As video games increase in complexity and length, the use of automatic, or procedural, content generation has become a popular way to reduce the stress on game designers. However, the usage of procedural generation has certain consequences; in many instances, what the computer generates is uncertain to the designer. The intent of this thesis is to demonstrate how procedural generation can be used to intentionally affect the embedded randomness of a game system, enabling game designers to influence the level of uncertainty a player experiences in a nuanced way. This control affords game designers direct control over complex problems like dynamic difficulty adjustment, pacing, or accessibility. Game design will be examined from the perspective of uncertainty and how procedural generation can be used to intentionally add or reduce uncertainty. Various procedural generation techniques will be discussed alongside the types of uncertainty, using case studies to demonstrate the principles in action.

This dissertation focuses on design sessions in which users and stakeholders participate. It demonstrates how material from field studies can be used in exploratory design sessions. The emphasis is on the staging and realization of experiments with ‘possible futures’. Using a design perspective I have worked with how field studies can contribute to design processes in which many parties collaborate. With a starting point in collaborative ‘sketching’ and creation of scenarios I have striven to create a meaningful way for design teams to adopt a practice perspective. The dissertation shows that there need not be any opposition between exploring ‘what is’ and envisioning ‘what can be’. The increase of computer technology in everyday life and the development making information technology become an integrated part of more and more everyday products has given rise to a need to find new ways of working in the process of designing. If it was ever possible to work in an isolated way on either digital or physical technology, this is no longer the case since development requires collaboration over these borders. In the same way, IT plays an increasing significant role in people’s everyday lives. User focus and user involvement have become commonplace. This calls for new ways of organizing the design process. The present dissertation meets this problem. I have participated in four projects in which exploring users everyday practices has become a meaningful design activity and a foundation for collaboration. The purpose of this dissertation is to shed light on the possibilities and the advantages offered by working design oriented with material from field studies. Furthermore, it strives to show how design sessions can be organized and carried out on a practical level and exemplifies with concrete projects. Special emphasis is given to the creation of and the inquiry into design material and the development and use of design games. / <p>In collaboration with School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University, Sweden.</p>

This document serves as a mini dissertation in the professional Master of Architecture degree in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pretoria. It focuses on the educational ecosystem within the context of South Africa, with emphasis placed on the economically distressed environment of Mamelodi East. Mamelodi is a township situated in the north east of the City of Tshwane, Gauteng. Due to the location of the University of Pretoria’s Mamelodi Campus, this area has been a study of investigation for many faculties over the years. The spatial consequences of architecture on the educational ecosystem are questioned, with focus placed on the shift in the learning environment towards lifelong learning. The dissertation deals with this concept from the perspective of the holistic development of a person through the qualitative social activities of learning. Lifelong learning is explored throughout the dissertation from a spatial and non-spatial point of view. The spatial conversation deals with the intersection between architecture and education, whilst the non-spatial conversation advocates for a relationship between a community and its school, as integral in achieving lifelong learning. The study is grounded in a typological understanding of the schooling environment that arises as a result of South African educational policy documents. A critical stance is taken where the resulting school typology is challenged in relation to context. The intention is to redefine the current teacher-centric classroom and corridor typology. It is proposed that the schooling environment should be publicly redefined and serve as a support structure within its context, instead of isolating the educational experience. This is explored through the concepts of building as a boundary and building for pedagogy with the resulting development of a spatial matrix to provide architectural definition to South African educational policy. Tsako Thabo Secondary School was used as a case study school for the application of the matrix principles, however it is intended that these principles could be applied to other schools within similar contexts and typologies to achieve lifelong learning potential. Both the research and design process of the dissertation has been directed through the lens of Participatory Action Research (PAR) involving co-design and spatial agency theories. Particular focus within the co-design process was given to the development of design games as a mediation tool. An intimate use of both analogue and digital design games has been applied throughout. / Mini Dissertation (MArch (Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Departmental National Research Foundation (NRF) project titled, Stitching the city: From micro-data to macro-views (STINT), aimed at establishing a “transdisciplinary collaboration” to develop a “methodological framework and digital platform for the collection, storage, and sharing of spatial, socio-economic data at a street and precinct level” (Roussou, Brandao, Adelfio & Thuvander 2019). The STINT project was a collaborative effort between the University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa (Departments of Architecture and GeoInformatics) and Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden (Department of Architecture) from 2019 to 2020. In particular, the collaboration was between the Unit for Urban Citizenship (UUC) and the Social Inclusion Studio (SIS) from Chalmers University’s architecture department. / Architecture / MArch (Prof) / Unrestricted

