Orbital is a virtual reality gaming experience designed to explore the use of traditional narrative structure to enhance immersion in virtual reality. The story structure of Orbital was developed based on the developmental steps of 'The Hero's Journey,' a narrative pattern identified by Joseph Campbell. Using this standard narrative pattern, Orbital is capable of immersing the player quickly and completely for the entirety of play time. / Master of Fine Arts / <i>Orbital</i> is a virtual reality video game, in which an astronaut must navigate an asteroid field and reach a nearby space station prior to running out of fuel. The control of this astronaut was bound to a player’s head mounted display, which tracked the direction a player was looking and placed the player in the immersive experience. This experience was designed as an exploration of how traditional long-form narrative structure (films/books) could be applied to a short virtual reality experience. In the hope that it could provide a more immersive experience for the player. The story structure of <i>Orbital</i> was developed based on the developmental steps of ‘The Hero’s Journey,’ a narrative pattern identified by Joseph Campbell. Using this standard narrative pattern, <i>Orbital</i> is capable of immersing the player quickly and completely for the entirety of play time.

Patients with end-stage renal disease that undergo dialysis treatment, visit a hospital on average 3 times a week. Such involved treatment means the patients lead very sedentary lifestyles. The sedentary lifestyle in turn makes the patient less capable and willing to participate in physical activity, worsening the patient’s overall health-related quality of life. Video games, more specifically exercise-based games, are an existing solution played by many across the world. It offers entertainment and while providing the player a means of exercising. An exercise based game played during treatment may potentially lead to a more active and healthy patient. This thesis explores the design of an exercise-based game for the patients that are required to play, similar to the circumstances the patients that the research project, Cyclescapes is being made for. We will learn the design considerations for making the challenges in an exercise based game for an audience that requires it and how to keep the player engaged and moving with respect to their own personal abilities and fitness levels. We then apply the knowledge in the design and creation of Cyclescapes, providing the patients with end-stage renal disease a safe and entertaining player experience that can challenge their physical fitness and improve their health related quality of life. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Libero is a 2D video game that aims to explore the concepts of dealing with personal issues such as insomnia and anxiety. It is a 2D stealth puzzle game that takes influence from older dungeon-crawlers and rogue-likes from the 1990s as well as inspiration from modern games designed for mobile platforms such as iOS and Android phones. The game experiments with new 2D normal mapping technologies for a unique take on pixel art. / Master of Fine Arts / <i>Libero</i> is a 2D video game that aims to explore the concepts of dealing with personal issues such as insomnia and anxiety. It is a 2D stealth puzzle game that takes influence from older dungeon-crawlers and rogue-likes from the 1990s as well as inspiration from modern games designed for mobile platforms such as iOS and Android phones. <i>Libero</i> is designed to be playable in short bursts and requires you to avoid enemies in each level to make it through to the end. It is a small puzzle game for all ages. The enemies in the game represent different emotions we feel that we cannot easily confront head on. The game experiments with new 2D normal mapping technologies for a unique take on pixel art.

Game sketching is used to identify enjoyable designs for digital games without the expense of fully implementing them. This thesis presents Raptor, a novel tool for sketching games. Raptor shows how tabletop interaction can effectively support the ideation phase of interaction design by permitting small collocated groups to participate in the design and testing process together. Raptor relies heavily on efficient gesture-based interaction, mixed-reality interaction involving physical props and digital artifacts, Wizard-of-Oz demonstration gameplay sketching, and fluid change of roles between designer and tester. An evaluation of Raptor using seven groups of three people showed that a sketching tool based on a tabletop computer indeed supports ideation and collaboration among collocated groups better than a more traditional PC-based tool. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-12 14:06:34.363

How can we as architects interact with external practices, such as video games? Are there relevant aspects to be found, and what are the ways in which they could be approached? This project grounds itself in three different personal interests; architecture, digital design tools and video games, or more specifically: ”What kind of architectural expressions and spaces could be created if we design in the borderland between the real and the virtual game?” This is an experimental project that approaches a few aspects of video game design, as well as potential qualities of virtual worlds. It concerns itself with image based digital massing, level design as basis for program or composition on site, as well as being on the border between the real and the virtual. The result of the investigations is a playful collection of objects, arranged according to a loose, narrative sequence idea. The scene is geographically tied to a real location, but floats in a no-man’s-land between reality and game. In its current state, it is not a proposal for the actual, real world site, and at the same time it is not quite a game either. There is an ambivalence to the scene being at the pivot point of these two definitions. The objects have a structural and aesthetic nature that touches on low-polygon shapes as expression, using images for generating a grid-surface based outcome and exploring a transitioning between reality and virtuality through architectural representation.

This paper features a study about cooperation and how it can be encouraged via level layout.The research team developed a game with a research intent focused on cooperation driven bythe question: How can player cooperation be encouraged through the placement of incentivesand challenges in the level layout of a local cooperative game? To be able to answer thequestion, the research team looked into papers about cooperation, level design, nudge theory,Cooperative Performance Metrics, and design patterns. The research was conducted by usingiterative design, where three iterations were tested with two groups of four players and thedesign was iterated upon after each test. After all playtests were conducted and all data hadbeen analyzed, evidence was found that the placement of the challenges and incentives in alevel can have an effect on cooperation. This paper makes a contribution to the subject of thecorrelation between cooperation and level design.

