Learning to read body language is something we do throughout our whole life. It is a complex non-verbal language that can express more than words. In this study we investigate the possibility to use only body language to portray emotions to the viewer. In a background of a game project we have used a character that has his face covered, therefore, facial expression is not visible during the online survey, which we used as a method for our investigation. As a foundation we have created four character animations to portray anger, frustration, exhaustion and hurt. To find the answer if it is possible to recognize those five emotions in the character animations survey, participants were obligated to name the emotion expressed on each of the video clips. The results of this study show that the characters body language could be sufficient to portray those five emotions. However, it was concluded that body language could be enough to represent the character's emotional state to the viewer; but by including facial expressions we could help to portray the emotion even further.

Competitive computer gaming, under the name e-sport, have become a popular activity inSweden and worldwide. Within the e-sport community the question about the relationbetween the e-sport and sport has been discussed. Despite of this, very few sport scientistshave studied e-sport. The aim of this licentiate thesis is to create an understanding of thephenomenon e-sport. As a theoretical framework the concept of sportification was used. Inthree articles aspects of sportification in e-sport was studied. E-sport as a concept evolvedin the late 1990 and is used by many people and organizations. The reasons why theconcept of e-sport is used are probably manifold. In the thesis three reasons are presented,namely higher legitimacy, social recognition and autonomy. Furthermore, the results showsimilarities between e-sport and contemporary sport. E-sport has, in contrast tocontemporary sports, developed from commerce around computer games to sport, and notonly from spontaneous play. In conclusion, e-sport is e-sport. By that I mean that e-sport issomething that goes beyond contemporary sport. Probably, it is due to the fact that e-sportevolved in a time when industrial society was transformed into an information- andcommunication society.

The number of underprepared students entering post-secondary education continues to be a national problem community colleges struggle with by providing remedial instruction while having to satisfy the demands for effective teaching accountability. Reading is one identified area needing remediation; and, a goal for programs to address this shortcoming is to increase vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. The problem was that students placed into developmental courses are often discouraged learners with low motivation and eschew the practice requisite for vocabulary learning. Many educators are interested in re-creating the compelling environment found in games to parlay the power of digital games to required curriculum learning in order to engage their students. However, despite the preponderance of recent literature advocating digital games for classroom learning, especially the use of complex endogenous games, there is limited empirical evidence for using digital games to achieve defined learning outcomes. Further, no recent studies have examined digital games use with developmental populations. The study designed, developed, implemented, and evaluated the blending of computer-based games with traditional classroom instruction to provide the repetition and active processing required for students to acquire new vocabulary. The goal was to develop a blended learning design to integrate instructional design and blending design practices to support and improve learning for vocabulary acquisition of developmental readers. A mixed-method (quantitative and qualitative) approach was employed and instructional events for vocabulary lessons were designed and developed using the framework of established models. Pretests and posttest measured achievement in vocabulary gains using three methods of practice: paper-based worksheet, text-based digital game, and video-style digital game. Survey instruments were used to determine students' enjoyment of and motivation using different treatments. Results confirmed that students found digital games a motivating instructional method; however, no advantage in improving achievement was found using text-based or video-style games over the traditional paper-based worksheets method. A description of the analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of digital games blended with traditional classroom instruction is provided to assist those interested in pursuing digital game-based learning with post-secondary developmental populations. Recommendations are also provided for future research and educational game development.

Student Number : 9903601A - MAFA research report - School of Arts - Faculty of Humanities / This essay will explore the existing definitions of art games that are currently being used in the art game/art mod genre. It will identify the leading theorists within the field, and take into account their definitions whilst at the same time establishing a set of categories within which can be defined the dominant trends in the development of the field. It will also situate art games within an historical context, both within the commercial computer game field as well as the digital art field and attempt to establish some sort of timeline within which we can see the development and emergence of art games in relation to these two disciplines. Two examples of art games, both from different categories will be examined and critiqued in the context of Artistic Computer Game Modification – A 3D game called Escape From Woomera and an art mod or patch called SOD. The art game as an entity will be examined in relation to ideas of the ‘interactive’ and ‘play’, and the implications and potential for fine art practice will be investigated.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master Arts in Digital Animation, March 2017 / XL2018

We propose that for all situated agents, the process of task learning has many elements in common. A better understanding of these elements would be beneficial to both engineers attempting to design new agents for task learning and completion, and also to scientists seeking to better understand natural task learning. Therefore, this dissertation sets out our characterisation of agent-independent task learning, and explores its grounding in nature and utility in practise. We achieve this chiefly through the construction and demonstration of two novel task learning systems. Cross-Channel Observation and Imitation Learning (COIL; Wood and Bryson, 2007a,b) is our adaptation of Deb Roy’s Cross-Channel Early Lexical Learning System (CELL; Roy, 1999; Roy and Pentland, 2002) for agent-independent task learning by imitation. The General Task Learning Framework (GTLF) is built upon many of the principles learned through the development of COIL, and can additionally facilitate multi-modal, lifelong learning of complex skills and skill hierarchies. Both systems are validated through experiments conducted in the virtual reality-style game domain of Unreal Tournament (Digital Extremes, 1999). By applying agent-independent learning processes to virtual agents of this kind, we hope that researchers will be more inclined to consider them on a par with robots as tools for learning research.

