Art and Design Commons^™

Spirits Of The King, Ali Al-Ani

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

Spirits of the King (SotK) is a 1v1 card game where players use essential resources to conjure spirits from a shared pool to defeat their opponent. Players must make strategic sacrifices to keep themselves from danger or to threaten their opponent, ultimately revealing how much they are willing to risk for victory. The themes, mechanics, and material design of SotK are very heavily inspired by information found in Aleister Crowley’s The Lesser Key of Solomon.

Afterlight: Game Design And The Power Of Narrative, Elio Hollenbeck

Undergraduate Research Symposium

In the last few decades we as a society have watched the evolution of games as a storytelling medium. From Candyland to The Last of Us, all games use some form of narrative to bring players into the world of the game. Over the course of the last six months, I’ve been developing a tabletop card game with the working title of Afterlight. In this presentation, I will be explaining my process as I’ve worked on designing and refining this game. I will also talk about why I feel game design can be an effective way to engage people with …

Playing To Grow. Roundtable Interview On Games, Education, And Character, Owen Gottlieb, Matthew Farber, Paul Darvasi

Articles

In this roundtable interview moderated by Paul Darvasi, lecturer at the University of Toronto and co-founder of Gold Bug Interactive, Owen Gottlieb and Matthew Farber discuss research and practice at the intersection of religion, character education, and games in schools. Gottlieb is an associate professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, founder and lead faculty at the Initiative in Religion, Culture, and Policy at the MAGIC center, and founder and director of the Interaction, Media, and Learning Lab at RIT, where he specializes in interactive media, learning, religion, and culture. Farber is an associate professor of educational technology and coordinator …

Whose Art Museum? Immersive Gaming As Irruption, Jason M. Cox, Lillian Lewis

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This paper introduces Mantles in the Museum, an immersive game that helps ameliorate student discomfort in art museums and to support discourse in, through, and around art museums. Within the game the students take on the roles of critics who use one of five interpretive frameworks, often differing from the student’s own, to select works from a real museum to go to an international exhibition. Assuming these roles empowers students to be in the museum and to assess the works, students are given leave to engage in a vigorous critique process and to examine the art-world from a new perspective.

Monster Planet Bounty Hunter, Arthur Santoro

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

In this paper I will be discussing my personal interest in games and art as well as my experience and process working on my original board game: Monster Planet Bounty Hunter. I will also discuss my visual influences, how I approach making games and why I think games are an important form of art.

It's All Fun And—: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Space In The Pandemic., Erica Von Proctor Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This exhibition and document explore spatial rhetoric during the pandemic, utilizing materiality and relational aesthetics to reflect on the different ways in which the public and private are made distinct from one another. In doing so, Lewis addresses new cultural navigations of shared spaces, both digital and corporeal, public and private. In addition, the artist also examines the faulty social and institutional systems that the pandemic brought to light, such as socioeconomic dynamics and voter suppression, while utilizing Kenneth Burke’s concept of the terministic screen. Games are a central theme throughout the exhibition, as they are often coded as “home” …

Humans And The Core Partition: An Agent-Based Modeling Experiment, Andrew J. Collins, Sheida Etemadidavan

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Although strategic coalition formation is traditionally modeled using cooperative game theory, behavioral game theorists have repeatedly shown that outcomes predicted by game theory are different from those generated by actual human behavior. To further explore these differences, in a cooperative game theory context, we experiment to compare the outcomes resulting from human participants’ behavior to those generated by a cooperative game theory solution mechanism called the core partition. Our experiment uses an interactive simulation of a glove game, a particular type of cooperative game, to collect the participant’s decision choices and their resultant outcomes. Two different glove games are considered, …

Difficulty In Video Games, Jason Bechdolt

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

Throughout time games have been utilized for a great variety of purposes: relaxing leisure, competitive activity, intellectual exercise, and many other sources of enjoyment. The element of difficulty has existed in various degrees throughout all of those game styles, usually found through the skill of an opponent, but lately many games have been designed to have a digital opponent to provide that difficulty. With access to more information than ever before, people have gotten the chance to witness lives and worlds that they can never physically enjoy, and this has led to a considerable market for games that can provide …

The London Game, Geremy Carnes, Betsy Aldrich, Brielle Amick, Luke Anderson, Cheyenne Burns, Benjamin Burr, Hannah Marie Chisnell, Caitlin Dollins, Jackson Ederer, Julia Fotiadis, Ethan Mathias, Marqueveosha Patton, Kai Ross, Caroline Smith, Jessica Spivey, Andrea Stanford, Lana Kay Tutterow, Castle Wagoner-Smith

OER Student Projects

The London Game is an interactive narrative developed by students and their instructor at Lindenwood University using the Twine tool. Players take the role of a time traveler who can experience any of three scenarios based on aspects of London history and culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the Great Fire, the theatrical scene, and the struggles of poverty.