This essay focuses on two cases studies that include two game designers’ views of meaning-making construction in games and an analysis of their corresponding games. This isplaced in relation to the late modern Sweden context. The study examines how the designersconceive purposeful play by employing a multi-disciplinary approach consistingof Pruyser’s three-world model, Bell’s ritualization framework, and, Howard’s quest theory.Such a study is relevant due to the new ways meaning-making is actively producedwithin games and contributes to the understanding of meaning-making in late modernSweden. The two designers work at DICE and Starbreeze Studios and were interviewedusing a semi-structured methodology. The data is analyzed with a qualitative narrativetechnique applying an inductive theoretical lens to analyze the data thematically. Bothrespondents illustrate patterns of meaning-making in their construction of games wherefunctionality is central and vital to produce purposeful play. The construction of illusionisticgame worlds encloses on feelings of authenticity to the world’s structure. Realistic,autistic, and, object symbolism operate to mold the world structure and are connected tothe designers’ genre. The designer from DICE promotes realistic worlds and the designerfrom Starbreeze Studios autistic representations. Ritualized practice within the worldfocuses on combat differentiation techniques to legitimize violent practice. The designers’realistic world construction makes combat plausible within its border and autistic worldsare empowered by back-stories. Opposition is seen as essential in both cases. The correspondinggame shows similar tendencies except that many of the quest themes are intactalthough the designers themselves consider the games to use less of the mythologicalformulae. Characters, themes, and, allegorical imagery was used to amplify the sense ofdialectic oppositions and logical opposition where the enemy is always darker. However,the hero and heroes are considerably grimmer compared to the stereotypical hero. Meaningis maintained through non-allegorical quests where the player and hero are motivatedby functionality linked to opposition or emotional elements. An anti-heroic concept isemployed to construct a practical and credible hero-character that has ambivalent attributesand convincing behavior. An alteration to dark-light symbolism can also be seen inone of the cases. In relation to other studies, this essay has broaden the spectrum of thepsychology of religion in terms of fields for meaning strategies; confirming ritualizedstrategies in video games; displayed altered ways of using mythological symbols in theSwedish context; presented cultural differences in hero structures that might be based onthe Swedish context.

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>

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Med detta kandidatarbete så prövar samt undersöker vi möjligheterna till en “praxisgemenskap” inom Games for Change genom digitala spel med tekniken virtuell verklighet (VR). Genom prövningen i sig så testar sig denna undersökningen fram med en stark analysmetod från spelbranschen. Detta för att kunna definiera hur man kan skapa ett spel som får spelaren att tänka kring ett fåtal utvalda diskussionsämnen som baseras på i den digitala gestaltningen om vad som är GROW’em. Vår frågeställning är: “Hur kan man med hjälp av digitala spel inom VR förmedla diskussion samt tankar kring hortikultur?”, och vi har valt att gestalta detta genom att utveckla ett spel vid namn GROW’em. Nyfikenhet kring detta ämne väcktes inombords efter att vi undersökt närmare inom spelupplevelsen som GROW’em är baserad på. Men vad vi vet, efter att ha genomgått en lång sökhistorik, så finns det inte någon upplevelse som liknar den erfarenhet och område såsom hortikultur vilket vi vill komma åt. För att testa denna undersökning så gav vi diverse individer chansen att testspela igenom gestaltningens demo som varade mellan 10-15 minuter, dessa individer fick sedan besvara på ett frågeformulär kring deras spelupplevelse. Undersökningen resulterade i ett digitalt spel i samband med den fysiska hårdvaran av VR. Med resultat som ger till följd av nya synvinklar på en framtida planering av projektet. Dessa resultat gav även en indikation på hur rimlig vår undersökning är i mån av frågeställningen som vi ställer / With this bachelor thesis, we try and explore the possibilities of a "practice community" within Games for change through digital games with the technology of virtual reality (VR). Through the work itself, this study tests itself with a strong analysis method from the gaming industry. This is to be able to define how one can create a game that causes the player to think about a few selected discussion topics based on the digital design of what GROW’em is. Our question is: "How can one with the help of VR convey discussions and thoughts about horticulture?", which we have chosen to create this by developing a game called GROW’em. Curiosity about this subject was brought onto us after we examined in more detail within the gaming experience of what GROW'em is based on. But what we know, after having gone through a long search history, is that there’s no immersion that resembles the experience and areas as a horticultural culture that we want to access. To test this study, we gave different individuals the chance to try a demo that lasted between 10-15 minutes. These individuals then had to answer a questionnaire about their experience. The investigation resulted in a digital game in conjunction with the physical hardware of VR. With results that puts things in a new perspective on a future planning of the project. These answers also provided an indication of how reasonable our inquiry is, to the extent of the framing of a question that we ask.