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First-person games often support the player’s gradual accretion of knowledge of the game’s rules during gameplay. They thus focus on challenging and developing performative skills, which in turn supports the player in attaining feelings of achievement and skills mastery. However, an alternative disruptive game design approach is proposed as an approach that encourages players to engage in higher-order thinking, in addition to performative challenges. This requires players to cognitively engage with the game at a deeper level. This stems from the player’s expectations of game rules and behaviours being disrupted, rather than supported, requiring players to learn and re-learn the game rules as they play. This disruptive approach to design aims to support players in satiating their needs for not only achievement and mastery at a performative level but also, their needs for problem-solving and creativity. Utilising a Research through Design methodology, a model of game space proposes different stages of a game’s creation, from conceptualisation through to the final player experience. The Ludic Action Model (LAM), developed from existing game studies and cognitive psychological theory, affords an understanding of how the player forms expectations in the game as played. A conceptual framework of game components is then constructed and mapped to the Ludic Action Model, providing a basis for understanding how different components of a game interact with and influence the player’s cognitive and motor processes. The Ludic Action Model and the conceptual framework of game components are used to construct the Disruptive Game Feature Design and Development (DisDev) model, created as a design tool for ‘disruptive’ games. The disruptive game design approach is then applied to the design, development, and publication of a commercial game, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (The Chinese Room, 2013). This application demonstrated the suitability of the design approach, and the proposed models, for establishing disruptive game features in the game as designed, developing those features in the game as created, to the final resolution in the game as published, which the player will then experience in the game as played. A phenomenological template analysis of online player discussions of the game shows that players tend to evaluate their personal game as played (i.e. their personal play experience) in relation to their a priori game as expected (i.e. the experience that they expected the game to provide). Players reported their play experiences in ways that suggested they had experienced cognitive engagement and higher-order thinking. However, player attitudes towards this type of play experience were highly polarised and seemingly dependent on the correspondence between actual and expected play experiences. The discussion also showed that different methods of disruption have a variable effect on the player experience depending on the primacy of the game feature being disrupted. Primary features are more effectively disrupted when the game’s responses to established player actions are subsequently altered. Secondary game features, only present in some sections, are most effectively disrupted when their initially contextualised behaviour is subsequently altered, or recontextualised. In addition, story-based feature disruption is most effected when the initial encoding stage is ambiguous, thus disrupting players’ attempts to form an initial understanding of them. However, these different methods of disruption may be most effective when used in conjunction with each other.

This thesis paper addresses a problem of motivation that interaction designers experience when managing multiple design processes while keeping track of many design considerations. Once this issue is described at length, the paper focuses towards a possible solution in the form of a hybrid between creativity and productivity support tools: an accomplishment support tool. This tool is meant to support interaction designers in their experience with managing multiple processes.This paper does not suggest that interaction design is the only profession that suffers from the motivation issue that is described, nor does it deny that other professions could benefit from the use of such a tool. The paper merely attempts to narrow the issue down to one profession so that it may be addressed within the limits of the thesis project.The paper explores the need for such a tool by inspecting and analyzing current methods and digital applications used by interaction designers and mentions how this need is addressed with solutions based on relevant theories from diverse areas of interest. As defining qualities emerge from a combination of theoretical and practical research, case studies are described from a preparation perspective and then as experienced by workshop participants and interviewees.The case studies (which include workshops and prototype modules) are then reflected upon and discussed in terms of their impact on the overall goals of the thesis project. A final prototype in the form of a web application, IxD Companion, is then described through scenarios of use and assessed in the conclusion. Suggestion to future work on accomplishment support tools such as IxD Companion, as well as others, is provided at the end.