Thesis (Ph.D.)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Bruckman, Amy; Committee Member: Guzdial, Mark; Committee Member: Juul, Jesper; Committee Member: Kolodner, Janet; Committee Member: Mateas, Michael.

No description available.

The goal of this research project was to develop a methodology for designers that assists and quantifies concept design decisions so designers can; enable increase user access; widen the user demographic of interactive digital media; and improve participation and competence with technolgy through play.

Submitted by Cristiane Chim (cristiane.chim@ucpel.edu.br) on 2016-10-13T16:47:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DANIEL ESPÍRITO SANTO GARCIA.pdf: 6369868 bytes, checksum: 54917ac81a7542ee4352673d12641add (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-13T16:47:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DANIEL ESPÍRITO SANTO GARCIA.pdf: 6369868 bytes, checksum: 54917ac81a7542ee4352673d12641add (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-09-28 / Highlighting the media scenery of the 21st century, games are treated in this doctoral dissertation as videoludic texts that increasingly interlace actions, thoughts and language in different ways, challenging the traditional concept of text and literacy, as well as their relation with education. Thus, highlighting Applied Linguistics as a field of research with transdisciplinary vocation, capable of producing intelligible conditions and forwarding specific proposals for action related to "social problems", in which language and its technologies are key factors, the overall goal of this research is to analyze the main theoretical and practical perspectives that integrate the study of game literacy with the specific objectives of addressing the analysis to: 1) the new meanings of being human, concerning new ways of doing, interacting, thinking and feeling that arise from the gaming culture; 2) the importance of game literacy at school, especially the creative activities related to game design; 3) the empirical field of this practice, highlighting the potential of 3.0 Games and the importance of critical literacy in games. The results suggest that literacy in game design is a multifaceted intellectual activity that includes: the performance of complex multimodal writings that involves comprehension of key-concepts about games and narratives; the investment in creative activities; the reinforcement of the social function of literacy; the assumption that someone’s identity is capable of creating/solving problems in an active and cooperative way in terms of game design; the possibility of an emphasis on visual grammar and the interface between old and new literacies; the value of gaming capital and cultural capital related to other texts in other medias; the promotion of systemic thought and the necessary abilities to interact with people, using technologies and medias of the 21st world; the participation in passionate affinity spaces and para-textual production; the reflections about the 'self' as a game designer and the world around it; the resources for future learning in related semiotic domains and beyond them. Therefore, due to its relevance to student development and the findings of various international investigations guided to this purpose, we can understand this practice as a basis for a new dimension of the semiotic endeavor in the culture of games, to advances in cyberspace postindustrial mindset which follows the new literacies and in prospections related to the emergency of cyborgs in the contemporary world, challenging researchers to progress in their literacy studies at the same pace the metamorphic technology advances in the society and transforms it. / Destaque no cenário midiático do século XXI, os games emergem neste trabalho como textos videolúdicos que intrincam, cada vez mais e de diferentes formas, ação, pensamento e linguagem, desafiando os pressupostos tradicionais em torno do conceito de texto e de letramento, bem como sua relação com a educação. Dessa forma, ressaltando a Linguística Aplicada como um campo de investigação com vocação transdisciplinar capaz de produzir condições de inteligibilidade e de encaminhamento de propostas concretas de ação relativas a “problemas sociais” nos quais a linguagem e suas tecnologias são fatores-chave, o objetivo geral desta pesquisa busca analisar as principais perspectivas teóricas e práticas que integram os estudos sobre letramento em games, com os objetivos específicos dirigindo-se à análise: 1) dos novos sentidos do humano, relativo às novas formas de agir, interagir, pensar e sentir oriundas da cultura dos games; 2) da importância do letramento em games na escola, principalmente quanto às atividades criativas voltadas ao design; 3) do campo empírico dessa prática, evidenciando as potencialidades dos Games 3.0 e a importância do letramento crítico em games. Os resultados apontam o letramento em design de games como uma atividade intelectual multifacetada, contemplando: a realização de uma escrita multimodal complexa, envolvendo a compreensão de conceitos-chave sobre games e narrativa; o investimento em atividades criativas; o reforço à função social da escrita; a assunção da identidade de alguém capaz de resolver/criar problemas de forma ativa e colaborativa frente ao design de games; a possibilidade de ênfase à gramática visual e ao encontro entre os antigos e novos letramentos; a valorização do gaming capital e do capital cultural relativo aos textos de outras mídias; a promoção do pensamento sistêmico e de habilidades necessárias à interação por meio das tecnologias e das mídias no mundo do século XXI; a participação em espaços de afinidade apaixonada e de produção paratextual; as reflexões sobre o “eu” como designer de game e sobre o mundo em torno do game; os recursos para a aprendizagem futura em domínios semióticos relacionados e além. Portanto, dada sua relevância ao desenvolvimento dos estudantes e a constatação de variadas pesquisas em âmbito internacional guiadas a este fim, verifica-se essa prática como estabelecedora de uma nova dimensão ao trabalho semiótico na cultura dos games, de um avanço na mentalidade ciberespacial pós-industrial que acompanha os novos letramentos e de uma prospecção quanto à emergência de ciborgues na contemporaneidade, desafiando os pesquisadores a progredirem nos estudos em torno desse letramento no mesmo ritmo pela qual essa tecnologia metamórfica avança na sociedade e a transforma.

