The main purpose of the survey was to map older generations’ use of computer games, hereafter called gaming, and to highlight positive effects gaming has on the aging person. The goal of the survey is to contribute with deeper understanding and broadened awareness of which possibilities gaming offer to improve the wellbeing of the ageing human being. The collected empirical information was based on these questions: What does gaming look like amongst societies’ persons of the third age? Which factors contribute to encourage the ageing person to play? Can gaming be an important preventive factor for the ageing persons of the future? The gathering of data was carried out, using two different methods. A questionnaire based survey and thematically opens interviews. The selection of participants in the questionnaire based survey consisted of 32 persons. Two interviews were carried out. One with two persons and one with one person. All participants were of the third age, meaning that they are healthy and can manage daily life themselves. The result of the questionnaire based survey indicates thatmost persons of the third age, in spite of being in possession of digital instruments, well suited for gaming, very few of them actually play, and have no interest in it. The results of the interviews indicate that the lack of interest by older adults can partially be caused by the mass medias’ exposure of negative effects gaming can have on people, and partially by a lack of exposure of positive effects it can have to achieve improved wellbeing. Furthermore, the results of the interviews indicate that what could increase older persons interest in gaming, is research confirming the positive effects it can have on older persons, and that games that are both interesting and satisfying are available.

This paper presents a comprehensive research study that investigates the perspectives of video game preservation from three distinct target groups consisting of game developers, game museums, and video game enthusiasts. Each target group expressed their thoughts and opinions regarding game preservation efforts and the use of emulation as a preservation method. Through a mixed-method approach, including questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, the study collected both quantitative and qualitative data from 148 respondents. By examining the responses, different challenges, obstacles, and possible improvements were identified for each target group. The findings of this study revealed several common themes among the participants. The importance of collaboration and communication between all three target groups can help improve current video game preservation efforts.

We have not been able to find a lot of research that defines and categorises different kinds of inventory systems. This thesis expands on what makes an inventory system what it is and how different active inventory systems differ from each other. There’s a lack of non-generic language both in research and everyday discussions between friends that we aim to alleviate. We adapt and make use of an existing pattern creation method as well as an immersive-participatory method to play and analyse nine games that all make use of inventory systems in very different ways. Through this method we created three game design patterns that describe the differences in limitation and presentation within active inventory systems; allocated inventories, numerical inventories and spatial inventories.

Representation of gender, culture and at-risk populations has long been a thorny issue across all narrative and creative media: research shows that it affects viewers, altering the way they perceive these concepts, their characteristics and traits, and their roles in different scenarios, but it can also be a powerful instrument to illustrate dynamics and connotations in certain cultures and sub-cultures. The movie industry utilizes the Bechdel test to measure representation, i.e., a set of pass/fail criteria related to the scenario of the movie, while recently one of the largest game producers, Activision/Blizzard, launched a digital version for game designers, which was met with negative responses from those working in the field. In this thesis, we discuss how game designers, developers, producers, and streamers in Greece perceive the concepts of representation and inclusion, whether they have noticed major issues in their work and the steps they take (if any) to make their game suitable for a wider audience. Following this, we analyse a number of commercial games from different genres as an opportunity to unveil biases and connotations, resulting to a guide for game designers aiming to improve representation and inclusion.

Co-play of digital games between parents and their children is a beneficial but underutilized media mediation strategy. Previous research on this topic has resulted in various design recommendations meant to support and encourage co-play. However, many of these design recommendations have not been applied and validated by subsequent research endeavors which created co-play focused games. This project endeavors to address this research gap by following prevalent design recommendations in an attempt to improve the co-play experience of an existing Roblox digital game, Funomena’s Magic Beanstalk. This was accomplished by employing a subset of applicable design recommendations to redesign two of Magic Beanstalk’s mini-games. The redesigned mini-games were evaluated by parent-child dyads in a qualitative evaluation, comparing the co-play experience of the original and redesigned games. The evaluation found that the new mini-games engendered an overall better co-play experience in comparison to the original mini-games. / Co-play i digitala spel mellan förälder och barn är en fördelaktig men underutnyttjad ”media mediation strategy”. Tidigare forskning i ämnet har utmynnat i designrekommendationer avsedda att främja och uppmuntra till co-play. Efterföljande forskning som skapat co-play-fokuserade spel har dock inte tillämpat och validerat många av dessa designrekommendationer. Detta forskningsprojekt strävar efter att åtgärda detta forskningsgap genom att tillämpa rådande designrekommendationer och på så sätt försöka förbättra co-play-upplevelsen av ett befintligt Roblox-spel, Funomenas Magic Beanstalk. Detta åstadkoms genom att använda en undergrupp av tillämpliga designrekommendationer för att designa om två av Magic Beanstalks minispel. De omdesignade minispelen utvärderades av förälder-barn-dyader i en kvalitativ utvärdering, där dyaderna jämförde upplevelsen av de ursprungliga spelen med de som designats om. Utvärderingen visade att de nya minispelen, i jämförelse med de ursprungliga minispelen, gav en övergripande bättre co-play upplevelse.

