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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

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Game Design

Selected Works

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Towards A Unified Theory Of Play: A Case Study Of Minecraft, James Hooper, Penny De Byl Aug 2015

Towards A Unified Theory Of Play: A Case Study Of Minecraft, James Hooper, Penny De Byl

Penny de Byl

Researchers in the fields of game design, childhood development, learning, and movement studies discuss the concept of play. However, the term has been frequently redefined resulting in a divergent understanding of the concept. This paper presents a Unified Theory of Play that aims to provide a holistic examination of the domain that will enhance understanding of play by delivering a tripartite framework for critical analysis of a variety of computer games. Minecraft is presented herein as a case study analysis using the proposed framework.

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World Of Golf: A Socially Relevant Simulation Game, Ramin Tadayon, Winslow Burleson, Ashish Amresh Aug 2012

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

Ashish Amresh

Socially Relevant Simulation Games (SRSG), a new medium for social interaction, based on real-world skills and skill development, creates a single gaming framework that connects both serious and casual players. Through a detailed case study this paper presents a design process and framework for SRSG, in the context of mixed-reality golf swing simulations. The "World of Golf" SRSG utilizes a real-time expert system to capture, analyze, and evaluate golf swing metrics combining swing data and players' backgrounds, e.g., golf-handicaps, to form individual profiles. Simulation and assessment modules provide the serious player with tools to build golf skills while allowing casual …

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Socially Relevant Simulation Games: A Design Study, Ramin Tadayon, Ashish Amresh, Winslow Burleson Oct 2011

Socially Relevant Simulation Games: A Design Study, Ramin Tadayon, Ashish Amresh, Winslow Burleson

Ashish Amresh

Socially Relevant Simulation Games (SRSG), a new medium for social interaction, based on real-world skills and skill development, creates a single gaming framework that connects both serious and casual players. Through a detailed case study this paper presents a design process and framework for SRSG, in the context of mixed-reality golf swing simulations. The SRSG, entitled "World of Golf", a real-time expert system to capture, analyze, and evaluate golf swing metrics. The game combines swing data and players' backgrounds, e.g., handicaps, to form individual profiles. These profiles are then used to implement a golf simulation game using artificially controlled agents …

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Engaging Game Design Students Using Peer Evaluation, Amber Settle, Charles Wilcox, Chad Settle Oct 2011

Engaging Game Design Students Using Peer Evaluation, Amber Settle, Charles Wilcox, Chad Settle

Amber Settle

Many information technology educators have worked in recent years to develop courses to attract students to the field. As faculty achieve success with technical courses designed to be appeal to a broad audience, it can be hard to maintain the initial excitement particularly as multiple sections of the courses are taught on a continuing basis. In this article we describe a project that added peer evaluation to an assessment in a game design course with a large non-major audience. While controversial, peer evaluation has shown some promise in motivating students to work harder and in improving certain key skills. Consistent …

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Computational Thinking In A Game Design Course, Amber Settle Oct 2011

Computational Thinking In A Game Design Course, Amber Settle

Amber Settle

As a part of an NSF-funded project to enhance computational thinking in undergraduate general education courses, activities and assessments were developed for a game design course taught at DePaul University. The focus of the course is on game analysis and design, but the course textbook uses an approach that is heavily grounded in computational thinking principles. We describe the course activities and assignments and discuss an initial assessment of those materials. Our results show that there is a gap in difficulty between several of the activities and indicate that the materials developed help students to better learn the computational thinking …

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Computational Style Processing, Foaad Khosmood Dec 2010

Computational Style Processing, Foaad Khosmood

Foaad Khosmood

Our main thesis is that computational processing of natural language styles can be accomplished using corpus analysis methods and language transformation rules. We demonstrate this first by statistically modeling natural language styles, and second by developing tools that carry out style processing, and finally by running experiments using the tools and evaluating the results. Specifically, we present a model for style in natural languages, and demonstrate style processing in three ways: Our system analyzes styles in quantifiable terms according to our model (analysis), associates documents based on stylistic similarity to known corpora (classification) and manipulates texts to match a desired …

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A Hybrid Approach To Projects In Gaming Courses, Amber Settle, Joe Linhoff, André Berthiaume Feb 2008

A Hybrid Approach To Projects In Gaming Courses, Amber Settle, Joe Linhoff, André Berthiaume

Amber Settle

We describe an approach to projects used in game development courses that supports learning individual skills while also developing team skills. Early assignments focus on developing individual skills in coding and content creation, and when those skills are honed, students form teams to work on a larger and more complex game. Classes that use a hybrid approach, that is individual projects that build toward a large group project, allow students to solidly learn game development skills required of gaming graduates and yet stimulate creativity and challenge students to move beyond their comfort zone. 

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