While there is a lot of research about other aspects of game design, there are fairly few studies about music and sound in video games. Since music and sound are components of next to all games, it is interesting to investigate how this aspect affects the perceived immersion of gamers. The aim of this study is to investigate how sound and music affect player sense of presence in a video game, Transistor [19], which was chosen due to its distinct and strongly emotional music and sound. Five video prototypes were made using gameplay and sound from the game. The videos presented different variations of the soundscape. These were tested by a web survey with questions from the PENS questionnaire [15], providing the users a seven point Likert scale by which they could rate their experience. The answers were analyzed with a mixed model regression and compared with an estimated image of which degree of immersion would be experience for each of the videos. The result of the study showed that the complete soundscape was significantly more immersive than all the other soundscapes, while silence was significantly less immersive than the other soundscapes. The conclusions were the more complete the soundscape is, the more immersive it is, and that even a small part of the total soundscape is more immersive than complete silence.

O presente trabalho demonstra a infuência dos processos de design no desenvolvimento de games no final dos anos 1970 e início dos anos 1980 e como isso pode ter funcionado como catalisador no processo de evolução da mídia videogame, levando-a da condição de atividade de recreação baseada em habilidades motoras para condição de mídia expressiva capaz de contar histórias. Para isto foi levantado o que seria um processo de design, tanto como metodologia associada a uma prática laboral quanto como estratégia cognitiva, conseguindo assim uma estrutura formal do processo. Dez jogos foram eleitos e analisados extensivamente tanto por seu conteúdo quanto pelos processos usados em seu desenvolvimento, usando-se de pesquisa bibliográfica e também de nove entrevistas com desenvolvedores envolvidos no projeto de games no período do recorte pro posto, para termos um panorama do contexto sociocultural em soma aos processos usados por eles à época. Nessas análises, critérios do processo de design foram utilizados para conseguimos um quadro geral de sua infuência nos games. / The present work demonstrates the influence of design processes in game development in the late 1970s and early 1980s and how this may have functioned as a catalyst in the evolution process of video game media, leading it from the condition of recreational activity based in motor skills for expressive media condition able to tell stories. For this, what was a design process was raised, both as a methodology associated with a work practice and as a cognitive strategy, thus achieving a formal process structure. Ten games were chosen and analyzed extensively both for their content and for the processes used in their development, using bibliographical research and also nine interviews with developers involved in the game design in the period of the proposed cut, in order to have a panorama of the sociocultural context in addition to the processes used by them at the time. In these analyzes, criteria of the design process were used to obtain a general picture of their influence in games.

