Game Design Commons^™

Escaping The Cyberstorm: A Gamified Social Engineering Training Program, Noah Mcclanahan, Fadi Abu-Amara, Ali Khattab, Travis Jett, Andre Jackson

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

In this research work, we explored the effectiveness of gamification in improving cybersecurity awareness and training users on targeted social engineering attacks. Traditional cybersecurity training focuses on lectures and videos. These training methods may not actively engage employees, which reduces their knowledge retention and ability to recognize social engineering attacks. This lack of involvement is a concern, as social engineering continues to be one of the most prevalent attack methods faced by end-users. A gamified training program, Escaping the Cyberstorm, was developed using the Godot game engine to address key challenges in spreading cybersecurity awareness. The game includes real-life …

Minecraft: A Retrospective, Kylie Salinger

Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research

This speech explores Minecraft as more than a popular sandbox video game, framing it as a creative, narrative-rich, and culturally influential platform that has shaped how players interact with virtual worlds. Beginning with the game’s simple mechanics and origins, the work examines Minecraft’s deeper lore, including its progression through multiple dimensions and the philosophical implications of the End Poem. It also highlights fan-driven theories suggesting a complex, hidden history within the game’s world-building. Finally, the piece analyzes the reasons behind Minecraft’s enduring success, emphasizing its multiplayer connectivity, resurgence during the COVID-19 pandemic, and immersive musical design. Ultimately, the essay argues …

So You've Landed In A Fantasy World By Josiah Lebowitz, Nancy Martsch

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

So You've Landed in a Fantasy World by Josiah Lebowitz; book review.

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

SAE What? - Student Magazine

No abstract provided.

From The Pages To The Gaming Table: Designing A Homebrew System To Adapt A Book Series Into A Ttrpg, Ricardo Victoria Uribe, Nazario Robles Bastida, Chris Birmingham

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

Adapting media properties, in particular fantasy, science fiction, and horror books, has been a staple of the development of tabletop role-playing games since their inception. Different properties, ranging from Lord of the Rings to Call of Cthulhu and everything in between has been undergoing this process. Developing an indie game based on indie and self-published books can be used as a promoting tool on overlapping audiences, which is the case for the selected book series for this design exercise. This paper has the aim of sharing these developing experiences during the early stages of creating a quick start guide supplement …

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 …

La Representación Del Sistema Nocional De La Estructura Bélica En Videojuegos De Multiplataforma: Una Discusión Semiótica, Alfonso Rincón Vaquero, Edgar Ávila González

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

En este estudio de reflexión discutimos la manera en que los videojuegos de guerra multiplataforma potencialmente refuerzan estructuras de poder dominantes en la actualidad. Para ello, recurrimos a la semiótica (Eco, 1977) y, particularmente a la teoría de la segmentación de la cultura y producción de sentidos de González (2012), por medio de la cual contemplamos a los videojuegos como subespacios de la cultura que proporcionan visibilidades específicas sobre el mundo. Asimismo, nos apoyamos brevemente en la concepción del poder establecida por Michel Foucault (1978), pues llama la atención su concepción sobre las relaciones de poder como una red productiva …

How Kirby’S Return To Dream Land Deluxe Subverts Narrative Expectations, Kelley I. Hale

Aurora

The Kirby series has been around for over 30 years, and very little has been done to research it. This is a shame, as I believed (and still do believe) the series has a lot to offer in terms of research. For this paper, I analyzed Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, a Switch remake of the Wii game Kirby's Return to Dream Land. I analyzed the cutscenes found within the game using fantasy theme criticism. I did this to explore how the game subverts narrative expectations, as well as show that Kirby games have value when it comes to …

Juegos De Rol En El Desarrollo De Projectpipe: Una Inmersión En El Uso De Metodologías De Diseño, Julieth A. Gómez Hernández, Cristian C. Orozco Ospina, Nicolas Restrepo Henao

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

En el entorno digital actual, la evolución del concepto de juegos de rol ha llevado al desarrollo de aplicaciones web interactivas y educativas. En sintonía con este planteamiento, se presenta la siguiente propuesta, que adopta una metodología integrada para aprovechar la versatilidad del método de Bruno Munari y el Diseño Centrado en el Usuario (DCU). La metodología de Munari descompone la gestión macro del proyecto en pasos manejables; mientras que el DCU se enfoca en la creación de una interfaz intuitiva y funcional mediante prototipos iterativos y pruebas continuas de usabilidad. Como complemento a estas estrategias se integra la metodología …

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, …

Digital Place-Futures Outside A Colonial Metaversal Imaginary: Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’S We Are Here Because Of Those That Are Not As Critical Digital Place-Craft, Luke A. Meeken

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In this piece, the author analyzes a recorded digital walk through Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s WE ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THOSE THAT ARE NOT, a digital archival place designed to contain, protect, and share the experiences of Black trans people. The author’s encounter with Brathwaite-Shirley’s work is contextualized and analyzed through critical and decolonial place lenses and digital materialist lenses. Particular attention is paid to the ways physical and digital places crafted in colonial contexts bodily habituate settler-colonial sensibilities. The author examines how the critical digital placemaking strategies practiced by Brathwaite-Shirley informed teacher and student place-craft within the context of a …

Do You Know Where Your Games Come From? Artificial Intelligence And Game Development, Andrew Begemann

International Journal of Emerging and Disruptive Innovation in Education : VISIONARIUM

ABSTRACT

This paper was written to explore the possible effects of artificial intelligence being implemented in the design pipeline of video game development. In it, we will explore a history of artificial intelligence, from its early imaginings in books and philosophy, to its current iterations, such as ChatGPT and other popular engines like Midjourney and Stable diffusion. We will also discuss steps in game development so as to understand where the potential implementations of artificial intelligence can, will, or does occur. Following those explanations, we will explore the three methodologies of Marxism, Psychoanalysis, and Cultural Studies as ways of examining …

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.

