The world is quickly moving to a more and more digital world, everything is online and computerized. This is convenient but also increases the amount of time spent in front of various types of devices and displays, not getting the exercise we as humans need. Gaming or the act of playing video games is very much a part of this and is traditionally thought of as a sedentary activity. However, there is a type of video games that does not fall into this category, that is exergames. Exergames distinguish themselves from sedentary games in that they use the human body for control, leading to their use to combat the lack of exercise. This thesis describes the implementation and testing of one such exergame that is a part of a larger project at Linköping University that aims to create a library of games to be used in organizations where sitting for long periods is common. The game is implemented using the game engine Godot and an ML solution called MediaPipe for movement tracking and recognition. The goal was to create an easy to playgame providing moderate to high physical activity. Testing showed that the game provided the desired physical exertion within a few consecutive rounds and exertion remained on roughly the same level even if the user was experienced.

Diese Arbeit stellt grundlegende Konzepte und Tools vor, die bei der Arbeit mit Game Audio angewendet werden können. Sie soll dabei einen Überblick über das Thema Game Audio bieten und die Kernthemen sowohl in theoretischer als auch praktischer Form darstellen. So sollen die Grundlagen vermittelt werden, Game Audio zu implementieren. Die Arbeit richtet sich damit insbesondere an Einsteiger, die ggf. bereits erste Erfahrungen mit der Entwicklung von Spielen gemacht haben, jedoch bislang wenig Berührungspunkte mit dem Audiobereich von Games hatten. Den Hauptteil der Arbeit stellt der praktische Leitfaden dar. In diesem werden die wichtigsten Game Audio Themen besprochen. Dabei wird sowohl auf Game-spezifische und physikalische Grundprinzipien eingegangen als auch auf die praktische Umsetzung mit der jeweiligen Software. Begleitend dazu wurde ein Prototyp entwickelt, bei dem die Ausführungen des Leitfadens Anwendung fanden. Im Leitfaden wird u. a. geklärt, welche Tools es braucht, um Audio in Games zu implementieren und wie diese funktionieren. Repräsentativ wurde dafür die Game Engine Unity sowie die beiden dazu kompatiblen Audio-Middlewares FMOD und Wwise eingesetzt. Darüber hinaus wird die Verwendung von sogenannten Spatial Audio Plugins mit einbezogen und wie diese die Darstellung von 3D-Audio verbessern.:I Einleitung II Theoretische Grundlagen 1 Auditive Wahrnehmung 1.1 Schall 1.2 Menschliches Hörsystem 1.3 Räumliche Orientierung 2 Hörumgebung und Formate 3 Audio in digitalen Medien III Praktischer Leitfaden 1 Entwicklungsumgebung 1.1 Unity 1.2 FMOD 1.3 Wwise 1.4 Spatial Audio Plugins 1.5 Prototyp 2 Diegese 2.1 Theorie 2.2 Implementierung 3 Panning und HRTF 3.1 Theorie 3.2 Implementierung 4 Distance 4.1 Theorie 4.2 Implementierung 5 Occlusion, Obstruction und Exclusion 5.1 Theorie 5.2 Implementierung 6 Salienz 6.1 Theorie 6.2 Implementierung 7 Reverb 7.1 Theorie 7.2 Implementierung 8 Ambience 8.1 Theorie 8.2 Implementierung 9 Variabilität 9.1 Theorie 9.2 Implementierung 10 Dynamische Musik 10.1 Theorie 10.2 Implementierung IV Schlussbetrachtung 1 Diskussion 2 Zusammenfassung und Ausblick Literatur Internetquellen Abbildungsverzeichnis Tabellenverzeichnis

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This thesis investigates the game mechanics utilized in popular free-to-play games and how these mechanics can be used within a gamified system to attempt to affect student retention at higher educational institutes. Free-to-play has become a highly popular revenue model within the game development industry due its ability to attract a larger player base.Several games were chosen for analysis and a game design document was created based upon the findings within this analysis. An application was then developed and used in a case study to evaluate the design. Results found that implementing successful mechanics into a gamified system could positively affect the motivational levels of students.

With the interactivity and immersion of players into video games, rising development costs, and heightened expectations from AAA developers video games need to make sure they hit their target market more than ever. This is something that is less extreme in the educational game development space; but ultimately true with limited grant funding, limited development time within a student developer’s schedule, and how rapidly a recently leased student content creator will need to learn the space and needs of the client. When a student is brought on late into a development cycle, it can become troublesome when they are required to meet new developing features on a changing project. This paper looks over how one team approached this issue, with a focus on meeting the needs of a group of American high school teachers. Within this paper, the focus is how they tackled the issue, and how the teachers reacted to the end prototype, with some insight into the older prototypes of the project. Throughout it they had reinforced the ideas that communication, data validity, and set contract goals are important identifiers for project success. Teachers looking at video games care more about the data being valid and clearly communicated more than if a game is fun or laden with features and mini-games.

Many software methodologies are being used for the development of video games. However, there are very few studies that cover how these methodologies are deployed and what they affect in the game development process. This study aims to explore the connection between agile development modifications applied in video game studios and their effect on cross-disciplinary communication. The research was conducted in three parts; talks of professional game developers were analysed, a field study in a studio was conducted, and a survey was designed to gain more insights from game developers around the world. After obtaining the results in three parts, a content analysis was carried out to find patterns in agile development that affect communication across disciplines. The found patterns were the overlapping work of developers, the amount of cross-disciplinary meetings, and doing experiments to find a methodology that best fits the development team. This research contributes to the field of game development with a focus on the impact on communication between different disciplines with the usage of agile development.

