"Gamification" is the application of game design principles to non-game contexts, such as education, personal fitness, etc. Gamification's intent is to incentivize unpalatable tasks. Current gamification efforts in the industry use some features traditionally associated with games, but fail to use game design principles as defined by the games industry. One such principle is endogenous rewards for task completion. We propose that endogenous rewards will increase the efficacy of gamification by increasing user engagement and retention. To demonstrate, we create a gamification framework where the rewards for completing real-life tasks are items with high endogenous value in the game, incentivizing the completion of those tasks. We then conduct an experiment in which we compare our framework with a commercial framework lacking endogenous rewards. Our analysis shows that it is likely that these endogenous rewards contribute to user engagement and/or retention in a gamification framework.

The thesis aims to further the research revolving queer game design and explore and expand upon a taxonomy of queer game design (Alexandersson, 2022) to create a queer design framework. The background explores the complexity of queer stress and resilience and queer individual’s reliance on virtual spaces to find safe harbor. To iterate upon the taxonomy, two surveys with queer players and one co-design workshop with queer developers have been studied to establish what is important for queer players and to explore how queer developers work with game design. The study shows that inclusivity regarding gender, body image, pronouns and good, extensive representation are crucial for queer players seeking escapism, while queer developers might develop games in a more cathartic way to explore personal experiences of being queer.

There is a difference between making something move and bringing something to life in animation. The animation principles work together to bring out character that is only visible with memorable movement. Given how the entertainment space has changed and grown over recent years, it is arguably vital for characters to be unforgettable for franchises to survive. This creative thesis explores how personalities are interpreted in animation by viewers and creators, and a workflow to bring the personalities to the forefront in the piece. Three distinct characters will be animated with the same set of animations to showcase how a personality can shine.

The aim of this thesis is to design a game, created in the form of a game design document, that represents lower socioeconomic class struggles. It is done by using a research through design method, with which we delve into studies and simulations of poverty, socioeconomic classes, previous games and studies on empathy. To make the representation unappropriated, an autoethnographic method is utilized to write down personal experiences as stories to use as inspiration. The studies and methods are used to inform the design decisions for this game called Lesser&lt;Than... . The results show an overview of a finished game design document alongside informed design decisions. We also break the game down into and discuss its mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics. Extra attention is paid to the narrative too, since that is the biggest area of socioeconomic representation. For the conclusion, from this finished game design, we are also picking out three key ways of representing lower socioeconomic classes and explaining why these ways work for us. / <p>One of the author's legal name is Dana Taillefer, but preffered name that is on the thesis is Levi Taillefer</p>

Researchers have found that digital gaming is beneficial for the cognitive,psychological, and physical health of the elderly people [1][6]. The percentage of theelderly people playing digital games is growing increasingly (and so do thedemographics) and thus the elderly generation form a potential base for a yetinexperienced game market. Nevertheless, the game industry seems to have ignoredthis important layer of the population as a special category of users [3]. Neither thehardware nor the software are designed with the elderlies’ age-related cognitive andphysical impairments.While there is a lot of research on the positive effects of digital games on the elderlies’well-being, the characteristics of the elderly gamers have rarely been explored [1]. Thepurpose of this study is to find out the elderly people’s perceptions and experiences ofplaying games and map the difficulties they experience. Based on the collected dataand facts, a number of important factors to be considered by the designers of gamesfor the elderly people are recommended.Almost 50 individuals between 65 and 90 years of age, living in their homes andenjoying a for their age normal health, have been interviewed by the author. The resultsreveal that a considerably high majority of the respondents show interest in playinggames. Meanwhile, they complain about the complexity of both hardware andsoftware in relation to their age-related cognitive and physical limitations. Most of theelderly individuals say that they need help with both playing games and using thedevices. An important conclusion from the findings of this research is that gamestargeting the elderly users should be designed beyond the general usability issues,considering the possibility of customizing the technologies to individual needs andrequirements, as the health and physical conditions of the elderly people vary greatly.The study concludes that for the elderly population to be motivated and benefit fromdigital games, developers producing the software and hardware, and designersengaged in the design of user interface, need to consider this population as a separatecategory of gamers and offer games meeting age-related needs and requirements.

Many non-academic sources praise in-game tutorials with little text and claim that experiential and visual learning are effective ways to teach players game mechanics. This study was made to test if a visual tutorial is superior to a textual one when it comes to teaching the player game mechanics for the game MellowFizz. The study will be helpful to game designers who wish to create well-designed tutorial. An A/B study was conducted with 21 participants to collect data. Two different versions of the same tutorial were made for the study, one using only visual elements and the other only texts, and the participants were asked to fill in a survey after playing the game. The results after analyzing survey responses suggests that the best tutorial would include visual cues in combination with single words rather than long sentences. However, further studies are needed to confirm findings.

The focus of this thesis is to explore the impact of art styles on video-games. This was done so that I could contribute something more to the digital media industry regarding this topic, and show people unique data sets that may help guide them in the right direction if they are looking for answers to questions they may have about art styles and their impact on the success of games. This was done through a study that was conducted via an online survey, where results were taken from student participants over the age of 18 in the GAIM program at UCF. I found that there was a correlation between the familiarity that people had with a game and how well they thought a particular art style was fitting for a game. This study is useful because it can help describe what people thought about various popular genres for video-games. This deep dive into the subject of art styles found in video-games is important as it shows that popular games have what players consider good art style. Research in games is a growing category in the world of digital media. This study collected data specifically from students in that field and helps give a new perspective on what that demographic thinks about art styles in the games they are familiar with and will hopefully impact the games they will make in the future.

This thesis presents the development and evaluation of an exergame platformer. Designed in the ecosystem of Liopep with the goal of aiding sedentary workers in their office environment. The game was developed using Godot over a period of around 5 months. Results show a clear correlation between higher scores and increased exertion. Additionally analysis of which parts of the design highlight varied movement from the players has been performed. The findings of this work can hopefully further support what and what doesn’t work in this genre of games. The findings can also hopefully act as a further guideline for future game developers aiming to develop similar games in the Liopep ecosystem.

Collectible Card Games (CCG) are one of the most popular types of games in both digital and physical space. Despite their popularity, there is a great deal of room for exploration into the application of artificial intelligence in order to enhance CCG gameplay and development. This paper presents Fifth Aeon a novel and open source CCG built to run in browsers and two A.I applications built upon Fifth Aeon. The first application is an artificial intelligence competition run on the Fifth Aeon game. The second is an automatic balancing system capable of helping a designer create new cards that do not upset the balance of an existing collectible card game. The submissions to the A.I competition include one that plays substantially better than the existing Fifth Aeon A.I with a higher winrate across multiple game formats. The balancer system also demonstrates an ability to automatically balance several types of cards against a wide variety of parameters. These results help pave the way to cheaper CCG development with more compelling A.I opponents.

This bachelor thesis examines design implementation and differences between game entity systems, with a focus on a component-based structure. How each will affect the other will be discussed from both a technical and design point of view, including possible drawbacks or advantages regarding game design iteration and performance. Since the focus is on component-based entity systems, a clarification on traditional entity systems are required, thus this thesis focuses on entity systems that are traditional, property-based, container-based, and aggravated component-based. The design and implementation of each system was founded from different generations of programming paradigms which resulted in specific compositional structure based on each specific era of hardware configuration. This thesis analyses the progress of hardware alongside game entity system design to further understand its progression and evolution into today’s standards and implementation. Details on each system is provided from a design perspective for the traditional entity system and with an in-depth view for the component-based entity systems.