With the development of the times, games, which is the basis of entertainment medium, has gradually become the tool of learning for human beings and finally promote the development of serious games. As we know that the interactive experience and aesthetic experience of games are all obtained from game icons. As the communication bridge between players and games, the functional game icons in serious games have evolved from single symbols to diversified styles icons.  With the experiment method like semantic differential and similarity computation, this paper has acquired functional icons of high matching quality and recreated them with emotional design. The case study presented in this thesis demonstrated that in a multitude of serious games, functional icons had suffered the problems of lack of interaction and difference, unbalanced unity and high similarity through comparing the cognitive level experiment of different style icons and the preference experiment of different cognitive styles. This case studies the cognition of functional icons and the types of icons preferred by different cognitive styles. In addition, different styles of functional icons have different cognitive effects, while different cognitive styles have different cognitive functions and preferences. In this case, it was found that the cognitive ergonomics of different styles of functional icons differed. For users familiar with the game, the cognitive ergonomics of flat icons were higher than that of anthropomorphic icons. The cognitive ergonomics of icons with low abstraction level was higher than that of icons with high abstraction level. Meanwhile, the cognitive efficacy and preference of different cognitive styles for different styles of functional icons are different and it is more obvious that intuiting cognitive style users prefer anthropomorphic icons. Sequential cognitive style users have higher cognitive efficacy for anthropomorphic icons than flat icons. The global cognitive style users prefer anthropomorphic icons for icons with high abstraction levels. Therefore, the design of functional icons for serious games should consider the difference in users' cognitive styles because cognitive styles can be used as an entry point for the balance between the serious part and the game part of serious games. Personalized icon design can be designed for different cognitive styles users by combining their preferences for icons, so as to increase users' interest in serious games. The symbolic icons can also be used to let players quickly understand the meaning of the game, so as to improve the learning efficiency of serious games for people with different cognitive styles. / <p>Det finns övrigt digitalt material (t.ex. film-, bild- eller ljudfiler) eller modeller/artefakter tillhörande examensarbetet som ska skickas till arkivet. / There are other digital material (eg film, image or audio files) or models/artifacts that belongs to the thesis and need to be archived. </p>

Free-to-play gamers' spending habits are crucial for game developers to generate revenue in games. The unique thing about free-to-play business model games is that players don't have to pay to play the game, but need to make in-game purchases if they want a better gaming experience. The users are diverse，the trend to personalise services for users based on their diversity has become unavoidable, but identifying user needs is a large and complex problem, so an in-depth understanding of players' spending behaviour in games is essential. This thesis assists researchers in addressing this issue by constructing a game user profile based on player consumption patterns. In order to build a profile of a game's users, a great amount of data needs to be collected. However, simply providing raw data may not be of value to the development. For this reason, this thesis explores a methodology for effectively analysing and communicating survey data. This methodology collects data from user surveys, analyses the data using the author's proposed logic for creating user profiles based on consumer behaviour, and uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to create a realistic game user profile. On this basis, through the application of the proposed logic, four categories of player consumption archetypes could be identified: players with Positive attitude(POSA), Moderate attitude (MODA), Reluctance attitude (RELA), and Negative attitude (NEGA). Subsequently, these archetypes could then be used to establish design guidelines for creating game mechanics and services to better encourage in-game purchases. However, as these methods have not been put into practice, the effectiveness of using them is open to question.

Video games are experience-based products and user satisfaction is key for their popularity. To design for as strong an experience as possible, game developers incorporate evaluation methods that help to discover their users’ expectations and needs. Despite such efforts, problems still occur with the game design that lower the user experience. To counter these problems, the evaluation methods should be investigated and improved. To address this need, I have explored various design tools and user experience theories. Applying these in a game evaluation context, I have analyzed user-created game reviews and conducted longitudinal user interview- and game diary studies in connection to playing a newly released game, in other words different methods to take advantage of users' expectations, opinions, attitudes and experiences. One result of the analysis of the obtained data is a set of “slogans” that illustrate how and why users lose interest in a game. A second result is a method for extracting user attitudes from pre-produced user reviews and how this can be used in game development. Thirdly, I introduce an alternative model, aimed at game user experience development, the Playsona. The Playsona is a lightweight tool that introduces a variant of the Persona-method, specifically for video game design. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

Procedural Content Generation means the algorithmic creation of game content with limited or indirect user input. This technique is currently widespread in the game industry. However, its effects when applied to elements that do not engage directly with the player, also known as Game Bits, require more research. This paper focuses on how players experience a game when these Game Bits are procedurally generated, and how this alters their will to continue playing the game. By developing and using a 2DRogue like game to perform a qualitative study with eight participants, this dissertation shows an indication that procedurally generating Game Bits does not alter how the players experience a game or their desire to replay it.

