Everything I learned from the SIMS(TM): putting games in context

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Enhancing information acquisition in game agents

Significant enhancements in the capabilities of software agents can result through improving how they acquire information. Decision making depends on getting the right information, but the issue of what actually constitutes the right information is complex. This paper outlines important characteristics of information acquisition in agents and suggests how to improve the effectiveness of information acquisition in agents in virtual worlds. By taking an affordance oriented approach it is possible to identify information resources that are efficient, reusable and well matched to the capabilities of game agents

Tools for creating interactive teaching environments

Although learning-by-doing is one of the most effective teaching and learning methodology, its application to some disciplines, such as history, is difficult even when using complex simulation environments. One possible solution is to combine learning-by-doing principles with gaming elements to create immersive and interesting virtual environments. Unfortunately, the level of programming required to create such environments makes it prohibitive for most educators. We describe the Graphical Interactive Fiction Toolkit, GIFT, system we have created that allows educators and writers to easily create interactive stories. While programmers will still be required for complex interactive environments, we believe GIFT can lower the entry bar and allow much richer set of interactive environments to be produced

The Distributed Studio: Towards a theory of virtual place for creative collaboration

Virtual environments intended to support creative collaboration are being built without an informed consideration of the implicit interaction design choices being made. This paper proposes a set of design principles for such environments. Drawing from theory and reflective practice we suggest a conceptual focus on a Distributed Studio designed around the following five principles: Support Reconfiguration, Mix Realities, Control Access, Be A/Synchronous, and Transform Space into Inhabited Place

Aussie women game developers

Women are underrepresented in the digital games industry all over the world. In Australia, womens level of contribution to game development is much lower than the USA, Canada, and UK. Reviewing literature from the areas of computer science, information technology, and digital games, this study focuses on the impact of social, structural and cultural aspects, and how these factors might influence women choosing a career in the Australian digital games industry. Using a mixed-method, Grounded Theory approach, a large-scale census of Australian digital game studios was conducted, and followed up by semi-structured interviews of a small group of women game developers. Findings reveal that the number of women game developers in Australia has recently increased, and although work culture stereotypes and poor workplace conditions persist overseas, Australian women are not experiencing these issues. However, getting interested in digital game development is still a major obstacle in convincing young women to enroll in game development degrees at university. Once enrolled though, attrition is a problem that has been attributed to teaching styles, lack of confidence and how male peers treat female students in their first year. Those women, who eventually graduate and pursue a career in digital games, more often share the influence of strong parents, male siblings, and enjoyed playing games from a young age

A survey of major challenges and future directions for next generation pervasive computing

Pervasive computing has emerged as a new computing paradigm with a great deal with appeal in our everyday environment. However, the benefits offered by this new computing paradigm are relatively below our expected standard. This paper discusses the major challenges for the next generation pervasive computing and the difficulties in developing a promising system to meet these challenges. Then, we present a survey that covers relevant existing approaches addressed to overcome the challenges. Finally, we highlight future research directions and present a new intriguing exploration, aiming to broaden the appeal and bridge the gap for the fulfillment of the challenges. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006

Understanding players' map exploration styles

Copyright 2016 ACM. Exploration is an essential part of play in modern video games. It refers to the discovery-based activities, in which players explore mechanisms, as well as spatiality of virtual world. Exploration games and games with exploration plots are booming in gamer communities. In this paper, we focus on spatial exploration, which is central to play in role-playing games (RPG) and real time strategy (RTS) games. We investigate the game-playing behaviors of human players in exploration games, so as to discover behavior patterns and understand gamer styles. The intention is to contribute to the design and development of believable agents. We conducted an experiment where 25 participants played three types of exploration games. In-game data, think-aloud data, questionnaire responses and post-game interview data were collected to gain a deeper understanding of exploration preferences. We used thematic analysis to analyze data and mapped out four game exploration archetypes: Wanderers, Seers, Pathers and Targeters. An analysis from the four highlight aspects: strategy, reasoning, conception and hesitation, is conducted to investigate the behavioral traits of these four archetypes

Towards a generic framework for situated collaborative storytelling

How we assimilate stories into our common experiences and shape culture is the field of study known as narrative intelligence. By following these assumptions and investigating theories of conversation and rhetoric, this paper outlines a generic framework for a visual collaborative storytelling system that emphasises participatory narration and shared understanding in a situated context. © 2009 ACM

A scouting strategy for real-time strategy games

© 2014 ACM. Real-time strategy (RTS) is a sub-genre of strategy video games. RTS games are more realistic with dynamic and time-constraint game playing, by abandoning the turn-based rule of its ancestors. Playing with and against computer-controlled players is a pervasive phenomenon in RTS games, due to the convenience and the preference of groups of players. Hence, better game-playing agents are able to enhance game-playing experience by acting as smart opponents or collaborators. One-way of improving game-playing agents' performance, in terms of their economic-expansion and tactical battlefield-arrangement aspects, is to understand the game environment. Traditional commercial RTS game-playing agents address this issue by directly accessing game maps and extracting strategic features. Since human players are unable to access the same information, this is a form of "cheating AI", which has been known to negatively affect player experiences. Thus, we develop a scouting mechanism for RTS game-playing agents, in order to enable game units to explore game environments automatically in a realistic fashion. Our research is grounded in prior robotic exploration work by which we present a hierarchical multi-criterion decision-making (MCDM) strategy to address the incomplete information problem in RTS settings

Initial perceptions of a casual game to crowdsource facial expressions in the wild

The performance of affective computing systems often depend on the quality of the image databases they are trained on. However, creating good quality training databases is a laborious activity. In this paper, we evaluate BeFaced, a tile matching casual tablet game that enables massive crowdsourcing of facial expressions for the purpose of advancing facial expression analysis. The core aspect of BeFaced is game quality, as increased enjoyment and engagement translates to an increased quantity of varied facial expressions obtained. Hence a pilot user study was performed on 18 university students whereby observational and interview data were obtained during playtests. We found that most users enjoyed the game and were intrigued by the novelty in interacting with the facial expression gameplay mechanic, but also uncovered problems with feedback provision and the dynamic difficulty adjustment mechanism. These findings hence provide invaluable insights for the other researchers/ practitioners working on similar crowdsourcing games with a purpose, as well as for the development of BeFaced