Game Design Commons^™

Making The Writer’S Project, Alex Calderwood

ELO (un)supervised 2026

The Writer’s Project is a series of playful text editors which intervene in the act of writing in unexpected, challenging, and unusual ways. Some of the editors are conceptual experiments in user interface design: What if the editor asked you if you were sure before committing to each word? What if the delete key was not functional? Others editors are provocations that take aim at the conditions and AI-mediated writing, built to create a tension between writerly agency and system resistance. These involve placing writers into different configurations with text streams, for instance by turning prior writings into a Tetris-like …

Domestic Travelers: Transparent Machines, Hollow Bodies, Hanyi Wang

Masters Theses

Digitization is not a modern invention. Derived from the concept of fingers, this mindset of packing information into quantifiable, interchangeable units sounds mechanical, yet eerily physical. Try to imagine: a ghostly hand with millions of fingers with the same length, likeness, and function. Under the worldview of Digital Narrative, we live in a digital simulation: everything is representable with quantifiable units, fluid across media. Yet under this spectacle of convenient abundance, something is missing. The Unknowables are replaced with arbitrary symbols, while the Uncategorizables are omitted. This is a framework that cannot accommodate human subtleties and complexities. One needs to …

Sae What? Magazine - Issue 1 - 2026, Sae University College

SAE What? - Student Magazine

No abstract provided.

Voice And Pain: Representations Of Disability In Adaptations Of “The Little Mermaid”, Ace Molloy

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 story, “The Little Mermaid,” is a popular fairy tale that has been adapted several times by writers, filmmakers, and game developers. It is one of the few fairy tales with explicit portrayals of disability; the mermaid in the tale is nonspeaking and experiences chronic pain, as well as being a mermaid—a nonnormative figure who is aligned with disability. This paper looks at the ways that the mermaid is portrayed in literary, film, and new media adaptations from a disability-justice perspective. Examining multiple representations of the character, I argue that while feminist adaptations erase her disability and …

Enhancing Facial Expressiveness For Games Through Procedural Animation, Abhijit Varanasi

All Theses

Facial animation is one of the most important parts of bringing characters to life in video games and virtual experiences. This thesis explores a new approach to creating more expressive facial animations using procedural techniques and blended facial performance for more flexibility. The project uses FACS (Facial Action Coding System), which breaks down facial expressions into small, measurable muscle movements. By building a facial rig based on these muscle units, the character’s face can be animated in a way that reflects real human emotion. The animation in this work is not just pre-recorded, though it can respond in real-time to …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

An Interactive Walkthrough Of Richard Kostelanetz’S Library, Martin Glick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My project utilizes the visual novel game engine Ren’Py to create an embodied virtual walkthrough of Richard Kostelanetz’s personal library. Kostelanetz is a pioneering avante-garde artist, critic, and anthologist whose work spans multiple decades and artistic practices. This interactive experience introduces users to the astounding collection of 25,000 books that Kostelanetz has amassed in Ridgewood, Queens over his decades of publishing avant-garde literature. While scholars might be familiar with his anthologies such as Scenarios: Scripts to Perform (1980) and Texts-Sound Texts (1980), my project allows users to browse through sample pages of his original “Book Art”.

This New Media Object …

One Can Only Dream, Sophia V. Yacca

Theses and Dissertations

One Can Only Dream is an interactive installation in which players are invited to navigate a liminal, dream-like game, engage with a branching series of questions, and introspect upon the relationships between unconscious expression, conscious self-perception, and the inherent difficulty of depicting, sharing, and understanding subconscious thought.