Endless runner (ER) is a game genre where the player controls a constantly running character. The player's enjoyment is closely tied to the difficulty of the game, which makes it an interesting platform for dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA). DDA is a way of balancing game's difficulty by the use of computer-aided adjusting methods. First, we have developed an endless runner type of game using Unity and utilizing client-server architecture. Second, we have implemented a DDA system using player modeling and genetic algorithms. We have tested the validity of our approach on live users. We were able to adjust the game difficulty to increase player enjoyment and reduce player death rates in levels. This approach can be used in a production environment to improve players' enjoyment of endless runner games.

<p dir="ltr">Use of serious games and gamified applications for language learning have increased substantially over the past decade. They are an effective way to supplement language learning. These applications utilize a range of language learning methods such as grammar-translation, audio-lingual and task-based learning in combination. Task-based language learning particularly suits the typical gameplay elements of narratives and quests. Thus, this study aims to develop a serious game for learning Bengali, world’s 7th most spoken language. The literature in this area indicates that hubshaped quest landscape design is found to be most effective for game-based learning environments. So, the study implements a branching, hubshaped narrative for learning Bengali language.</p><p dir="ltr">This application also implemented a hidden object mechanism for vocabulary acquisition instead of traditional grammar-translation methods used in other language learning software. The prototype was assessed from user feedback in a qualitative manner across four broad heuristic categories comprising of learning, tutorials, engagement and cultural elements. In the process, the study sought to understand whether cultural context-based interventions in the narrative improve learner motivation.</p><p dir="ltr">The results show a positive impact of cultural elements on the learners’ motivation to progress. Further, the hidden object mechanism was received as a satisfactory method to learn foreign vocabulary. This form of interactive, narrative based educational application has the potential to supplement traditional lessons for foreign language acquisition.</p>

This thesis investigates existing game development methodologies, through the process of researching game and system development models. The results indicate that these methodologies are engineered to solve specific problems, and most are suitable only for specific game genres. Different approaches to building games have been proposed in recent years. However, most of these methodologies focus on the design and implementation phase. This research aims to enhance game development methodologies by proposing a novel game development methodology, with the ability to function in generic game genres, thereby guiding game developers and designers from the start of the game development phase to the end of the implementation and testing phase. On a positive note, aligning development practice with universal standards makes it far easier to incorporate extra team members at short notice. This increased the confidence when working in the same environment as super developers. In the gaming industry, most game development proceeds directly from game design to the implementation phase, and the researcher observes that this is the only industry in which this occurs. It is a consequence of the game industry’s failure to integrate with modern development techniques. The ultimate aim of this research to apply a new game development methodology using most game elements to enhance success. This development model will align with different game genres, and resolve the gap between industry and research area, so that game developers can focus on the important business of creating games. The primary aim of Agent Oriented Agile Base (AOAB) game development methodology is to present game development techniques in sequential steps to facilitate game creation and close the gap in the existing game development methodologies. Agent technology is used in complex domains such as e-commerce, health, manufacturing, games, etc. In this thesis we are interested in the game domain, which comprises a unique set of characteristics such as automata, collaboration etc. Our AOAB will be based on a predictive approach after adaptation of MaSE methodology, and an adaptive approach using Agile methodology. To ensure proof of concept, AOAB game development methodology will be evaluated against industry principles, providing an industry case study to create a driving test game, which was the problem motivating this research. Furthermore, we conducted two workshops to introduce our methodology to both academic and industry participants. Finally, we prepared an academic experiment to use AOAB in the academic sector. We have analyzed the feedbacks and comments and concluded the strengths and weakness of the AOAB methodology. The research achievements are summarized and proposals for future work outlined.

Research into gameplay can contribute to more self-conscious approaches to design, allowing designers to create effective gameplay with less testing, or to target specific cognitive and emotional affects of gameplay for serious games applications. Self-conscious design includes theoretically motivated design of game systems to facilitate gameplay motivated by cognitive, scientific and/or rhetorical theories of game affect and functionality. Deepening the understanding of gameplay requires a consideration of basic epistemological questions about the nature of understanding. Understanding gameplay is a matter of generating mappings to explanatory frameworks in alternative interpretation paradigms. All games are cognitive skill learning environments, and an especially useful approach that may aid in the creation of more self-conscious game design practices is to conduct research into gameplay using theories and methods of cognitive science and cognitive psychology. On this basis, a framework is proposed based upon the integration of schema theory with attention theory. Cognitive task analysis provides a foundation for developing schema descriptions, which can then be elaborated according to more detailed models of cognitive and attentional processes. This approach provides a rich explanatory framework for the cognitive processes underlying gameplay. Playing a commercial PC or consol game is a highly visual activity regardless of whether the purpose is entertainment or situated learning. Information about the visual attention of the player is an important foundation for detailed schema modelling. A range of different eyetracking equipment has been used in many studies of visual cognition. However, very few studies describe dynamic stimuli involving the visual interaction of a user/ player with a moving 3D scene displayed on a computer screen. In order to address this, a software interface has been developed linking a Tobii™ eyetracking system with the HiFi game engine for use in automated logging of dynamic 3D objects of gaze attention. The system has been verified in a detailed study, confirming correct operation of the system as well as providing a characterisation of its spatial and temporal accuracy. The integrated Tobii/HiFi system has been validated in a study to test three hypotheses concerning visual attention in a first-person shooter (FPS) computer game. Firstly, the cuing effect of the passive gun graphic on visual attention was tested, with no evidence being found to support this hypothesis. A second hypothesis, that a player directs their gaze at a target opponent while shooting at them, was found to be supported in most cases, while in a small percentage of cases targeting is achieved in peripheral vision. Finally, in most cases, a player targets the nearest opponent. These results provide a baseline for further investigations in which the stimulus game design may be modified to provide more detailed models of the visual cognitive processes involved in gameplay and how they are involved in player decision-making.