No description available.

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)

Gender stereotypes are identified as a major problem happening in the game industry, it is presented in both female and male characters which they are highly following the preference of masculinity. Multiple researches have been conducted to analyse how females are being sexualized and objectified, and there is an atmosphere of misogyny in both the industrial aspect and the user aspect. However, It is interesting to rethink the problem from the opposite perspective, where the question can be ‘why the word masculinity is somehow becoming a conclusion of this industry?’ How masculinity is growing during the development of video games? And why the walls of masculinity are still solid in recent years where most other forms of media is posstivlty accepting feminism into their field? The project starts as a role of a male gamer, in both perspectives of male and video game player,  aiming to find a way to deconstruct the atmosphere of masculinity by the theory of inclusive masculinity in the game industry, discussing the positive and negative aspects of masculinity, and finally provide a possibility to build up an inclusive condition in this industry.

No description available.

No description available.

In the past, video game communities have been studied after they have already been well-established. Studying the Overwatch fandom now, less than a year after the game’s release, while its community is still growing, allows me to observe the way gamers bring prior fandom experiences to a new game and the way a new fan community establishes its own practices. Moreover, the Overwatch fandom is growing at a time when technology is rapidly changing the way fans share transformative works and the way media companies interact with fans. Studying Overwatch fan communities now can give a sense of what is and is not changing and how it might affect fandom.

Traffic Cop is a game where the player become a traffic police officer trainee and direct the traffic to reduce the car accident rate in MA. The game is a top-down view traffic simulation and the player need to respond to the violations correctly. The game is aimed at new drivers ages from 16-24 and the purpose is to change the drivers' attitude about safe driving. Player will learn what they should stay focused on while driving and what the consequences may be when they choose to violate the traffic signal.

Digital games offer a unique perspectives as they allow the consumer to interact and affect the media; some digital games have constructed gameplay mechanics around the manipulation of time, allowing the player to directly affect the passage of time within the game world. [No abstract provided. Information taken from introduction]. / GR2018

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Psychology

We have developed a causal model of how various aspects of a computer game influence how much a player enjoys the experience, as well as how long the player will play. This model is organized into three layers: a generic layer that applies to any game, a refinement layer for a particular game genre, and an instantiation layer for a specific game. Two experiments using different games were performed to validate the model. The model was used to design and implement a system and API for Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment(DDA). This DDA system and API uses machine learning techniques to make changes to a game in real time in the hopes of improving the experience of the user and making them play longer. A final experiment is presented that shows the effectiveness of the designed system.