Submitted by Patricia Figuti Venturini (pfiguti@anhembi.br) on 2018-10-17T14:15:14Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Servilha Moreno.pdf: 3335435 bytes, checksum: 145a8c05a54a0fe851645612ac3962d4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Patricia Figuti Venturini (pfiguti@anhembi.br) on 2018-10-17T18:36:07Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Servilha Moreno.pdf: 3335435 bytes, checksum: 145a8c05a54a0fe851645612ac3962d4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Patricia Figuti Venturini (pfiguti@anhembi.br) on 2018-10-17T18:37:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Servilha Moreno.pdf: 3335435 bytes, checksum: 145a8c05a54a0fe851645612ac3962d4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-17T18:38:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Servilha Moreno.pdf: 3335435 bytes, checksum: 145a8c05a54a0fe851645612ac3962d4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The technological evolution of HMDs is responsible for making devices available that are lighter, cheaper and more operational, as well as being aware of the risks of cybersicness. Cybersickness involves a range of symptoms similar to those of motion sickness, which affects a significant number of users and is currently regarded as one of the main obstacles to virtual reality helmets in the market. The focal point of this dissertation is on merging the fields of knowledge of Neuroscience and Games Design as a strategy for mitigating the symptoms of cybersickness. It sets out the results obtained from an experiment carried out with two groups of volunteers – heavy and low users of games for HMDs. These results underpin the sensory rearrangement theory and point out the kind of design choices that can trigger the symptoms of cybersickness. As a result, it is becoming possible to design games by predicting the design decisions required to overcome the problem of this malady. / A evolução tecnológica dos HMDs é responsável por disponibilizar aparelhos mais leves, baratos e funcionais, bem como pela visibilidade do cybersickness. O cybersickness consiste em um conjunto de sintomas semelhantes à cinetose, que afeta um percentual expressivo dos usuários e se configura atualmente como um dos maiores impeditivos à consolidação dos capacetes de realidade virtual no mercado. Esta dissertação enfoca a cooperação entre os campos de conhecimento da Neurociência e do Design de Games como estratégia à redução dos sintomas do cybersickness. Apresenta e discute resultados obtidos em experimento realizado com dois grupos de voluntários, heavy user e low user de jogos para HMDs. Tais resultados reforçam a teoria do rearranjo sensorial e apontam as escolhas de design que desencadearam os sintomas de cybersickness. Com isso, passa a ser possível ao designer de games antever decisões projetuais capazes de contribuir à superação do cybersickness.

