Childhood obesity is a serious concern that requires the attention of the behavioral community. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2007) recommends that children engage in physical activity for 60 minutes per day. Children spend the majority of their day in school, making school an ideal environment to increase the opportunity for physical activity. Simple, straightforward interventions that can be applied in the school setting, which take into consideration the environment and focus on maintenance by making the process of engaging in physical activity reinforcing, are greatly needed. Video games have been noted in the literature as a contributor to childhood obesity; however, newer video gaming technology, called exergaming, has been designed to capitalize on the reinforcing effects of video games to increase physical activity in children. This study evaluated the effects of exergaming on physical activity among four inactive children in a physical education classroom. Results showed that the exergaming condition produced substantially more minutes of physical activity than the PE condition. In addition, the exergaming condition was socially acceptable to both the students and the PE teacher. Exergaming appears to hold promise as a method for increasing physical activity among inactive children and might be a possible intervention for childhood obesity.

Game engine programming involves a great number of software components, many of which perform similar tasks; for example, memory allocation must take place in the renderer as well as in the creation routines while other tasks such as error logging must take place everywhere. One area of all games which is critical to the success of the game is that of game balance and tuning. These balancing initiatives cut across all areas of code from the player and AI to the mission manager. In computer science, we’ve come to call these types of concerns “cross cutting”. Aspect oriented programming was developed, in part, to solve the problems of cross cutting: employing “advice” which can be incorporated across different pieces of functionality. Yet, despite the prevalence of a solution, very little work has been done to bring cross cutting to game engine programming. Additionally, the discipline involves a heavy amount of code rewriting and reuse while simultaneously relying on many common design patterns that are copied from one project to another. In the case of game balance, the code may be wildly different across two different games despite the fact that similar tasks are being done. These two problems are exacerbated by the fact that almost every game engine has its own custom DSL (domain specific language) unique to that situation. If a DSL could showcase the areas of cross cutting concerns while highlighting the ability to capture design patterns that can be used across games, significant productivity savings could be achieved while simultaneously creating a common thread for discussion of shared problems within the domain. This dissertation sought to do exactly that- create a metalanguage called GAMESPECT which supports multiple styles of DSLs while bringing aspect-oriented programming into the DSL’s to make them DSAL (domain specific aspect languages). The example cross cutting concern was game balance and tuning since it’s so pervasive and important to gaming. We have created GAMESPECT as a language and a composition framework which can assist engine developers and game designers in balancing their games, forming one central place for game balancing concerns even while these concerns may cross different languages and locations inside the source code. Generality was measured by showcasing the composition specifications in multiple contexts and languages. In addition to evaluating generality and performance metrics, effectiveness was be measured. Specifically, comparisons were made between a balancing initiative when performed with GAMESPECT vs a traditional methodology. In doing so, this work shows a clear advantage to using a Metalanguage such as GAMESPECT for this task. In general, a line of code reduction of 9-40% per task was achieved with negligible effects to performance. The use of a metalanguage in Unreal Engine 4 is a starting point to further discussions concerning other game engines. In addition, this work has implications beyond video game programming. The work described highlights benefits which might be achieved in other disciplines where design pattern implementations and cross-cutting concern usage is high; the real time simulation field and the field of Windows GUI programming are two examples of future domains.

While online activity is increasing among young Swedish students, motivation to learn English in school is decreasing (Skolverket, 2011). While many studies confirm the positive effect that leisure gaming can have on language acquisition (Atma, Azmi & Hassan, 2020; Ferdig & Pytash, 2014; Li, 2020; Rudis & Poštić, 2017), how students’ motivation is affected is far less researched. In this paper, we aimed to investigate the effects on language learning motivation that extracurricular video games might have and what external factors surrounding gaming that modulate students’ motivation to learn English in school. We examined nine studies related to these topics and used multiple theories about motivation to analyze our findings. The results of our research review indicate that playing video games at home can be generally seen to increase students’ motivation to learn English in school. Studies also demonstrate that factors such as age, culture and student-beliefs could modulate the motivation affected by extra-curricular video gaming. Finally, research suggests that the greater the distance is between a student's current language proficiency and the desired proficiency, the greater the motivation appeared to be.

