Cette thèse a pour objectif de donner une définition générale et mesurable de la difficulté du gameplay dans un jeu vidéo. Elle propose une méthode et un outil pour mesurer cette difficulté. La méthode de mesure couramment employée est en effet principalement heuristique et propre au contexte de chaque jeu. Nous proposons une approche générique d’analyse du gameplay qui prend en compte l’apprentissage du joueur et permet une évaluation statistique de la difficulté d’un gameplay. Dans un premier temps, la thèse explore les liens entre difficulté, game design, et plaisir de jouer. Nous étudions diverses formes de difficultés : sensorielles, logiques et motrices. Après diverses expérimentations d’analyse automatique de gameplay, nous détaillons notre modèle de mesure de la difficulté, et l’analyse en challenges et capacités d’un gameplay, ainsi que le logiciel associé. Finalement, nous présentons une expérience, dont l’objectif est de tester la faisabilité et la précision de notre modèle. / The goal of this thesis is to propose a general and measurable definition of the difficulty in video games. The current approach, widely adopted, is mainly heuristic, and depends on each game’s context. We propose a generic way to analyse a gameplay, taking into account the player’s apprenticeship, which allows to statistically evaluate the gameplay’s difficulty. The thesis first explores the links between difficulty, game design and the player’s enjoyment. Then, we study different types of difficulties, sensory, logical and motor. After a few experiments on automatic gameplay analysis, we detail our measurement model, base on the splitting of gameplay into challenges and capacities. We present the developed software, and report an experiment that we ran to test the feasibility and accuracy of our measuring technique.

Game-based learning environments (GBLEs) can offer students with engaging interactive instructional materials while also providing a research platform to investigate the dynamics and intricacies of effective self-regulated learning (SRL). Past research has indicated learners are often unable to monitor and regulate their cognitive and metacognitive processes within GBLEs accurately and effectively on their own due mostly to the open-ended nature of these environments. The future design and development of GBLEs and embedded scaffolds, therefore, require a better understanding of the discrepancies between the affordances of GBLEs and the required use of SRL. Specifically, how to incorporate interdisciplinary theories and concepts outside of traditional educational, learning, and psychological sciences literature, how to utilize process data to measure SRL processes during interactions with instructional materials accounting for the dynamics of leaners' SRL, and how to improve SRL-driven scaffolds to be individualized and adaptive based on the level of agency GBLEs provide. Across four studies, this dissertation investigates learners' SRL while they learn about microbiology using CRYSTAL ISLAND, a GBLE, building upon each other by enhancing the type of data collected, analytical methodologies used, and applied theoretical models and theories. Specifically, this dissertation utilizes a combination of traditional statistical approaches (i.e., linear regression models), non-linear statistical approaches (i.e., growth modeling), and non-linear dynamical theory (NDST) approaches (aRQA) with process trace data to contribute to the field's current understanding of the dynamics and complexities of SRL. Furthermore, this dissertation examines how limited agency can act as an implicit scaffold during game-based learning to promote the use of SRL processes and increase learning outcomes.

The Technical World of Warcraft explores the various technical instruction elements of World of Warcraft, more specifically observing issues faced by players who take on content at the highest level. The thesis raises the problem of the in-game technical documentation being utterly ineffective for the aforementioned players, causing them to create their own technical documents. While observing the environment found exclusively within the game, research from Jennifer DeWinter and Ryan Moeller, Mark Chen, Sarah Bishop, and more, is used to analyze the game's instructional elements from a critical angle. Several job listings from other major game development companies are also used to bring forward the idea that Activision-Blizzard does not have technical communicators creating their own in-game technical instruction. By considering these factors, the study calls attention to an area within the gaming industry that technical communicators could provide a great benefit and create better support for those who do enjoy video games.

Despite some ongoing debates over the positive or negative impact of digital games, educational games are powerful tools to increase engagement and improve learning outcomes. Scientific concepts about the weather are complicated for younger learners and deep learning often requires long-term cultivation. This thesis presents a novel interactive educational simulation called the Science of Meteorology with Interactive Learning Experience (SMILE). In it, students interact with a touchscreen monitor to change weather conditions and learn about clouds and weather science. The relationship between engagement and learning outcomes and the effectiveness of the experience is evaluated using a formal user study. Online data collection was completed after IRB approval during the summer of 2020 with 23 students between the ages of 8 and 12. Student knowledge of clouds and weather science was tested via 12 related questions before playing with SMILE. Furthermore, the impacts of the designed simulation on engagement level were evaluated by the Game Engagement Questionnaire (GEQ), including 19 questions developed by Brockmyer et al. (2009). This study showed a significant improvement in student knowledge where the average of test scores increased 57% for the post-test. The findings show that GEQ needs some modification to measure engagement in different game genres and for different age ranges.