Digital Transformation And Design For Maintainability In Industrial Design, Ahmed Tarek Mohamed Fathy, Salwa El Ghareeb, Yasser Shaban

Journal of Art, Design and Music

In this paper, we explore the impact of the rapid digital transformation in Applied Arts and Design and its influence on the realm of Maintainability. We examine how CAD, 3D modeling, have revolutionized the conceptualization and prototyping stages, enabling precise idea communication and immersive representations. Specifically, we focus on Design for Maintainability (DfMn) and its critical aspects such as repairability, serviceability, maintainability, and reliability, which significantly affect cost and user satisfaction. By leveraging this tool, designers can create highly maintainable and user-friendly products. The transformative potential of this tool in industrial design is highlighted, providing promising avenues for future research …

Negative Estrangement: Fantasy And Race In The Drow And Drizzt Do’Urden, Steven Holmes

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This essay introduces the concept of negative estrangement to help understand current cultural interventions into the norms of depicting fantasy races. First, this essay builds on Shklovsky’s concept of estrangement to describe the literary practice of negative estrangement, wherein artists craft “more evil” foes based on hybridized amalgamations of stereotypes to create antipathy toward a subject, be it monster or fantasy race. This practice is sometimes used in service of confronting the issue of race and racism, despite seeming to reify or rearticulate racist stereotypes.

This essay builds on Tolkien’s argument in favor of creating “more evil” foes to exemplify …

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 …

Well Played

DePaul Magazine

At DePaul's high-tech Esports Gaming Center, students gather to compete in competitive video gaming. As players battle on screen, they depend on skills like teamwork, strategy and sportsmanship as well as inclusion.

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.

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.

Ideation And Iteration For Creatives, Sandee M. Chamberlain

KSU Distinguished Course Repository

This course addresses the development of visual literacy including concepting, initial approaches of creating an encompassing aesthetic, creating timelines for production, and exploring the refining aspects of creative production. Students will devise an advanced creative problem and provide a documented account of their creative journey to present as a process journal at the end of the course.

Ithell Colquhuon Taro As Colour Tarot Deck And Book By Ithell Colquhoun, Emily E. Auger

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

A brief note regarding Fulgur's release of Ithell Colquhoun's "Taro" deck (2022) with links to a full-length review of it and to other reviews of related publications about Colquhoun and Leonora Carrington's work with Tarot.

On Video Games And Freedom, Warren Sexson

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Hacia La Preservación De Los Relatos De Las Comunidades Digitales De Los Mmorpg Mediante Etnografías Digitales: Una Mirada Desde Los Estudios Visuales Al Caso Futur0 Server [2005-2012] De Ragnarok Online, Romano Ponce Díaz

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

Resumen: La ponderación planteada en los siguientes párrafos centra su interés en las plataformas digitales de narrativa audiovisual donde los participantes pueden alterar y determinar el relato por medio de la interacción social sucedida en el mismo, concretamente, los videojuegos multijugador masivos de rol en línea en servidores emulados. Además, se abordan las implicaciones de la desaparición potencial y real de la información, datos, testimonios y vestigios de estas comunidades digitales participativas a causa de la naturaleza falible de los dispositivos de almacenaje electrónico. De esa forma, se busca plantear un breve panorama general de los antecedentes históricos de las …

Depaul Digest

DePaul Magazine

Marquee - A Level Playing Field: Allen Turner democratizes Indigenous mythology in games that empower everybody; Memoranda - Vincentian Service Day, The Finish Line Fund and Alumni & Family Weekend 2022 registration; Milestones; Memories - DePaul Breakfast Feeding Program; Master Class - How to Make Kids Safer Swimmers

Game On

DePaul Magazine

Video game industry icon Eugene Jarvis and DePaul alumna and Trustee Sasha Gerritson take the College of Computing and Digital Media to the next level with a landmark gift. The gift renames the college in honor of Jarvis and launches the Jarvis Student Center for Innovation and Collaboration, a multidisciplinary, student-focused space.

Real-Time Illumination Capture And Rendering On Mobile Devices, Snehal Padhye, James A. Ferwerda

Frameless

We present our efforts to develop methods for rendering 3D objects on mobile devices using real-world dynamic illumination from the user’s environment. To achieve this, we use the front and back cameras on the mobile device to estimate the light distribution in the environment in real time. We then create a dynamic illumination map and render the object at interactive rates in a browser on the device using a web-based graphics API. This project achieves one of the goals of our related work on realistic visualization of virtual objects: to make virtual objects appear to be situated within the scene …

Choppy Forgeries: A Vr Sculpting Game, Jonah Warren

Frameless

Choppy Forgeries is a fast-paced sculpting game made for virtual reality headsets. The game is intended to give players the opportunity to practice and appreciate the skills associated with artmaking and sculpture (Seeley and Kozbelt, 2008, 163–166) in a fun, light- hearted, competitive context. The game also requires players to closely examine and engage with famous classical sculpture from art history through its gameplay.