O aumento no número de dispositivos móveis de alto desempenho e a disponibilidade de conexões sem fio permitiram o desenvolvimento de interfaces que são compartilhadas entre diversos dispositivos; tais interfaces são chamadas de Interfaces Distribuídas de Usuários. Esta pesquisa foca no desenvolvimento de um arcabouço que visa simplificar o desenvolvimento de jogos digitais que utilizem interfaces distribuídas, assim como analisar o atual estado da arte de outras tecnologias e arcabouços. É proposto um estudo de aceitação, utilizando parâmetros quantitativos e qualitativos, afim de comprovar as características necessárias para uma experiência fluída para o usuário. Tal tarefa é analisada através da criação de um jogo protótipo onde diversos jogadores podem jogar juntos e compartilhar informações entre diversos dispositivos. / The increasing number of high-end mobile devices and increased connection availability have allowed on the development of interfaces that can be shared between multiple devices; such interfaces are called Distributed User Interfaces. This research aims the development of a framework to simplify the development of games using distributed interfaces, as well as to assay the current state-of-art of technologies and frameworks. We propose a study of the acceptance, using both qualitative and quantitative parameters, in order to verify compliance with the necessary characteristics for a fluid user experience. This is accomplished through the creation of a prototype game in which several players can play together and share information through many devices.

Depuis quelques années, ma pratique de la bande dessinée numérique entend « produire du sens avec la technologie », en faisant « parler l'outil ». Cette thèse a pour but de poser la question à un niveau plus large en se demandant ce que signifie produire du sens avec la technologie dans le contexte de la bande dessinée numérique aujourd'hui.Si la plus grande partie de ce qu'on appelle aujourd'hui bande dessinée numérique n'utilise le support et les outils numériques que comme moyen de diffusion d'une bande dessinée conçue de manière traditionnelle, une partie de la production met au contraire véritablement en oeuvre les propriétés du numérique pour produire du sens et du récit. Notre hypothèse est que la bande dessinée ne devient véritablement numérique que lorsqu'elle met ces propriétés en jeu. Dès lors, elle questionne à la fois le « système de la bande dessinée », l'usage conventionnel des outils numériques et la notion de récit. Elle impose à l'artiste d'établir de nouveaux modes opératoires. Le dépassement des théories traditionnelles par ses figures impose au théoricien d'utiliser de nouveaux concepts. L'outil ne peut devenir « parlant » pour le lecteur que si celui-ci est mis en position de l'expérimenter : interface et interactivité sont des enjeux cruciaux, la bande dessinée devient « jouable » et la « lectacture » devient son mode de réception. L'expérience de l'oeuvre par le « lectacteur » se joue sur le mode du gameplay, et cela a des répercussions sur la narration qui doit intégrer ces modalités particulières. Le récit ne repose d'ailleurs plus seulement sur les mécanismes de la narration. Il exhibe toute sa matérialité au lectacteur et repose alors en grande partie sur des mécanismes d'ordre poétique. / For a few years now, my digital comic creations have been seeking to “produce meaning with technology” by making “the tools talk.” This thesis aims to raise the question to a wider level by exploring what it means to produce meaning with technology today, in the context of digital comics.If most of what we call digital comics only use digital medium and tools as a way of publishing a comic which has been created in a traditional way, a part of the production actually uses the properties of computers to produce sense and narration.Our working hypothesis is that a comic only becomes ‘digital’ when it involves these properties. It therefore questions the ‘system of comics’, the conventional use of digital tools as well as the notion of narrative. It forces the artist to introduce new methods. Surpassing traditional theories through the digital comic forms forces the theorist to use new concepts. The tool can only ‘talk’ to the reader if they are allowed to try it out themselves. Interface and interactivity are crucial issues; the comic becomes ‘playable’, through ‘read-acting.’ While interact with the piece, the read-actor is in gameplay mode, which in turn has consequences on the narration, which must therefore include these rules. As a matter of fact, the narrative no longer relies on the mechanism of the narration. It displays all its materiality to the read-actor and so relies largely on mechanisms of a poetical nature.