This thesis explores the possibility of combining a noise-based terrain generator with a multi-agent system-based citygenerator for use in overworld map generation for games.The resulting artifact is a generator capable of creating awide variety of landscapes and populating them with citiesthat take advantage of available space and resources. Thegenerated noise is used as a height map which is colorizedto form the basis of the terrain. City agents traverse the space, looking for an optimal place to settle within their view. Once they find their final position, each city creates a number of building agents based on the nearby resources. The city agents take each other and the terrain into account when deciding where the buildings shall be placed. Then, road agents connectfirst the houses, then the cities together. Lastly, points ofinterests such as dungeons, bandit camps and wizard towers are placed, their final positions determined in a similar fashion to the city agents. The analysis of the results indicate that the generator is capable of producing novel terrain, and cities that adapt somewhat well to their surroundings, but offer little variety in existing features from map to map. In addition, more control is necessary to implement the artifact into adevelopment workflow. Respondents rated the maps produced by the generator lower than a map from an existing game ,converted into a similar format, and on a similar level as another map, also from an existing game.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:18:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alexandre Santaella Braga.pdf: 8065630 bytes, checksum: 5fa997c61f83ac2b1c9528640700b1d7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-12 / This research is turned to one of the most crucial questions of digital design that, as I see it, is concerned with the problem of interactivity. It is not casual that this has been the great and most repeated subject when communication design is in focus. Interaction design in digital media is a process in which a tool is planned in order to give support to some task, so that an efficient communication between user and machine can occur. Being the design of a tool, there should be a concern about the object being functional and adequate to usage. At the same time it has to be appealing in the sense of causing pleasurable visual, cognitive and emotional sensations. In design my emphasis goes to the process of production: which are the factors that have to be taken into account for the realization of an interaction design? This is the main problem of this research which directed the goals of this work toward the systematization of these factors. I believe that game design is the one which takes further the factors that are implicated in an interaction design. This presupposes the question of interfaces which, in this context, means the communicative negotiable space without which a game could not happen. An interface is the more effective the more is is able to produce an immediate decodification of the signs which are capable of inciting action, that is, the game mechanics. Hence, interaction is thought of as the form by which the user becomes not only a user but a player, someone who acts with the sensation that something is at stake and the results of the interactions may create an emotional approximation. My hypothesis is that an interaction design is not merely a representation or transposition from a physical to a simulated reality. Much more complex than this, the designer has to make a translation of the physical actions to be accomplished in the simulated environment. This operation is necessarily an intersemiotic operation (Plaza, 1987), since it involves a set of systems of signs in a hybrid language such as hypermedia. The theories which give support to this work are the ones that discuss the general question of interactivity, such as Steven Johnson (2001), Jenny Preece (2005), Allan Cooper et al. (2007), Goodwin (2009). Specific theories in the field of games are Tracy Fullerton (2004), Jesper Juul (2004) e Jesse Schell (2008). These found my hypothesis that the process of interaction in digital design is a special type of communication act which is manifested as a result of the desiger translation of actions that are realized in a physical environment. This communication process is special because it presupposes that the design is able to incite action. Hence a communication process that is resolved in the immediate action of the player. The methodology is based on the theoretical concepts, which were tested in my experience with games and my teaching activity turned to game design along the years. All this converged to the thesis that is defended in this work which conceives of interaction design as an operation of translation / A presente pesquisa está voltada para uma das questões mais cruciais do design digital que, a nosso ver, se coloca no problema da interatividade. Não por acaso, este tem sido o grande tema, invariavelmente repetido, quando se fala da comunicação digital. O design de interação em mídias digitais é um processo no qual se projeta uma ferramenta para dar suporte a alguma tarefa, de forma que ocorra a comunicação eficaz entre usuário e máquina. Por ser o design de uma ferramenta, há uma preocupação com que o objeto seja funcional e adequado ao uso, ao mesmo tempo em que possa ser fruido no sentido de causar sensações prazerosas, sejam elas visuais, cognitivas ou emocionais. Dentro do design, colocamos ênfase no processo de produção: quais são os fatores que devem ser levados em conta para a realização de um design de interação? Eis o problema que esta pesquisa se colocou, direcionando os objetivos do trabalho para a sistematização desses fatores. Acreditamos que o design de games é aquele que leva mais longe os fatores implicados na realização de um design de interação. Este pressupõe a questão da interface que, nesse contexto, significa o espaço de negociação comunicacional, sem o qual o jogo não poderia acontecer. A interface é tanto mais eficaz quanto mais conseguir produzir a imediata decodificação dos signos capazes de incitar a ação, ou seja, a mecânica do jogo. Assim, a interação é pensada como a forma com que o interator se torna, além de um usuário, um jogador, que realiza a sua ação com a sensação de que há algo em jogo e os resultados de suas interações possam criar uma aproximação emocional. Para que isso aconteça, nossa hipótese é a de que a realização de um design de interação para games não é simplesmente uma representação ou transposição de uma realidade física para uma realidade simulada. Bem mais complexo do que isso, trata-se do designer realizar uma operação tradutora, de ações físicas para ações a serem realizadas nos ambientes simulados. Essa operação é necessariamente intersemiótica (Plaza 1987), pois envolve um conjunto de sistemas de signos numa linguagem híbrida como a hipermídia. As teorias que dão suporte ao trabalho são aquelas que discutem a questão geral da interatividade, tais como Steven Johnson (2001), Jenny Preece (2005), Allan Cooper et al. (2007), Goodwin (2009). Teorias específicas na área de games são Tracy Fullerton (2004), Jesper Juul (2004) e Jesse Schell (2008). Estas embasam nossa hipótese de que o processo de interação em ambiente digital é um tipo especial de ação comunicacional que se manifesta como resultado de uma tradução realizada pelo designer de ações efetuadas no ambiente físico. O processo de comunicação é especial porque pressupõe que o design seja capaz de incitar a ação. Trata-se, portanto, de uma comunicação que deve se resolver na ação imediata do jogador. A metodologia está calcada nos conceitos teóricos, devidamente testados na experiência que brotou tanto da intimidade com a realização prática do design, quanto da convivência com os games e, sobretudo, da atividade docente voltada, ao longo dos anos, justamente para a questão do design de games. Tudo isso conflui para a tese defendida neste trabalho que concebe o design de interação como operação tradutora