Game Design Commons^™

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 …

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.

Video Game Review — Final Fantasy Xiv: Level Up Forever, Brian Cowlishaw

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Review of the video game Final Fantasy XIV: Level Up Forever.

Peril And Promise: Student Experiences Of Virtual Reality And Implications For Inclusive Social Justice Pedagogy, Michelle Vannatta

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Virtual reality (VR) is a fast-evolving technology rapidly being integrated into education and training in multiple sectors of society. As the use of VR spreads, it is important to critically analyze both its role in effective pedagogies and how students experience it. Virtual reality has extraordinary promise for deeply engaging students, and it also poses particular challenges for equitable and effective teaching of diverse students. This paper discusses students’ responses to a VR exercise and examines some of the complexities VR presents around racial justice, gender equity, and economic fairness. Virtual reality technology may be less effective and less comfortable …

It’S Dangerous To Learn Alone – Play This: Video Games In Higher Education, Particularly In The Composition Classroom, Joy Sterrantino

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

When people think of educational games, they often just think of ones geared towards kids: these might include spelling and vocabulary games like Scribblenauts, creative games such as Minecraft, as well as historical games such as Carmen [Sandiego]’s Ancient Caper, but according to the Entertainment Software Association in 2019, 65% of adults play video games (almost half of which are female), the average gamer is 33 years old, and 63% of all gamers are playing with others at least one hour a week (“Essential Facts” 4, 5, 8). This means that the majority of …

Renegade Or Paragon?: Categorizing Narrative Choice In Video Game Storylines, Graham Oliver

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Choices made during video game gameplay set the stories told in that media apart from other media. Narrative-affecting choices have existed since the earliest games, from character creation in role-playing games to performance-based narrative changes in Metroid to morality-based choices in Ogre Battle. In the contemporary gaming landscape, some games derive a significant portion of their gameplay from character decisions: exploration, dialogue options, quick-time event reactions, etc. In this article, I give a history and breakdown of how choices have existed and evolved in gaming narratives since their inception. I then propose three categories for significant narrative choices: aesthetic, …

The Art Of Motion, Audrey Caleb, Selina Shang

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Animation is an integral part of our daily lives. From entertainment, to advertisements, to medical visualizations and everything in between, it permeates our world. But what makes animation so compelling? Why do we connect with it so well? And what makes it visually appealing?

Humans are story driven creatures, and so we gravitate towards time-based media—it’s the perfect vehicle for telling stories. Our goal was to explore the variety of styles and tools used in animation, research the 12 principles, understand the process of creating a work from start to finish, and successfully demonstrate the science and art of animation.

The Impact Of Draconic Signs Upon The Game Design Process, Peter Carey

Postgraduate

This creative practice research project explores the use of draconic signs and symbols, and their impact upon the game design process through a game developed in VR and an accompanying exegesis. The research draws on semiotic theory, exploring how meaning is created and conveyed through the use of symbols in games. It examines how the addition of draconic symbols to locomotion, character abilities and dialogue choices may facilitate player agency. Further, it examines the impact integrating these symbols into the player's avatarisation may have on the construction of player identity.

Via a creative practical component, the research demonstrates the practical …

Game Design Learning: Understanding And Supporting The Game Design Process In Higher Education, John Healy

Theses

This thesis presents a study of the game design process in higher education. The PhD research makes several contributions to the field by developing a model of game design learning through the analysis of qualitative data and creating a number of learning supports informed by this model. The research also proposes the signature pedagogy of game design learning as the studio project and explores the relationship between game design and other design disciplines. These contributions advance the understanding and practice of game design education, benefiting researchers, educators, and designers. As the popularity of digital games has grown in the 21st …

Ai Interactivity In Game Design, Morgan Casey

Postgraduate

This exegesis focuses on the design of AI in games. This text aims to explain key concepts important to game design, including the use of affective and emotive components to further immerse players in the game world. The goal is to provide insight into the level of complexity required in an AI units’ design to provide enjoyable interactions attainable by an independent developer.

This research will take the combined efforts of playtesters and myself as sole designer and programmer to create a series of play tests with which to examine the enjoyment of various levels of AI complexity and their …

Developing Indie Games With Agile, Camden Obertop

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Agile software development has ushered in major improvements to the development of software in the 21st century. Video game development is a form of development that is unique from other types of software engineering, as it can involve work from artists, musicians, voice actors, and others. This paper explores the question whether agile software development as Scrum is an effective tool for creating video games. Ultimately, it can be seen that agile is a very important asset to game developers.

Understanding Spaces Of Abandonment Through Virtual Frameworks In Landscape Architecture, Aus Perez

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In recent years, design professionals have implemented many contemporary landscape architecture projects across the United States. With a primary goal of returning nature to urban environments, contemporary landscape architects and other transdisciplinary partners work diligently to sculpt physical spaces that reflect the human-living experience. However, a leap into the world of video game design could allow landscape architects and urban planners to more freely create virtual social environments to address rising issues of abandonment in today’s urban and rural spaces. Video game mechanics and methodologies can be used extensively in the disciplines of design that value participatory processes, like landscape …

The Stranger Next Door: Enhancing Horror Narrative Through Real Time Progress And Meta-Data, Fae Daunt

Postgraduate

The age of mobile connectivity affords uninterrupted access to mobile phones. While game developers have leveraged this phenomenon to create new game mechanics (such as stamina often which monetizes the acceleration of gameplay) narrative mobile game designers are yet to realise the creative potential of uninterrupted access. In response to this, this exegesis details the creation of The Stranger Next Door—a horror narrative set in the player’s realtime which simulates conversations and interactions via a replica social media platform.