O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar as relações entre a representação da História e os jogos eletrônicos (Videogames) através da análise dos jogos da série, produzidos entre 2007 e 2015, Assassins Creed. A série representou múltiplos tempos históricos em narrativas, jogabilidades e espaços virtuais que reconstituíram cenários do passado para exploração e interação de um jogador que controla o avatar de um Assassino. Nossa investigação pretende compreender este produto, ainda pouco estudado nas ciências humanas, em sua especificidade, estabelecendo sua posição dentro da Indústria Cultural em seus suportes materiais e distintos gêneros e em relação a outros jogos. Utilizamos um dos episódios em específico, Assassins Creed III (2012), para nos aprofundarmos sobre o desenvolvimento da narrativa de acontecimentos, a elaboração do espaço, a interatividade proposta, para então compreender como as várias temporalidades são sistematizadas em uma estrutura narrativa e lúdica no conjunto da série, que expressa uma determinada visão sobre o multiculturalismo e a História. / The goal of this work is to investigate relations between the representation of History and electronic games (Videogames) by analyzing the game series Assassins Creed (between 2007 and 2015), which has representations of multiple historic times in narratives, gameplays and virtual spaces that reconstitute sceneries of the past for a player to explore and interact controlling the character of an Assassin. Our investigation intends to understand this product, which has been very little studied in the Humanities, within its specificity, and to pinpoint its position within the Culture Industry with its material supports and many genres as well as in relation to other games. One specific episode of the game, Assassins Creed III (2012), has been used for in-depth analysis of the narrative development of events, the creation of space and the proposed interactivity, so as to understand how the many temporalities are systemized in a ludic and narrative structure throughout the whole series, which expresses a specific view on multiculturalism and History itself.

The purpose of this Grounded Theory study is to investigate the positive and negative effects of Game Analytics and how it may affect the Game Design process within the Game Development process. This is done by reviewing and observing available source material appertaining to Triple AAA Games Industry Experts regarding the topics of Game Analytics, Gameplay, Game Design as well as Game Development. The source material consists of publications, presentations, articles and lectures directly linked to the aforementioned areas in which will be used to reinforce the theory. Through the collected data the theory will emerge which will present the potential positive and negative aspects as well as issues regarding using Game Analytics to track the player’s behavior in order to directly affect and possibly alter the Game Design process. The results highlight the positive aspects of using Game Analytics in the Game Design process in which indicate that it is helpful for the Game Designer to utilize the player’s behavioral data captured from Gameplay. This acts as a powerful extension over the traditional design process. The negative aspects have indicated that Game Analytics is a new practice and is still met with prejudice as it requires a lot of knowledge to be able to be used right in the Game Design process. The theory indicates that Game Analytics is a step in the right direction as it enables the Game Designer to gain further understanding of their players with the end goal of creating a better Gameplay experience. / Syftet med denna Grounded Theory studie är att undersöka de positiva och negativa effekterna av spelanalys och hur det kan påverka speldesign processen inom spelutvecklings processen. Detta görs genom att granska och observera tillgängligt källmaterial som är relaterat till Triple AAA spelindustrin och experter inom spelbranschen med fokus på spelanalys, spelande, speldesign och spelutveckling. Källmaterialet består av publikationer, presentationer, artiklar och föreläsningar som är direkt kopplade till ovannämnda områden som kommer att användas för att förstärka teorin. Genom det insamlade källmaterialet kommer teorin att utvecklas som presenterar de potentiella positiva och negativa aspekter om att använda spelanalys för att spåra spelarens beteende för att direkt påverka och eventuellt förändra speldesign processen. Resultaten framhäver de positiva aspekterna av att använda spelanalys i speldesign processen som tyder på att det är fördelaktigt för speldesignern att utnyttja spelarens beteenderelaterade data tagna från spelet. Detta fungerar som en kraftfull förstärkning av speldesign processen jämfört med den traditionella design processen. De negativa aspekterna har indikerat att spelanalys är en ny praxis och fortfarande kräver en hel del kunskap för att kunna användas direkt i spelet designprocessen. Teorin indikerar att spelanalys på väg i rätt riktning eftersom det gör det möjligt för speldesigners att få djupare förståelse om hur sina spelare beter sig för att nå sitt slutmål vilket är att skapa en bättre spelupplevelse.

This thesis investigates the level of focus a player is displaying while playing a role-playing game. The thesis tries to answer the questions if the level of focus is different while a player is watching an event scene versus during gameplay and if there is a difference in the level of focus displayed by new players versus experience ones. To answer this question a playtest was performed in the role-playing game Final Fantasy XIII and the player’s reaction was recorded and documented. The result suggests that the level of focus a player is displaying is lower during event scenes than during gameplay.

O aumento no número de dispositivos móveis de alto desempenho e a disponibilidade de conexões sem fio permitiram o desenvolvimento de interfaces que são compartilhadas entre diversos dispositivos; tais interfaces são chamadas de Interfaces Distribuídas de Usuários. Esta pesquisa foca no desenvolvimento de um arcabouço que visa simplificar o desenvolvimento de jogos digitais que utilizem interfaces distribuídas, assim como analisar o atual estado da arte de outras tecnologias e arcabouços. É proposto um estudo de aceitação, utilizando parâmetros quantitativos e qualitativos, afim de comprovar as características necessárias para uma experiência fluída para o usuário. Tal tarefa é analisada através da criação de um jogo protótipo onde diversos jogadores podem jogar juntos e compartilhar informações entre diversos dispositivos. / The increasing number of high-end mobile devices and increased connection availability have allowed on the development of interfaces that can be shared between multiple devices; such interfaces are called Distributed User Interfaces. This research aims the development of a framework to simplify the development of games using distributed interfaces, as well as to assay the current state-of-art of technologies and frameworks. We propose a study of the acceptance, using both qualitative and quantitative parameters, in order to verify compliance with the necessary characteristics for a fluid user experience. This is accomplished through the creation of a prototype game in which several players can play together and share information through many devices.

