In today’s modern society with high-speed connections covering the globe people are more than ever finding themselves gazing into the cold lights of the computer screen. On the other side a strange and exciting world yet to be explored awaits. Many are those who spend hour after hour running over green hills swimming in vast blue oceans in the lands of Azeroth, the playfield in the MMORPG game World of Warcraft. In media we often read and hear alarming reports on players stuck in this virtual world, ceasing to play a part in the real world. This thesis will make an attempt as to hear what those who play the game has to say in the matter. Through interviews we’ll try to separate or combine media’s view of the game from that of those who play it.

A review of the history of video game design reveals an emphasis on themes of competition, survival, and combat. Game designers are now increasingly exploring other themes, including ethics, morality, and religious or spiritual subjects. This thesis analyzes the design of a 2D single-player computer game based on Christian principles, investigating morality, ethics, and meaning in video games. The game builds on previous games, examining the ethical relevance of certain video games as cultural artifacts and as personal inspiration, expounding on how games can be both inspirational and educational. Though violent games can provide moral challenges and "ethically significant experiences," in this project, non-violent solutions are more conducive for a game based on Christian tenets. This thesis project reinterprets the idea of the "shmup" or scrolling shooter game by changing the game mechanics and win condition to express a non-violent process. The player takes on the role of an angel who has been sent to rescue birds from demons, presenting general subjects for wide audience appeal regardless of religious beliefs. The thesis outlines the process used in the design, the philosophical approach, and the technical and artistic methods used to create the game. The game is evaluated subjectively with respect to the goals set forth in the design, based on informal player feedback. This thesis contributes to the exploration of games in a spiritual, artistic, moral, and emotional context and the process outlined herein provides a practical example to other independent game developers in the design of a game based on spiritual themes.

In this work, I propose an analytical rubric called the Interpretive Spiral designed to examine the process through which players create meaning in videogames, by examining their composition in three categories, across four levels of interaction. The most familiar of the categories I propose is the Mechanical, which refers to the rules, logic, software and hardware that composes the core of videogames. My second category, which I call the Thematic, is a combination of Arsenault and Perron's Narrative Spiral of gameplay, proposed in their Magic Cycle of Gameplay model (accounting for embedded text, videos, dialog and voiceovers) and Jason Begy's audio-visual level of his Tripartite Model of gameplay (accounting for graphics, sound effects, music and icons), though it also accounts for oft-neglected features such as interface and menu design. The third category, the Affective, refers to the emotional response and metaphorical parallels inspired by the combination of the other two levels. The first level of interaction I explore actually precedes gameplay, as it is common for players to begin interpreting games before playing them, and is called the Pre-Play Level of interpretation. Next I examine the Fundamental Level of interpretation, which entails the learning phase of gameplay. The Secondary Level of gameplay is the longest level of play and describes the shift from learning the game to informed, self-conscious play. The Third and final, elective level of interpretation, is where the player forms connections between his gameplay experience, and other concepts and experiences that exist outside of the game artifact. To put my model through its paces, I apply the model in its entirety to three influential and critically acclaimed videogames, and in part to several other titles.

<p>Game balance can be considerd complex - there are many factors that play a role in the perception of balance. This thesis examines complexity, game theory and intution in an effort to disconver more about the perception of balance. The findings are that tactical and strategical choices that are presented for a player need to be interesting, not to complex and not to obvious. The importance lies in the estimation of the result that the player does when making a choice.</p> / <p>Spelbalansering är komplext – det finns många faktorer som påverkar det som uppfattas som balans. I mitt verk undersöks speciellt komplexitet, spelteori och intuition i jakten på att gräva fram mer ut ämnet. Denna reflexiva rapport tar upp metod och arbetsprocessen runt verket och mitt arbete på ability-systemet på Lockpick Entertainment. Om de taktiska och strategiska val som presenteras för en spelare anses som intressanta beror både på spelaren och svårigheten i valet. Är valet komplext är det svårare att avgöra korrekt, och taktiska och strategiska avvägningar måste göras. Detta är grunden i spelbalansering, att spelaren har flera vettiga, men inte uppenbara, val att välja bland.</p>

<p>In today’s modern society with high-speed connections covering the globe people are more than ever finding themselves gazing into the cold lights of the computer screen. On the other side a strange and exciting world yet to be explored awaits. Many are those who spend hour after hour running over green hills swimming in vast blue oceans in the lands of Azeroth, the playfield in the MMORPG game World of Warcraft. In media we often read and hear alarming reports on players stuck in this virtual world, ceasing to play a part in the real world. This thesis will make an attempt as to hear what those who play the game has to say in the matter. Through interviews we’ll try to separate or combine media’s view of the game from that of those who play it.</p>

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004. Directed by Mostafa H. Ammar. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-118).

This study examined the use of digital game design and development process in secondary mathematic classroom to develop students’ mathematical problem-solving skills. The findings indicated students were able to acquire new mathematical concept and applied the newly acquired knowledge to solve different problems throughout the game design and development process. The game development process was highly motivating and it promoted students learning attitudes and interests in general. However, the complex skills required in the game development process did discourage one of the students. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

Creating programs that can play games such as chess, checkers, and backgammon, at a high level has long been a challenge and benchmark for AI. Computer game playing is arguably one of AI's biggest success stories. Several game playing systems developed in the past, such as Deep Blue, Chinook and TD-Gammon have demonstrated competitive play against the top human players. However, such systems are limited in that they play only one particular game and they typically must be supplied with game-specific knowledge. While their performance is impressive, it is difficult to determine if their success is due to generally applicable techniques or due to the human game analysis. A general game player is an agent capable of taking as input a description of a game's rules and proceeding to play without any subsequent human input. In doing so, the agent, rather than the human designer, is responsible for the domain analysis. Developing such a system requires the integration of several AI components, including theorem proving, feature discovery, heuristic search, and machine learning. In the general game playing scenario, the player agent is supplied with a game's rules in a formal language, prior to match play. This thesis contributes a collection of general methods for analyzing these game descriptions to improve performance. Prior work on automated domain analysis has focused on generating heuristic evaluation functions for use in search. The thesis builds upon this work by introducing a novel feature generation method. Also, I introduce a method for generating and comparing simple evaluation functions based on these features. I describe how more sophisticated evaluation functions can be generated through learning. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the utility of domain analysis in facilitating knowledge transfer between games for improved learning speed. The contributions are fully implemented with empirical results in the general game playing system. / text

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