Getting Down In The Muds: A Ludological Perspective On Arguers, Michael A. Yong-Set

OSSA Conference Archive

Dan Cohen (2018) and Michael Gilbert (1997) have variously emphasized the need for argumentation theorists to pay attention to ‘arguers’ and not just ‘arguments.’ Following Yong-Set (2016), this paper will suggest that ‘games’ can be leveraged to enrich an understanding of the ‘person’ aspect of argumentation.

Ludology is the academic and critical study of games qua games, especially in terms of system design, player experience and the socio-cultural dynamics of gaming. By drawing upon and extending the lessons learned from ludologist Bartle’s (1996, 2012) analysis of the relation between player-types and games that successfully implement Multi-User-Dungeons (MUDs), I argue that …

Recreating The Virtual Bullets That Pierces Through The Soul Of Gaming: Video Games And Its Cultural Perception On America’S Violent Homefrontier, Brandon Palomino

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

For the past fifty years, video games have been around as a form of entertainment we consume on a daily basis. Unlike the books and movies seen in pop culture today, video games take us on virtual journeys where people participate in unique gameplay objectives based on player involvement. Because the idea of player engagement was rare at the time, it was inevitable that video games would revolutionize the way we view entertainment onwards. With video games becoming increasingly popular throughout the years, the debate of whether they are truly violent in nature has rubbed many people like myself the …

Publication And Evaluation Challenges In Games & Interactive Media, Elizabeth L. Lawley

Presentations and other scholarship

Faculty in the fields of games and interactive media face significant challenges in publishing and documenting their scholarly work for evaluation in the tenure and promotion process. These challenges include selecting appropriate publication venues and assigning authorship for works spanning multiple disciplines; archiving and accurately citing collaborative digital projects; and redefining “peer review,” impact, and dissemination in the context of creative digital works. In this paper I describe many of these challenges, and suggest several potential solutions.

Fifth Aeon – A.I Competition And Balancer, William M. Ritson

Master's Theses

Collectible Card Games (CCG) are one of the most popular types of games in both digital and physical space. Despite their popularity, there is a great deal of room for exploration into the application of artificial intelligence in order to enhance CCG gameplay and development. This paper presents Fifth Aeon a novel and open source CCG built to run in browsers and two A.I applications built upon Fifth Aeon. The first application is an artificial intelligence competition run on the Fifth Aeon game. The second is an automatic balancing system capable of helping a designer create new cards that do …

Game On, Theresa Loong

Theses and Dissertations

Game On is a 25-minute documentary about game designer Brenda Romero, a successful woman in a male-dominated industry. Brenda, whose career spans over thirty-five pioneering years, has contributed to almost fifty game titles, developing innovative video and board games. How is her life a game space?

Iceland's Migratory Birds In Changing Environmental Conditions: An Interactive Synthesis, Frances J. Duncan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Human-driven changes to environmental conditions alter the habitats, behaviors, and migration patterns of migratory species. Changes in temperature, vegetation, and precipitation are just some of the factors contributing to shifts in phenology, demography, and distribution of migratory birds. These changes are driven by anthropogenic climate change and amplified by human land-use change, and are especially intense at high latitudes. This project creatively communicates the effects of environmental changes on three species of migratory birds in Iceland—the northern wheatear, the Greenland white-fronted goose, and the black-tailed godwit—using principles of storytelling and game design. The resulting interactive product is a game that …

Painting Down, Claire Stankus

MFA Statements

No abstract provided.

Game Types, Game-Related Behaviors And Resilience: Creating A Roadmap For Effective Gamification Design In Higher Education, Patrick Marino

Dissertations

Gamification, or the use of game-based mechanics and thinking in real world applications, is on the rise in educational environments. While various applications seek to increase engagement and motivation for tasks related to student success, research regarding best practices for the design of such systems is lacking. In fact, conflicting outcomes from various gamification studies at the secondary and tertiary education levels suggest that not all gamification designs are effective for increasing student success. Meanwhile, research from the medical field indicates gamification can be used to increase resilience; which has been linked to various student success outcomes including academic performance. …

The Evolution Of Nintendo Company, Yaochen Wei

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

Through consistent innovation, investment in quality, research, and diversification, Nintendo managed to evolve from a playing card manufacturer to a world-leading video game company.