School often has low engagement and frustrating or absent options for the kind of agency the Federal Government's 2016 National Education Technology Plan now recommends educators include in their curriculum. Video games offer opportunities for people to participate in critical problem solving through creative projects. From balancing character statistics, to collaborating with other players, to making ethical and tactical decisions that can change the outcome of the story, successful games draw on the player's interest in learning and analyzing numbers, locations, visual clues, narrative elements, people, and more. One useful example may be found in visual novels (VNs), a medium that pulls from narrative structures found in Choose Your Own Adventure Novels. These interactive narratives are a largely untapped resource (for educational uses) of guided critical thinking. My ongoing research explores the efficacy of implementing VNs into digital pedagogies to encourage the development of "creatigational skills." This term is a response to the problematic wording already in use for skills such as creative thinking and collaborative abilities, skills encouraged by and developed through interactive activities, such as gaming and many of the arts. Current terminology labels them "soft" or "non-cognitive" skills, which are clear misnomers that passively diminish the importance of creative thought. This research explores how gaming, specifically so-called "narrative" gaming, of which VNs are one example, might contribute to the development of creatigational skills in students. Through the creation of VNs for this study, I examine both the ability of this genre to engage and encourage imaginative thought, as well as the practicality of designing and developing VNs for classroom use.

The reflective game design theory outlined by Rilla Khaled (2018) argues for designing disruptive experiences to promote reflection within the player. We decided to design and produce a game based on her theory to then engage with Khaled’s theory critically. We define the act of making a game as a three-step process consisting of ideation (influenced by Khaled’s theory), articulation of the design based on a framework (SGDA Framework by Mitgutsch & Alvarado, 2012), and finally the implementation of it (based on principles outlined by Swink, 2009 and Boyer, 2010). We make a theoretical argument for our design decisions, test the game in a user study, and then discuss the successes and shortcomings of our design. To conclude we tie our discoveries to the steps taken in the application of theory into practice. We discover that the best design intentions often cannot reach the player because their interaction with the game is hindered by un-polished implementation. We identify further gaps between theory and practice and are stating what designers should watch out for when making reflective games. / I Rilla Khaled´s (2018) teori Reflective game design theory, argumenterar hon för fördelen med att skapa omvälvande upplevelser i syfte att uppmana spelaren till reflektion. Vi beslöt oss för att designa och utveckla ett spel baserat på hennes teori, för att sedan undersöka och utvärdera teorin. Vi definierar spelutvecklande som en process i tre steg, bestående av ”ideation” (grundat ur Khaleds teori), artikulering av designen baserat på ett ramverk s.k. ”SGDA Framework” ( Mitgutsch & Alvarado, 2012), och slutligen realisering (grundat på principer framtagna av Boyer, 2010 och Swink, 2009). Vi argumenterar för besluten som ligger bakom vår design, utför praktiska test av spelet i en användarstudie och diskuterar sedan framgångar samt eventuell tillkortakommanden med vår design. Slutsatsen består av en redogörelse för hur våra upptäckter står i förhållande till applikationen av teori till praktik. Vi upptäckte att genomtänkta och välmotiverade beslut inom spelutveckling inte alltid når spelaren, då interaktionen mellan spelare och spel hindras av tillkortakommanden i hur dessa beslut tillämpats. Vi identifierade ytterligare klyftor mellan teori och realisering, och konstaterar vad spelutvecklare bör vara uppmärksamma på under utveckling av s.k. ”reflective games”.

This study asks the question; "How can playing a series of games be considered a continuous experience, rather than isolated experiences?". By asking this question, this study aims to enable game design evaluation from a new perspective, using HCI tools and theories. There is a qualitative study of a sequel game, interviewing players from a GameFlow perspective. Answers are compared to reveal differences based on thei rexperience with previous games in the series. This is done to see if looking at game design through new perspectives opens up for new context-based design opportunities. Design opportunities are analysed from an activity theory perspective, to not only uncover issues, but also explain them. By doing so, this study shows that it is possible to consider a sequelto a game a continuous experience, and that taking this into account during game design opens up for new opportunities.