This thesis presents the playthrough evaluation framework, a novel framework for the reliable usability evaluation of first-person shooter console video games. The framework includes playthrough evaluation, a structured usability evaluation method adapted from heuristic evaluation. Usability evaluation can help guide developers by pointing out design issues that cause users problems. However, usability evaluation methods suffer from the evaluator effect, where separate evaluations of the same data do not produce reliably consistent results. This can result in a number of undesirable consequences affecting issues such as: • Unreliable evaluation: Without reliable results, evaluation reports risk giving incorrect or misleading advice. • Weak methodological validation: Typically new methods (e.g., new heuristics) are validated against user tests. However, without a reliable means to describe observations, attempts to validate novel methods against user test data will also be affected by weak reliability. The playthrough evaluation framework addresses these points through a series of studies presenting the need for, and showing the development of the framework, including the following stages, 1. Explication of poor reliability in heuristic evaluation. 2. Development and validation of a reliable user test coding scheme. 3. Derivation of a novel usability evaluation method, playthrough evaluation. 4. Testing the method, quantifying results. Evaluations were conducted with 22 participants, on 3 first-person shooter action console video games, using two methodologies, heuristic evaluation and the novel playthrough evaluation developed in this thesis. Both methods proved effective, with playthrough evaluation providing more detailed analysis but requiring more time to conduct.

by Horace Wai-Kit, Chan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-112). / Acknowledgement --- p.i / Abstract --- p.ii / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Overview --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Objective --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Organization of This Thesis --- p.3 / Chapter 2 --- Background --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Definitions --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Theoretical Definition of Solving a Game --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Definition of Computer Go --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- State of the Art of Computer Go --- p.7 / Chapter 2.3 --- A Framework for Computer Go --- p.11 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Evaluation Function --- p.11 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Plausible Move Generator --- p.14 / Chapter 2.4 --- Problems Tackled in this Research --- p.14 / Chapter 3 --- Application of TD in Game Playing --- p.15 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.15 / Chapter 3.2 --- Reinforcement Learning and TD Learning --- p.15 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Models of Learning --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Temporal Difference Learning --- p.16 / Chapter 3.3 --- TD Learning and Game-playing --- p.20 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Game-Playing as a Delay-reward Prediction Problem --- p.20 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Previous Work of TD Learning in Backgammon --- p.20 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Previous Works of TD Learning in Go --- p.22 / Chapter 3.4 --- Design of this Research --- p.23 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Limitations in the Previous Researches --- p.24 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Motivation --- p.25 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Objective and Methodology --- p.26 / Chapter 4 --- Deriving a New Updating Rule to Apply TD Learning in Multi-layer Perceptron --- p.28 / Chapter 4.1 --- Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP) --- p.28 / Chapter 4.2 --- Derivation of TD(A) Learning Rule for MLP --- p.31 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Notations --- p.31 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- A New Generalized Delta Rule --- p.31 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Updating rule for TD(A) Learning --- p.34 / Chapter 4.3 --- Algorithm of Training MLP using TD(A) --- p.35 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Definitions of Variables in the Algorithm --- p.35 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Training Algorithm --- p.36 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Description of the Algorithm --- p.39 / Chapter 5 --- Experiments --- p.41 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.41 / Chapter 5.2 --- Experiment 1 : Training Evaluation Function for 7 x 7 Go Games by TD(λ) with Self-playing --- p.42 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Introduction --- p.42 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- 7 x 7 Go --- p.42 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Experimental Designs --- p.43 / Chapter 5.2.4 --- Performance Testing for Trained Networks --- p.44 / Chapter 5.2.5 --- Results --- p.44 / Chapter 5.2.6 --- Discussions --- p.45 / Chapter 5.2.7 --- Limitations --- p.47 / Chapter 5.3 --- Experiment 2 : Training Evaluation Function for 9 x 9 Go Games by TD(λ) Learning from Human Games --- p.47 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Introduction --- p.47 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- 9x 9 Go game --- p.48 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Training Data Preparation --- p.49 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- Experimental Designs --- p.50 / Chapter 5.3.5 --- Results --- p.52 / Chapter 5.3.6 --- Discussion --- p.54 / Chapter 5.3.7 --- Limitations --- p.56 / Chapter 5.4 --- Experiment 3 : Life Status Determination in the Go Endgame --- p.57 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Introduction --- p.57 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Training Data Preparation --- p.58 / Chapter 5.4.3 --- Experimental Designs --- p.60 / Chapter 5.4.4 --- Results --- p.64 / Chapter 5.4.5 --- Discussion --- p.65 / Chapter 5.4.6 --- Limitations --- p.66 / Chapter 5.5 --- A Postulated Model --- p.66 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusions --- p.69 / Chapter 6.1 --- Future Direction of Research --- p.71 / Chapter A --- An Introduction to Go --- p.72 / Chapter A.l --- A Brief Introduction --- p.72 / Chapter A.1.1 --- What is Go? --- p.72 / Chapter A.1.2 --- History of Go --- p.72 / Chapter A.1.3 --- Equipment used in a Go game --- p.73 / Chapter A.2 --- Basic Rules in Go --- p.74 / Chapter A.2.1 --- A Go game --- p.74 / Chapter A.2.2 --- Liberty and Capture --- p.75 / Chapter A.2.3 --- Ko --- p.77 / Chapter A.2.4 --- "Eyes, Live and Death" --- p.81 / Chapter A.2.5 --- Seki --- p.83 / Chapter A.2.6 --- Endgame and Scoring --- p.83 / Chapter A.2.7 --- Rank and Handicap Games --- p.85 / Chapter A.3 --- Strategies and Tactics in Go --- p.87 / Chapter A.3.1 --- Strategy vs Tactics --- p.87 / Chapter A.3.2 --- Open-game --- p.88 / Chapter A.3.3 --- Middle-game --- p.91 / Chapter A.3.4 --- End-game --- p.92 / Chapter B --- Mathematical Model of Connectivity --- p.94 / Chapter B.1 --- Introduction --- p.94 / Chapter B.2 --- Basic Definitions --- p.94 / Chapter B.3 --- Adjacency and Connectivity --- p.96 / Chapter B.4 --- String and Link --- p.98 / Chapter B.4.1 --- String --- p.98 / Chapter B.4.2 --- Link --- p.98 / Chapter B.5 --- Liberty and Atari --- p.99 / Chapter B.5.1 --- Liberty --- p.99 / Chapter B.5.2 --- Atari --- p.101 / Chapter B.6 --- Ko --- p.101 / Chapter B.7 --- Prohibited Move --- p.104 / Chapter B.8 --- Path and Distance --- p.105 / Bibliography --- p.109