Video game developers have implemented multiple measures to combat piracy throughout history. One of these measures, defined in this study as in-game anti-piracy measures, prevents player progression on unauthorized copies by degrading gameplay or drastically increasing the difficulty.This study conducts a content analysis research on textual data gathered from the world wide web to assess the public perception in regards to this type of anti-piracy measures. The data gathered for this study consists of 425 statements in the form of comments and forum posts that have been coded, divided into themes and then analyzed inductively to generate findings that can be linked to Moshirnia’s (2012) previous research.Even though no clear results occurred that can confirm Moshirnia’s (2012) findings, this study has discovered a potential connection between in-game anti-piracy measures promoting piracy. The findings also suggest that the unique “broke features” might lead to the popularization of games modded to let legitimate users experience them too.

Ce mémoire cherche à montrer l’influence du cinéma lors de la création de mondes fictifs vidéoludiques. L’étude présente les liens artistiques existants entre le 7e et le 10e art et leur influence sur la jouabilité, ce qui se ressent sur l’expérience des utilisateurs. Dans cette optique, elle cherche à comprendre en quoi l'esthétique pensée par les concepteurs favorise l’immersion des joueurs. L’analyse est focalisée sur un genre en particulier qui suscite de puissantes émotions : la science-fiction d’horreur, et se concentre sur une étude de cas : les jeux Dead Space (2008) et Dead Space 2 (2011) développés par Visceral Games. / This master thesis seeks to show the influence of cinema in the creation of fictive game worlds. The study presents the existing artistic links between 7th and 10th art and their influence on gameplay, which is reflected in the user experience. With this in mind, it seeks to understand how the aesthetic thought by the designers promotes the immersion of the players. The analysis is focused on one genre in particular that evokes powerful emotions: horror science-fiction, and fosters on a case study : the games Dead Space (2008) and Dead Space 2 (2011) developed by Visceral Games.

This paper investigates alternative scheduling for game objects in a game engine by using priority based algorithms and comparing different priority assigning methods. Research concerning commercial game engines, game loops, concurrency and scheduling was performed. Three different scheduling algorithms were created and tested using a varying amount of game objects between two different testing scenarios. The results showed that using priority based scheduling gave a slight increase in average frames  per second (FPS) as well as boosting logical update performance of prioritized objects, however overall performance was decreased. The reason this decrease in performance occurred could have been due to the way the scheduler was implemented, and despite the decrease in performance using a priority based scheduling system was considered feasible within certain game engines. / Denna uppsats undersöker alternativa sätt för schemaläggning av spelobjekt i en spelmotor genom att använda prioriteringsbaserade algoritmer och jämföra olika tilldelningssätt för prioritetsmetoder. Forskning gällande kommersiella spelmotorer, ''game loops'', parallellisering och schemaläggning utfördes. Tre olika schemaläggningsalgoritmer skapades och testades med ett varierande antal spelobjekt i två olika testscenarion. Resultaten visade att användning av prioritetsbaserad schemaläggning gav en lätt ökning av det genomsnittliga antalet bilder per sekund (FPS) och gav bättre logikuppdateringsprestanda för prioriterade objekt. Den totala prestandan minskade dock. Anledningen till att denna minskning i prestanda skedde kan bero på hur schemaläggaren implementerades, men trots denna prestandaminskning ansågs schemaläggningssystemet vara möjlig inom vissa spelmotorer.

In game based learning, motivating the players to learn by providing them a desirable gameplay experience is extremely important. However, it's not an easy task considering the quality of today's commercial non-educational games. Throughout the gameplay, the player should neither get overwhelmed nor under-challenged. The best way to do so is to monitor the player's actions in the game because these actions can tell the reason behind the player's performance. They can also tell about the player's lacking competencies or knowledge. Based on this information, in-game educational interventions in the form of hints can be provided to the player. The success of such games depends on their interactivity, motivational outlook and thus player retention. UNTANGLED is an online mapping game based on crowd-sourcing, developed by Reconfigurable Computing Lab, UNT for the mapping problem of CGRAs. It is also an educational game for teaching the concepts of reconfigurable computing. This thesis performs qualitative comparative analysis on gameplays of low performing players of UNTANGLED. And the implications of this analysis are used to provide recommendations for improving the gameplay experience for these players by guiding them. The recommendations include strategies to reach a high score and a compact solution, hints in the form of preset patterns and a clustering based approach.