Videogame designers hope to sculpt gameplay, but actually work in the concrete medium of computation. What they create is code, artwork, dialogue---everything that goes inside a videogame cartridge. In other materially constrained design domains, design-support tools help bridge this gap by automating portions of a design in some cases, and helping a designer understand the implications of their design decisions in others. I investigate AI-based videogame-design support, and do so from the perspective of putting knowledge-representation and reasoning (KRR) at the front. The KRR-centric approach starts by asking whether we can formalize an aspect of the game-design space in a way suitable for automated or semi-automated analysis, and if so, what can be done with the results. It begins with the question, "what could a computer possibly do here?", attempts to show that the computer actually can do so, and then looks at the implications of the computer doing so for design support. To organize the space of game-design knowledge, I factor the broad notion of game mechanics mechanics into four categories: abstract mechanics, concrete audiovisual representations, thematic mappings, and input mappings. Concretely, I investigate KRR-centric formalizations in three domains, which probe into different portions of the four quadrants of game-design knowledge: 1. using story graphs and story-quality functions for writing interactive stories, 2. automatic game design focused on the "aboutness" of games, which auto-reskins videogames by formalizing generalized spaces of thematic references, and 3. enhancing mechanics-oriented videogame prototypes by encoding the game mechanics in temporal logic, so that they can be both played and queried.

With augmented reality, we can create interfaces that merge virtual objects and data seamlessly with the real world, potentially improving collaboration and interaction. This technology offers opportunities for games, allowing new designs that merge the diverse social and physical interaction of real world games with rapid interactivity and computing power of digital games. To date, research has primarily focused on issues of technology, interaction design, and nfrastructure; the design of compelling play has received little attention. We play games because they are enjoyable; therefore, in order to create attractive games, we must understand enjoyment. In games, engagement, social interaction, and emotional involvement are among the most common causes. We can design for engagement in play using Csikszentmihalyi's model of 'flow'; for social play by making communication easy, natural, and useful; and emotional involvement by understanding the mechanisms by which games stimulate us. Alongside an understanding of enjoyment, lessons must be drawn from design experience. AR Tankwar is an augmented reality strategy game developed over the course of this thesis, and has been evaluated in the field at a large games convention, and in a detailed comparative study with existing games on tabletop and desktop PC. Evaluations revealed predictable limitations with the technology, but also provided insight into how designers can make best use of the medium. Based on these activities, and existing knowledge of interaction and collaboration in augmented reality, this thesis addresses compelling play in augmented reality by developing a set of design guidelines for augmented reality games, with particular focus on strategy games.

Submitted by João Arthur Martins (joao.arthur@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-12T17:41:45Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertaçao Tiago Machado.pdf: 2755255 bytes, checksum: 84f489e8a237fae5aee0567ae4247d05 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Daniella Sodre (daniella.sodre@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-13T13:24:38Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertaçao Tiago Machado.pdf: 2755255 bytes, checksum: 84f489e8a237fae5aee0567ae4247d05 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-13T13:24:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertaçao Tiago Machado.pdf: 2755255 bytes, checksum: 84f489e8a237fae5aee0567ae4247d05 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09-02 / O processo de desenvolvimento de Games é um trabalho difícil [Blow 2004]. Envolve muitas disciplinas e contém inúmeras fases e tarefas. Nas duas últimas décadas, o crescimento da indústria tem sido evidente, o que motivou uma série de pesquisas acerca de como a indústria encara tal processo. Alguns desses estudos relatam problemas nos processos de produção que podem ser uma barreira a impedir o futuro crescimento da indústria [Potanim 2010]. Notamos que muitos desses problemas estão associados a conflitos entre as fases de préprodução e produção, para as quais a literatura diverge em vários pontos e não oferece respostas adequadas. Um dos conflitos observados diz respeito aos artefatos de suporte a produção. Não há uma padronização sobre quais são necessários, quais seus conteúdos e como devem ser apresentados. Tradicionalmente, de acordo com a literatura, o Documento de Game Design (GDD) teria a função de ser o principal artefato, o guia para equipe de produção criar o software do Game propriamente dito, quase como um roteiro cinematográfico ou a planta baixa de um projeto de arquitetura [Schuytema 2006]. Entretanto, de acordo com nossas pesquisas envolvendo membros da indústria de games (nacional e internacional), a importância de tal artefato foi questionada. Considerando tais pontos, o objetivo deste trabalho foi analisar os conflitos que cercam a pré-produção e a produção de games, de acordo com o ponto de vista da indústria por meio de questionários e entrevistas, contando com participantes atuantes no Brasil e no exterior. A partir do discurso dos entrevistados, definimos um conjunto de princípios, que posteriormente deram origem a uma proposta para atenuar os problemas expostos, tal proposta se traduziu em uma ferramenta, que foi avaliada por uma equipe de profissionais durante o desenvolvimento de um game. Ao longo de quatro semanas, os mesmos ofereceram críticas e sugestões que permitiram a evolução da ferramenta, intitulada Game Live Logs.