The domestic playing of videogames is examined through a series of extended dialogues with male adolescents. The research process was grounded in a theorisation of audience activity in communication studies which sees meanings emerging from the boys’ engagements with kinetic texts in terms of refigurative activity. This encapsulates reading, interpretation, and a cultural productivity whereby the kinetic text is returned to the everyday world, primarily through a relation of mimicry. The cultural fertility of videogames is traced through this mimicry to reveal a series of themes: a de-stabilising of the distinction between work and play spaces; the fragmentation of audiences of the small screen in the home through the establishment of gendered playspaces; the instilling of competitive relations within male community; and the melding of fantasy and discipline. An investigation of the significance of soundtrack to videogame play leads to the conclusion that in videogame playing a new cultural competency is taking shape in the form of a postmodern literacy, which lays stress on a continuous circumlocution, a destabilizing of narrative time, and middles rather than beginnings or endings. The findings contradict many ideas regarding videogame playing: that players are addicts; that videogame play is mindless; or that players are fickle. Videogame playing is implicated as an identity-making discursive project considered central to the business of being a male adolescent. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This work undertakes a systematic study of various elements from differing fields which apply to the construction of computer-aided instructional systems. Drawing upon these works, the potential for instruction in computer adventure games is recognised, and previous work in the area analysed with respect to the theoretical findings. Based both on this theory and the germane advice of practicing game designers, a methodology for the design of educational computer adventure games is laid out in detail. The method described is then used to construct a sample game with basic programming skills as the pedagogical content, and this sample game is tested and the results examined. An informed approach to the design of computer-assisted instruction must begin with an understanding of how people acquire and store new information or skills. Cognitive psychology provides a number of conflicting models of the human information processing system, but these differing theories have a common basis which can be exploited in an attempt to make material more accessible. Instructional design describes a methodology for the analysis of pedagogical goals and demonstrates methods of learning support which can and should be incorporated into the new setting. In this field also is a judgement of different media, including computers, and their ability to provide the necessary elements of learning. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the medium the limits of what is possible within it can be catered to, and its failings augmented with supplemental materials. Both educational psychology and instructional design indicate benefits to learning from a correctly motivated learner, and the theory of engagement is therefore also scrutinised for elements helpful to the educational designer. The convergence of the knowledge gleaned from these various fields leads to one possible match to the desired criteria for computer-mediated instruction; the computerised fantasy adventure game. This being the case, other work in the field is examined for relevance, and it is found that a detailed methodology for the construction of such games does not exist. Existing material is combined with the aforementioned theoretical work and a survey of what is known about practical game design to create such a framework. It is proposed that through its use the systematic inclusion of educational content in an engaging environment will be facilitated. The hypothesis is examined, and an action research approach found to be called for. As such, the proposed methodology is used to create a sample game, and the process of its design used to inform the proposed methodology. The final form is described in detail, and the process of its application to the sample game elucidated. A prototype of the game is used with a number of test subjects to evaluate the game?s level of success at both engagement and the imparting of content material.