Rooted in both my personal experience with a rare neurophysiological condition and in my desire to create, this project examines dreams not only as a medical and cultural phenomenon, but also as a means to form identity, reflect trauma, and inspire creativity. Drawing from modern interactive storytelling and my lived experiences, this work …

Coffee Bindings, M. Ermolenko

Theses and Dissertations

Coffee Bindings is a multi-media interactive installation weaving themes of history, memory, death, and spaces that no longer exist through the lens of coffee readings and a mixture of physical and digital media. By navigating ghost spaces (spaces/places that used to exist but don’t anymore), and looking at survival through three time periods, Coffee Bindings jumps through liminal time and space, navigating the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the ethnic cleansing and displacement of Armenians from Artsakh in 2020-2024, while also tying them to personal family history with the death of my father and the loss of the physical space of …

“More Than What [They] Made Us To Be”: From Passing To Perception In Victorian And Modern Vampire Media, Lauren Sieberg

English (MA) Theses

Throughout Victorian Gothic horror fiction, vampires function as deviant figures, maneuvering within social confines of passing until their status quo-threatening identity is exposed. Of the popular vampires from this period, most gradually fail to maintain status as social insiders—as demonstrated with Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula or Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, who possess the temporary capacity to pass until their hidden monstrosity is revealed over time. Even if Gothic monsters are confined to a limited space and time far from society, this is still not enough; in accordance with the Victorian culture of morality policing by dominant groups, the vampiric Other …

Towards Active Learning Practice: A Theory To Practice-Led Model. Part 1: Principles Of Student-Centred Learning, Strutts Psyridis

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This monograph explores Active Learning as a student-centred pedagogical model that bridges theory and practice in screen education. It examines constructivist approaches, metacognition, and situated learning, arguing for performative, embodied teaching methods. The paper highlights tensions between traditional instruction and experiential learning, proposing adaptable frameworks for enhancing engagement, autonomy, and transferable skills.

Towards Active Learning Practice: A Theory To Practice-Led Model. Part 3: Engagement, Motivation And Classroom Management, Strutts Psyridis

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

Part 3 of this continuing series on Active Learning examines engagement, motivation, and classroom management within active learning environments, arguing that meaningful engagement is performative, designed, and context-dependent. Drawing on creative industries, intrinsic motivation theory, flipped classroom models, and digital pedagogies, it proposes that effective teaching integrates facilitation, structure, and adaptive strategies to sustain learner agency, participation, and deep learning.

Area Of Effect The History And Effects Of Linguistic Choices Made In The Final Fantasy Franchise, Camille Mcdermott

Theses and Dissertations

The Final Fantasy franchise, a seminal role-playing game (RPG) series, has captivated a global audience since its inception in 1987. This thesis, titled "Area of Effect: The History and Effects of Linguistic Choices Made in the Final Fantasy Franchise," explores the intricate use of language that has shaped the series' identity and influenced its worldwide fanbase. The linguistic landscape of Final Fantasy is as diverse and dynamic as its fantastical worlds, evolving from simple text boxes to fully voiced narratives. This study examines the historical context and evolving linguistic choices throughout the series, highlighting how these decisions enrich the gaming …

Shifting Perspectives With Procedural Modeling Techniques And Vertex Animated Textures For Real-Time Interactive Morphing, Stephanie Schulze

All Theses

As humans experience reality, they intake external stimuli using sensory receptors to process information, forming a perception. Perceptions are subjective and shape each individual’s reality. Naturally then, by changing one’s perceptions, their experience of reality is altered, for better or worse. To emphasize the idea that perception is malleable and encourage a mindset of questioning alternative ways to look at a situation, an interactive experience in Unreal Engine is developed where a dull cityscape morphs and transforms into a surreal oversized nature scene. Procedural modeling techniques are used to create a variety of morphing assets, while Vertex Animated Textures are …

Environmental Storytelling In Video Games Through The Lens Of Film Noir, Samuel Hagen

All Theses

My project is an interactable video game experience showcased through the lens of film noir, that focuses on the capabilities and benefits of environmental storytelling in video games. With a heavy focus on immersion, my project forces the player to explore a murder scene and encourages them to formulate their own narrative about what has transpired. My project fuels the player’s ability for self-reflection and self-acceptance through the player’s personalized and unique interpretations experienced while exploring the scene I have created. In my paper, I discuss the aspects of environmental storytelling and immersion in video games and how they have …