This study has examined what in virtual characters movement invokes negative sensations associated with the Uncanny Valley. This was done through a study involving semi-structured interviews, open-ended surveys and eye tracking during which the 10 participants observed gameplay and dialogue clips from three different games. A literature review was performed regarding the topics of Game User Experience, Immersion, Animation, Motion capture, Uncanny Valley and Body language studies. The results of the study indicate that it is possible for participants to identify what details in virtual characters’ movements induce these negative sensations to them, which strengthen previous research of the topic. The results of this study did not show a great deal of variation between the participants yet showed a unique set of motivations and examples about what influenced their perception. However, with such a small sample, the results can only be applied to this study and merely provide the groundwork for future studies of the topic. However, it does provide more detailed information about the uncanny valley that can help game developers to make informed decisions when choosing to work with realistic animation

This study delves into the relationship between Dynamic Game Difficulty Balance and Game User Experience in the context of puzzle games. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of DGDB on user experience in puzzle games, focusing on player engagement, immersion, and the occurrence of a-ha moment. To this end, the researchers conducted a control group experiment and analyzed the results both quantitatively and qualitatively based on participants' objective data during the game and subjective responses in the post-game questionnaire. The findings suggest that DGDB has the potential to increase player engagement and satisfaction, but the impact is modest, as evidenced by higher completion rates and flow channels in puzzle games. We explored the impact of the DGDB system on a-ha moment and the results were mixed. However, it is clear that the relationship between DGDB and puzzles is a delicate one, with players' preferences and perceptions varying.

Syftet med denna masteruppsats var att undersöka skillnaden i Game User Experience Satisfaction (GUESS) vid användning av SimProv, både i VR (Oculus Rift) och på skärm. SimProv är en spelliknande klassrumssimulation. Studien avsåg även finna potentiella problem som användaren kunde stöta på under testsessionen. För att kunna undersöka och utvärdera detta behövde SimProv vidareutvecklas. Vidareutvecklingen utfördes genom att använda spelmotorn Unity med PlayMaker, som är ett visual scripting språk, tillsammans med att följa rekommendationer som finns för UI- och User experience-design för VR-spel. Inomgruppsdesign med 30 deltagare användes som testmetod. Hälften av deltagarna fick antingen börja med att spela på skärm eller i VR med Oculus Rift. Efter varje spelsession fick deltagarna fylla i den nya psykometrisk validerade skalan Game User Experience Satisfaction Scale (GUESS), som består av nio subskalor. Avslutningsvis kunde deltagarna fylla i två fritextfrågor genom ett digitalt formulär, om de potentiella problem de stött på vid respektive spelsession. Då GUESS är en ny skala har få studier av denna typ utförts. De få studier som har utförts pekar åt olika håll i frågan om spel bör utvecklas i VR eller inte. Resultaten från denna studie, som utfördes med tvåsidig hypotesprövning med t-test, visade inga signifikanta skillnader mellan VR och skärm. Endast en subskala, Play Engrossment, visade signifikant skillnad för VR. De textbaserade resultaten som analyserades med tematisk analys visade att majoriteten av deltagarna föredrog VR, men att alternativen i spelet upplevdes som begränsande. / The aim of this Master’s Thesis was to find out the difference in Game User Experience Satisfaction (GUESS) when using SimProv, both in VR (Oculus Rift) and on monitor. SimProv is a game-like classroom simulation. The purpose of this thesis was also to find potential problems that users may encounter during the test sessions. To assess and evaluate this, SimProv had to be furthered developed. This development was done using the game engine Unity and the visual scripting language PlayMaker in combination with following UI and UX design recommendations for VR games. A within subjects design with 30 participants was conducted. The users played either the monitor version or the VR version first, with no particular order. After each play session participants were asked to fill in the GUESS-scale, which is a newly developed and psychometrically validated scale that consists of 9 subscales. At the end of the play sessions participants could choose to answer two questions, through a digital form, about potential problems they may have encountered in both modalities. Since GUESS is a new scale few studies of evaluating VR versus monitor, using GUESS, have been conducted. The few studies that have been conducted showed no consensus in whether games should or should not be developed for VR. The inferential analysis with two-tailed paired samples t-tests in this study showed no significant difference between VR and monitor. The subscale Play Engrossment showed significant differences for VR. The text-based questions, that were analyzed with a thematic analysis, showed that the majority of the participants preferred VR. However, many participants felt that the answer options in the game where restricted.