Plentiful Possibilities For Pen, Pencil, And Paper Play, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Neller presented games such as Dots and Boxes, Sprouts, Jotto, Chomp, and Pentominoes in order to illustrate the diversity of existing pencil and paper games. Additionally, he presented his own pencil and paper game design, Paper Penguins, and discussed the game design process.

The Birds Of A Feather Research Challenge, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Neller presented a set of research challenges for undergraduates that allow an excellent formative experience of research, writing, peer review, and potential presentation and publication through a top-tier conference. The focus problem is the analysis of a newly-designed solitaire card game, Birds of a Feather, so potentials for discovery abound. Open access talk slides, research code, solvability data sets, research tutorial videos, and more are also available at http://cs.gettysburg.edu/~tneller/puzzles/boaf .

Amazons, Penguins, And Amazon Penguins, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

This talk discussed a family of games based on Amazons (1988), a distant relative of Go (area control) and Chess (queen-like movement), innovated with the introduction of move obstacles. Hey! That’s My Fish! (2003) restricted the addition of obstacles and added varying points for position visits. Introducing original related game designs (e.g. Amazon Penguins (2009) and Paper Pen-guins (2009)), we demonstrated how game mechanics are like genes that mutate, crossover, and invite evolution of new games.

I Remembered I Am Happy, Emily Pan

Masters Theses

This journal is a collection of thoughts on small actions and repetition and getting through getting places.

A Normal Novel Collection, Xiaopeng Qi

Masters Theses

This thesis is a game novel collection.

Which is an experimental attempt that I use the playable texts as a way to document daily clues. While reading the thesis, the readers will have an experience of the game-like sense of substitution and view switching. Through the narrative of texts, I try to express that in the future, making games which under structural wraps is a living strategy way to self-expression and communicate to outside in this hyper-normal spectacular society.

Impractical Community, Zixin Xiong

Masters Theses

Zixin lost her phone and she went on a journey with a girl to find it. During the journey, they collected cellphones to let these machines get a good rest; they explored a sandwich city and took a risk to follow an insect who ate people’s profiles. They were trapped in a forest of lies and heard about lots of silly questions, etc. After experiencing these weird adventures, Zixin found a new friend underground and dove into a magic river to live with her.

The Impractical Community is a magic realist fiction that reveals the disadvantages of our technology in …

Playful Ai Education, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this talk, Neller shared how games can serve as a fun means of teaching not only game-tree search in Artificial Intelligence (AI), but also such diverse topics as constraint satisfaction, logical reasoning, planning, uncertain reasoning, machine learning, and robotics. He observed that teachers teach best when they enjoy what they share and encouraged AI educators present to teach to their unique strengths and enthusiasms.

Art Beyond The Object? Art Beyond Grad School? (A Kickstarter Fundraiser): Help Me Complete My Mfa And Kickstart My Life As An Artist., Hsini D. Leary

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this paper and Kickstarter project is to enable the production of my last semester’s work and thesis exhibition, and also to aid in the post-graduation transition to a sustainable art practice that does not rely on the current gallery structure.

Ai Education: Birds Of A Feather, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Games are beautifully crafted microworlds that invite players to explore complex terrains that spring into existence from even simple rules. As AI educators, games can offer fun ways of teaching important concepts and techniques. Just as Martin Gardner employed games and puzzles to engage both amateurs and professionals in the pursuit of Mathematics, a well-chosen game or puzzle can provide a catalyst for AI learning and research. [excerpt]

Pedagogy At Play: Gamification And Gameful Design In The 21st-Century Writing Classroom, Danielle Roney Roach

English Theses & Dissertations

The language used to discuss play in current academic spaces tends to center around formal games (and computer games in particular in the 21st century classroom). Scholarly conversations tend to distort the actual practices that occur in classrooms and subsequently limit the scope of any investigation of the pedagogical function and outcomes of those practices. This project explores the use of play and games in the classrooms of nine composition instructors. From these stories, this project begins to map out a taxonomy in order to begin building toward a pedagogy of play for 21st century writing classrooms. Using a multiperspectival …

A Look Into The Industry Of Video Games Past, Present, And Yet To Come, Chad Hadzinsky

CMC Senior Theses

Since its inception, the video game industry has been both a new medium for art and innovation as well as a major driving force in the advancements of many technologies. The often overlooked video game industry has turned from a hobby to a multi-billion dollar industry in its short, forty year life. People of all ages and genders across the world are playing video games at a higher clip than ever before. With so many new gamers and emerging technologies, it is an exciting time for the industry. The landscape is constantly changing and successful business models of the past …

World Of Golf: A Socially Relevant Simulation Game, Ramin Tadayon, Winslow Burleson, Ashish Amresh

Ashish Amresh