This research document begins with a review of relevant literature, situating the game within the conventions of the horror genre and …

A Quest From Then To Now: How Early Tabletop Role-Playing Games Have Influenced Contemporary Game Design, Marc Wainwright

Postgraduate

In this thesis, I argue that contemporary game design is influenced by early tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) in that they still employ design precedents created in the 1970s by early TRPG game designers. This thesis approaches the topic not just from a historical perspective, but also an analytical one. To this end, I make use of games research frameworks, like Espen Aarseth’s (2003) ludic-hermeneutic circle and the MDA framework (Hunicke, Leblanc, and Zubek, 2004). The MDA framework breaks down games into mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics of play, and the relationship between these three elements creates a game's unique sense of …

Cognitivevr: Memory Training For Dementia Patients, Daniel Phill

Postgraduate

Around 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide (World Health Organisation, 2019). One of the worst symptoms of dementia is memory loss as it affects not only the sufferer but their family as well. Recent studies have demonstrated that the immersion of virtual reality has the potential to improve memory in the general public (Krokos, Plaisant, Varshney, 2018) and that dementia patients are able to use virtual reality (Flynn, Schaik, Blackman, Femcott, Hobbs & Calderon, 2004). In this paper, I examine the literature linking virtual reality and dementia care and explain how I used this in my creative practice to …

Students Find More Than Gaming In Depaul Esports, University Marketing And Communications, Courtney James

DePaul Download

The Esports market, or competitive video gaming, is anticipated to surpass $1.5 billion by 2023. At DePaul, Esports is even a BIG EAST-sanctioned program. DePaul’s director of Student Involvement, Courtney James, talks about DePaul’s unique Esports community, which draws hundreds of student gamers. Through their participation, the students find connection, an inclusive environment and even inspiration for career paths. James also discusses some of DePaul’s upcoming Esports events and the pandemic’s impact on the industry.

Designing Analog Learning Games: Genre Affordances, Limitations And Multi-Game Approaches, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

This chapter explores what the authors discovered about analog games and game design during the many iterative processes that have led to the Lost & Found series, and how they found certain constraints and affordances (that which an artifact assists, promotes or allows) provided by the boardgame genre. Some findings were counter-intuitive. What choices would allow for the modeling of complex systems, such as legal and economic systems? What choices would allow for gameplay within the time of a class-period? What mechanics could promote discussions of tradeoff decisions? If players are expending too much cognition on arithmetic strategizing, could that …

Understanding The Student Perspective Of Art History Survey Course Outcomes Through Game Development, Joshua Yavelberg, Kelly Donahue-Wallace

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

This heuristic, design-based research study examines student perceptions of their learning experience in the art history survey course as manifested through a game design process. With the purpose of improving upon the lecture model of the standard art history survey, two sections of a capstone class of interdisciplinary art and design students—who had all taken the survey as part of their degree programs—selected learning objectives and designed games to accompany the introductory class. The researchers used the game design process to understand first how students perceived the survey class, its learning objectives, and the students’ experiences. Then the investigation addressed …

Acts Of Meaning, Resource Diagrams, And Essential Learning Behaviors: The Design Evolution Of Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

Lost & Found is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed for teaching medieval religious legal systems. The long-term goals of the project are to change the discourse around religious laws, such as foregrounding the prosocial aspects of religious law such as collaboration, cooperation, and communal sustainability. This design case focuses on the evolution of the design of the mechanics and core systems in the first two tabletop games in the series, informed by over three and a half years’ worth of design notes, playable prototypes, outside design consultations, internal design reviews, playtests, and interviews.

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. …

Finding Lost & Found: Designer’S Notes From The Process Of Creating A Jewish Game For Learning, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article provides context for and examines aspects of the design process of a game for learning. Lost & Found (2017a, 2017b) is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed to teach medieval religious legal systems, beginning with Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (1180), a cornerstone work of Jewish legal rabbinic literature. Through design narratives, the article demonstrates the complex design decisions faced by the team as they balance the needs of player engagement with learning goals. In the process the designers confront challenges in developing winstates and in working with complex resource management. The article provides insight into the pathways the team …

Lost & Found: Order In The Court -- The Party Game, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The second game in the series, Lost & Found: Order in the Court …

Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber, Kelly Murdoch-Kitt

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The first game in the series is a strategy game called Lost & …

Medulla: A 2d Sidescrolling Platformer Game That Teaches Basic Brain Structure And Function, Joey R. Fanfarelli, Stephanie Vie

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article explores the design and instructional effectiveness of Medulla, an educational game meant to teach brain structure and function to undergraduate psychology students. Developed in the retro-style platformer genre, Medulla uses two-dimensional gameplay with pixel-based graphics to engage students in learning content related to the brain, information which is often pre-requisite to more rigorous psychological study. A pretest posttest design was used in an experiment assessing Medulla’s ability to teach psychology content. Results indicated content knowledge was significantly higher on the posttest than the pretest, with a large effect size. Medulla appears to be an effective learning tool. These …

Individual Differences In Digital Badging: Do Learner Characteristics Matter?, Joey R. Fanfarelli, Thomas Rudy Mcdaniel

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Badge use has rapidly expanded in recent years and has benefited a variety of applications. However, a large portion of the research has applied a binary useful or not useful approach to badging. Few studies examine the characteristics of the user and the impact of those characteristics on the effectiveness of the badging system. This study takes preliminary steps toward that cause, examining the effectiveness of a badging system across two web-based university courses in relation to the individual differences of the learners. Individual differences are examined through the lens of Long-Dziuban reactive behavior types and traits. Results revealed differences …