, integration, and simulation of video game narrative. We present alongside the architecture four key innovations towards supporting game narrative. We include support for Discoverable Narrative and other game narrative content alongside structural features in a deference of responsibility to game engines and our own approach to mixing calligraphic and sculptural hyper- text structure

Building and Reconstructing Character. A Case Study of Silent Hill 3

Characters are in an important role in many games. A good player character is likely to leave good lasting impression about the game. It has been argued that creating the personality for a player character is problematic. However, there are multiple methods used in games to inform a player about the nature of a player character: predefined functions, goals, possible and impossible actions, and more traditional audiovisual means. In this paper the player character of Silent Hill 3 is analyzed using presented categorization. This paper shows that the classification is a useful analytic tool, but it needs to be developed further to include belongings and space as elements describing a player character. The categorization also highlights aspects that need to be addressed when designing player characters

Character-driven game design : a design approach and its foundations in character engagement

In this study I propose a design approach for character-based games. In order to develop a design method for character-based games, I look at how games guide players and the playing experience (especially the relationship between formal features and playing experience). This design approach has been used in the design of the game Lies and Seductions. Research implies that people react to human-like entities (e.g., game characters) as if they were people, including empathizing with characters. I argue that player characters can be used to guide the playing experience by limiting player choices. In addition, the system can make some things easier or more difficult to perform. This means that when the game system promotes or denotes some choices, the system can fix the personality traits of the character. These techniques support certain kinds of interpretation of the player character and of the game. In this study, I argue that the relationship between the game system and the representation of characters should be taken into account. I use formal analysis in conjunction with theories of cognitive science to distinguish designable features and trace the possible implications of using these features within the design. As the main results I introduce a character engagement model and a design approach (that is grounded to the character engagement model) for character-based games that integrate insights from dramatic writing for theatre. The proposed design approach focuses on character-driven conflicts

Pornographic Games on Steam : Genres, Modes, and Milieus

Pornographic games have historically been distributed outside of mainstream channels. Steam, in 2018, change its policy allowing uncensored pornographic games to be sold. We found 452 games or DLCs that were tagged as mature content and sexual content. We analyzed 40 of those games in detail. 17.5% of these games only contain nudity while the rest graphically depicted sex. Visual novels and adventure games were the most numerous genres. Drama and fantasy were the most used milieus. Two of the games contained only male-male sex whereas the rest depicted heterosexual sex or heterosexualized same-sex sex. The pornographic scenes or nude images were tied to the game's progression structure

Towards a History of Finnish and Swedish Game Industry Platforms

This paper looks at the history of game industry platforms in Finland and Sweden between 1979 and 2020 via 745 games. Both are relatively small countries where developers perform exceptionally well in a global market context. Developers and games developed in both countries are rather similar with some notable differences: Finnish developers focused on mobile games on Symbian in the 2000s, whereas Swedish developers focused on PC and console games, continuing a PC focus during the 2010s. The number of game companies has increased rapidly in Finland and Sweden since 2010 but peaked in Finland in 2014. From a platform studies perspective our data highlights rewarding historical insights about the dynamics of game industry platforms in Finland and Sweden with dimensions such as influence by demo scene, price of hardware/software (computers), mathematics education, third-party game engines, and finally higher education programmes in game development, consequently framing the data in socio-material perspectives on game industry platforms as application ecologies.

Game Design Research: An Introduction to Theory & Practice

<p>Design research is an active academic field covering disciplines such as architecture, graphic, product, service, interaction, and systems design. Design research aims to understand not only the designed end products but also how design as an activity unfolds. The book demonstrates different approaches to design research in game design research.</p