Game Design Commons^™

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 …

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 …

Lost & Found (Game Series) [Book Chapter], Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Description of game series for use in the classroom with best practices.

Seasons Of Change, Ray Vergara

Game Design

Seasons of Change is a Unity-based video game with a spooky, cartoonish aesthetic, inspired by the fall season. Developed within the constraints of Lindenwood University's Game Development course, the project was built upon through structured weekly modules, focusing on game mechanics, level design, interactivity, programming, and audio integration. The game's developmental journey was enriched by extensive research, experimentation, and constructive feedback, resulting in a cohesive final product. Key challenges included adapting Unity's Starter Asset Package, troubleshooting ProBuilder limitations, and debugging interactive elements like audio and UI for various platforms. Despite time constraints and technical hurdles, the iterative development process facilitated …

(Re)Producing Orientalism: Industry Logic Of Chinese Mobile Game Re-Skins In The Global App Empire, Yizhou Xu

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

Through the case study of the mobile title Game of Sultans, this article examines the proliferation of iterative and copycat games through the practice of reskins in the mobile game industry. Based on year-long autoethnographic fieldwork working in a Chinese mobile game company, I provide an on-the-ground perspective of how Orientalist representations in reskinned games are instrumentalized through the roles of “cultural brokers” and the work of localization for Western markets. By taking a theoretical and technological understanding of reskins, I argue that reskinned games, as a form of industrial mimicry, while an important aspect of standardized game production, …

Crusading For Fun And Profit: An Examination Of Ludohistorical Mode In The Crusader Kings Community, Kirk M. Lundblade

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

How do participants in communities of play centered around digital games engage with history? The historiographic influences of ludic form have been closely scrutinized in recent years, but little attention has been paid to the digital cultures—to the communities of play— which center the discussion and play of these historical games. My study aimed to closely examine one such community centered around the grand strategy game Crusader Kings III, released by Paradox Interactive in 2020. I use discourse analysis together with grounded theory to examine the game Crusader Kings III alongside two primary sites found on reddit and Paradox …

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 …