Illuminating Women’S Interwar Australian Ghosts Stories In A Tabletop Roleplaying Game - Methods, Processes And Aesthetics, Matthew Sparksman

Postgraduate

Australian voices are underrepresented in international media, particularly in the medium of Tabletop roleplaying games. Women’s voices and access to publishing media were rapidly retaken by men after the Great War, including the mediums of Ghost Stories, Film, and other media (Handasyde, 2017, p.18; Ohri, 2018, p.386). This can also be illustrated in the shift in archetypes of ghostly tales to be dominated by that of the “suffering and sacrificed male exiled to death far from home” (Kelly cited in Carleton, 2015, p.21; Kelly, 2007, 18). It is therefore important that we seek to find and value such artefacts that …

Revelation Perth International Film Festival Academic Conference 2024, James Thompson

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

Drawing delegates from around the country The Revelation Perth International Film Festival's Academic Conference is a truly interactive two days of intense discussion and debate on all things cinema

Revelation is Australia's only international film festival to host and encourage academic discussion alongside its screening program and we look forward to taking its discoveries to audiences around the country and world. It represents an important platform in film discussion and analysis in this country.

Taking place on Tuesday July 2nd and Weds July 3rd 2024, the Revelation Academic Conference draws local, national and international academics to discuss and analyse issues …

What Teams Need: Leading Digital Creatives, Matthew Dyet

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

What Teams Need: Leading Digital Creatives was a talk at the Revelations Conference. Based on my book Great Games Need Great Leaders, this talk was focused more broadly on leadership in the creative industries due to the audience being primarily from film.

間, Lele Dai

Theses and Dissertations

LeLe Dai makes contingent participatory public interventions using sensory materials such as sound, flickering light, and water. This paper examines their works through the lens of Chinese character Jian (間), meaning “gap/slit/incision,” to investigate the concept of “in-betweenness.”

The Phygital Design Process: Using Emerging Technologies To Create A Phygital Fashion Brand Rooted In Nostalgia, Madeline M. Mcdaniel

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This Master's Project is a comprehensive exploration of the intersection of digital fashion design, nostalgia, and sustainable practices. Its primary objective is to create 'project CYBERBAE,' a phygital fashion collection that draws inspiration from early 2000s video game characters, trends, and aesthetics. The project utilizes advanced digital tools like Clo3D to demonstrate a comprehensive digital fashion design process that emphasizes inclusivity and sustainability. It also pioneers the development of a 3D virtual world, providing users with an immersive environment to interact with and experience digital fashion. This virtual space serves as a platform for a community of fashion, technology, and …

The Star Caller: Shining A Light On Game Production And Real Time Cinematics, Jehoshaphat Chacko

All Theses

In the landscape of interactive entertainment, the synergy between game play and real-time cinematics has become a pivotal force driving innovation and engagement in modern video games. “The Star Caller” is a project made by a small group of talented artists that explores this intersection. It serves as a prime example of how these two features coexist in modern gaming. This project utilizes the fundamentals of not only video game storytelling, but also all the popular aspects of a single player experience. Artistic inspiration from popular works such as God of War: Ragnarok, Warframe, and films such as Children of …

The Regenarrative: How To Change The Story In Order To Change The Future, S. Rose Bigheart O'Leary

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

In the era of Climate Change, many are concerned that the end of the Anthropocene, or the end of the era of human life on Earth, is upon us. Western European colonialism and its subsequent systems (settler-colonialism, colonial-capitalism, and globalization - sometimes termed “neocolonialism”) have all been implicated in contributing to unsustainable behaviors linked to accelerating climate change. In searching for possible solutions, some have called for listening to Indigenous Peoples, citing ethics of sustainability found among many Indigenous cultures. However, the cultural products of settler-colonialism are still dominant in ways that do not allow for Indigenous worldviews to …

Adarna: Remediating Philippine Source Texts Through Video Games, Philip Adrian L. Gungab