Design guidelines are an essential part of human computer interac- tion, for they provide an outlines of the requirements and needs of a user on how best to interact with technology devices. Our research project focuses on understanding how the elderly interact with cur- rent technologies (mobile devices and digital games) and how they can benefit from mobile digital games. The goal is to come up with interface design guidelines to be used by developers when designing mobile games for the elderly. The identification of the guidelines is carried out through a literature survey that includes a literature search based on outlined keywords, and a literature review of the selected research. The evaluation process of the guidelines involves user testing of a prototype based on some of the identified guidelines. Even with minor setbacks, the evaluation process indicates that the guidelines are beneficial for the development of mobile games for the elderly.

Education plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of any nation. Researchers, pedagogists, and teachers all over the world are constantly working towards improving the process of teaching at all levels of education in order to help impart knowledge in a more effective way. One of the most fundamental branches of education is mathematics. Unless a strong foundation is laid in childhood, it becomes difficult for adults to apply mathematics to their daily lives. Mathematics is such a field that it is integrated in most of our activities. Fractions, a mathematics topic, pose significant challenges for middle school students Although the students generally understand proper fractions (i.e., the numerator is smaller than the denominator), they find it very difficult to learn improper fractions (i.e., the numerator is greater than the denominator). One cannot do away with parts of mathematics curriculum, just because the concept is hard to grasp. The solution is to come up with alternative methods to teach these concepts, such that they are easier to understand and more fun to learn. This thesis describes a digital game-based solution for teaching fractions to middle school students using iOS mobile devices, i.e., iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. We developed a universal iOS game, called Candy Factory, which runs on all iOS mobile devices. The game assigns the student the role of the owner of a Candy Factory and tasks the student to manufacture a candy bar to match the kind and size of a customer order from a whole candy bar that is retrieved from the warehouse. The game is created to teach fractions based on the concept of partitioning and iterating. The student performs various activities such as partitioning, iterating, and measuring to produce the candy bar to satisfy the customer requirements. The game consists of three levels, which help the student progress smoothly from easier problems to more difficult ones. The Candy Factory game, not only helps students learn the fundamentals of fractions, but also makes the learning process enjoyable. / Master of Science

The thesis deals with the image of gamers in Czech media, specifically in the most read daily newspapers. Videogames are still a rather marginal topic within the Czech society, gamers are perceived as weird and socially isolated individuals, and in the worst case they are described as addicted and aggressive. Predictions for the future say that digital games will become a regular part of our lives, but before this happens, I set myself the goal to find out how contemporary Czech media depict people who like to play videogames. This task is important because, whether we want it or not, media represents a reflection of our society and it is also an element that can influence public opinion to some extent. However, if there is a goal to educate public sphere or change the perception of the gaming community, it is necessary to find out what is the current situation among the Czech society. In the theoretical part I deal with the environment in which the media texts are created and their impact on the recipients of the given content. At the same time, I also explain to the reader how gamers really look like. The practical part examines the seven most widely read Czech newspapers Aha!, Blesk, E15, Hospodářské noviny, Lidové noviny, Mladá fronta DNES and Právo. These are the best newspapers when it comes...

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:33:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Wagner Santos Araujo.pdf: 1450473 bytes, checksum: aa9f1dc1d5cb7b28b279db1b9e7baf9f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-10-09 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Roadmaps for digital games have characteristics that must be addressed in order to ensure the development of productions to consider the technical aspects and issues that demonstrate their social nature, psychological, philosophical arising from a discursive look. For this it is necessary to consider this in the roadmap to digital games in multidisciplinary teams capable of creating a picture of meanings relevant and nec-essary to the understanding necessary and relevant to understanding identity existing literature on the relationship between digital games and discourse perspectives. This research, through the perspective of discourse analysis, highlights aspects that make this complex textual genre and at the same time, constituted identity that is constructed by the continuous movement of adhesion resulting from different possibilities of read-ing and readers behaviors / Os roteiros para jogos digitais possuem características que devem ser tra-tadas de modo a assegurar o desenvolvimento de produções que considerem aspec-tos relacionados à técnica e questões que evidenciem sua natureza social, psicoló-gica, filosófica advindas de um olhar discursivo. Para isso, é necessário considerar o discurso presente no roteiro destinado a jogos digitais sob perspectivas multidiscipli-nares, capazes de compor um quadro de significações necessárias e relevantes à compreensão identitária existente na relação entre literatura e jogos digitais. Esta in-vestigação, por meio da perspectiva da Análise do Discurso, evidencia aspectos que tornam esse gênero textual complexo e, ao mesmo tempo, constituído de identidade que se constrói mediante o movimento contínuo de adesão resultante de diferentes possibilidades de leitura e comportamentos leitores

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.