Competitive video gaming has become one of the fastest-growing sporting disciplines. Aspiring esporters face many challenges that can threaten their prospective career timespan, and lead to post-career difficulties. The objectives was to explore the career narratives of Swedish esports athletes. Three professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players were interviewed. Two of the participants were no longer active competitors yet still worked fulltime within the esports community. Narrative analysis was applied with the holistic-form structural analysis used. The analysis resulted in three types of narratives that are represented within the sink or swim typology: risk and gain, descent and gain, and slowly ascending. The findings revealed that all participants had, at times, disregarded important aspects of life, such as school, social relationships, and physical activity, to further their esporting careers. The esporters also indicated that they were, to an extent, cognizant of these inactions and sacrifices. The participants periodically used gaming to break away from stressors that took place in real-life, and they had all navigated through their careers unsupervised. Although the career pathways were unique to the individuals, it was possible to relate them to traditional sports career frameworks. Even though the three esporters endured many hardships throughout their careers, they were all happy as to how their lives developed and found their esporting careers to be meaningful life experiences.

Archaeological communication often seeks avenues to take in order to convey information to a public. One of these is video games, yet many articles do not delve into the effect that games have on people, taking for granted that people will learn something. This text aims to understand a group’s view on the past after it has gone through a transformative state such as a video game adaptation. With the web page Twitter offering a digital place of discussion, posts and comments will be analyzed in relation to the aim. The literary theory death of the author, interpretation and authority will help understand how the important aspect of accuracy is utilized amongst Twitter users. The findings conclude that accuracy is an important aspect of recreation amongst twitter users. It is to be employed in authentic portrayal of the past, meaning that the users seek to see a true representation, in contrast to a story taking liberties. Twitter users seek a definitive past, or a correct past, that should seek to emulate archaeological information in detail.

Diegesis and Spatiality are fundamental to visualization techniques in games. The impact of integrating user interfaces into the game world is a contentious issue between minimizing the heads-up display or maximizing functionality above realism. Previous studies have shown conflicting results determining what approach is better, but these studies have focused on conventional genres like the First Person Shooter. Strategy games, or more specifically, the grand strategy genre, is different in perspective and role of the player, as the genre places a heavier emphasis on panel elements than other genres. In this paper, we created two similar prototypes that differed in their focus on integration or superimposition. We then evaluated their impact on performance and the user experiences. The results showed that strictly spatial integration attributed to negative results, but diegetic integration was better received. Additionally, we identified several areas where implementing diegetic interfacing in grand strategy games is different from other genres of games. Finally, we gave recommendations to enhance the strengths and overcome the limitations of diegetic interfacing in grand strategy games. / Datorspel är levande världar som strävar efter att spelare ska ha kul. Olika spel har olika fokus på spelupplevelse, men också olika mängd gränssnitt som finns fastsatt på skärmen kontra inuti spelvärlden. Valet mellan fastsättning och integrering beror på genre och preferens, men mycket av nutida forskning fokuserar på mer vedertagna genrer såsom förstapersonskjutare. Strategispel, och mer specifikt, “grand strategy” spel följer inte samma konventioner, då perspektivet och rollen på spelaren är annorlunda. I detta examensarbete evaluerade vi hur en förändring i fokus mellan fastsättning och integrering av spelelement förändrade spelarprestandan och användarupplevelsen. Resultatet visar att strikt placering av panelelement i världen gav dålig användarupplevelse, men att diegetisk integration gynnade upplevelsen. Till sist analyserade vi hur utveckling av integrerade användargränssnitt inom genren var annorlunda gentemot andra genrer, och gav sedan rekommendationer på styrkor och svagheter som genrenhar.

Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) is included in the DSM-5 as a condition warranting more clinical research. Problematic gaming may increase when substance use is present (e.g. cigarette smoking, alcohol use; Raiff et al., 2012; Wartberg & Kammerl, 2020). However, little is known about the relation between cannabis use (CU) and IGD. Thus, the current study hypothesized that individuals engaging in increased CU will exhibit higher rates of IGD. Participants (N=114) were recruited from a rural southeastern university (M age=20.27, SD=4.15). Frequency of CU was measured as past month days with use, IGD was measured by the Video Game Dependency Scale (VGDS; Rehbein et al., 2010). Eleven percent of the sample met criteria for probable IGD. The average frequency of past month CU was 7.26 days (SD=10.88). An independent samples t-test compared frequency of past-month CU among individuals with or without probable IGD. Individuals with probable IGD had decreased CU (M =2.25, SD=5.72). Those without probable IGD had increased CU (M=7.70, SD=2.25), t(107)=2.72, p=.012, d= 0.246. Our results are contrary to previous study findings on the co-occurrence of IGD and substance use. Frequent video gaming may act as a protective factor against increased frequency of CU. Future research should expand on this understudied area and further investigate whether IGD is in fact a protective factor or if the relation found here is accounted for by another unmeasurable variable.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.