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

This paper will explore the possibilities of using video games as a means of remediating Philippine source texts. This begins by defining Philippine Source texts based on Dr. Joyce Arriola’s book Pelikulang Komiks: Toward a Theory of Filipino Film Adaptation (2019) and understanding how remediation changes perception of the material through concepts defined in Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin’s book, Remediation (2000). Video games will later be explored as a form of new media in the 21st century, and how media convergence and globalization has brought it to its current state. This paper will then analyze Adarna (2015), a video …

Creating Project Contrast: A Video Game Exploring Consciousness And Qualia, Pierce Papke

Honors Projects

Project Contrast is a video game that explores how the unique traits inherent to video games might engage reflective player responses to qualitative experience. Project Contrast does this through suspension of disbelief, avatar projection, presence, player agency in storytelling, visual perception, functional gameplay, and art. Considering the difficulty in researching qualitative experience due to its subjectivity and circular explanations, I created Project Contrast not to analyze qualia, though that was my original hope. I instead created Project Contrast as an avenue for player self-reflection and learning about qualitative experience. While video games might be just code and art on a …

Digitizing The American West: Analyzing Rhetoric In Red Dead Redemption 2, Amalia Mcevoy

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

High-budget, long-form storytelling games offer dozens of hours of content for audiences to explore and learn from. Although far different from sitting and reading a book, there is a distinct connection to be made between how literature is experienced and how audiences can experience a narrative-heavy video game. Based on this connection, there are bridges to be built between video games and literature, understanding how one field can benefit from the other as well as how one field can be informed by the other. An analysis of the video game Red Dead Redemption 2 using reader response theory can illustrate …

Tech Time

DePaul Magazine

DePaul is embracing tech more than ever, incorporating innovative devices and approaches into education in all corners of the university. Here are seven ways DePaul provides hands-on experiences with cutting-edge tools that position students and faculty in the forefront of their industries and disciplines.

Eco-Interoception: What Plants, Fungi And Protista Have Taught My Body, Sara Riley Dotterer

Art Theses and Dissertations

To me, ecology is the relational, full-body awareness that I am made up of and deeply connected to everything around me; and for better or worse, this is reciprocal. I form ecotones, an ecological transitional zone between two ecosystems, with the world around me. I use this ecotonal lens to blur binaries and dissolve boundaries between me and the world “outside my body.” During my Masters of Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University, I have continuously explored and represented the lives of various more-than-human species outside of my body, including plants, fungi and protista through an ecotonal lens. Although these …

Artistic Representation And Self Esteem, Brianna Davis

Honors College Theses

Dependent upon the constructs of the perception of self and the viewpoint of others, humans base the value of their self esteem on outer perspectives rather than internal ones. For this thesis in particular, the outer perspective to be examined is representation in the field of the arts. This thesis project explores the process of self esteem, artistic representation in the arts, how one affects the other, a history of the correlation between the two, and ways to inform and educate the masses with the tools necessary to advance representation in the arts thus raising the self esteem of its …

Playing To Win: The Effects Of Implementing Gamification Strategies In Product Marketing, Sabrina Stone

CMC Senior Theses

Let’s play a game. What effect do you think video games have on twenty-first-century marketing? In this age defined by its nature of digitality, capturing the attention of consumers is an arduous competition. Through market segmentation, research, and the observable variables of consumer behavior, product marketing has turned to video games as a solution to appeal to younger demographics. Gamification is an increasingly applied product marketing strategy employed to increase favorable metrics. Of those key performance indicators (KPIs), boosted measures such as click-through rates, impressions, and engagement rates suggest that gamification is a strategic opportunity to persuade consumers to take …

What An Interesting Video To Put On The Internet (An Amusing Economic Indicator), Dahlia S. Bloomstone

Theses and Dissertations

My exhibition reconciles representations of domesticity, labor, and morality through the lens of sex-work (SW). It consists of video work, a video game, and free-to-take objects, where donation, the strip club, and the fish tank converge. My work concludes that SW is a timeless construct that will always exist even after reimagining multiple worlds.