Current Game Research Articles

Gender, sex and romance in role playing video games: Dragon’s Dogma, Fable III and Dragon Age: Inquisition

Abstract Gender, as Judith Butler argued, is performative. People define their gender by ‘doing’, often unknowingly, through manners, gestures and practices. Video games are cybertexts with configurative performances, that is, the act of playing is a constant performance that affects not only the creation of meaning, but the resulting text of the game as well. When we play, we shape the discourse by ‘doing’. Representation – how the game elements can be seen to articulate meaning – and performance – how the player uses the game to complete and modify this meaning – cannot be separated in game analysis. Every game gives us a set of actions, or mechanics that we use at will to achieve goals following clear rules, and these rules and actions are precisely the building blocks of a game. Ludofictional worlds have an ingrained idea of ‘reality’ that we can take at face value or explore, even question. So, if games are performances, is our performance within them gendered? That is, are we reproducing our learned performativity or breaking away from it? Is the game a procedure we follow or an instrument we use to express ourselves? In this article, I use game analysis tools and theory to describe if and how three particular games, Dragon’s Dogma (Capcom, 2012), Fable III (Lionhead Studios, 2010) and Dragon Age: Inquisition (BioWare, 2014), each coming from a different territory: Japan, Europe and the United States – give the player freedom and opportunity to perform gender, and how they include pluralism and/or diversity. The article has no intention to describe all of the current gaming culture, but to illustrate some trends in mainstream games regarding representation and player freedom in the design of gender and sex. Romance can be seen as the frame of a conversation between the designers and the players.

Player behavior and personality modeling for interactive storytelling in games

Current video games use simple methods to deal with interactive narratives and the enormous variety of player types. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to interactive storytelling in games, in which the quests and the ongoing story are determined in view of individual personality traits and behavioral attitudes in a nondeterministic way. Our method starts the process employing a new technique to assess the player’s personality traits according to the well-known Big Five model. These traits are then used by a nondeterministic planning algorithm to define adaptive goal hierarchies. In addition, an artificial neural network is trained to predict player behaviors in real-time, allowing partial-order planning operators to use player behaviors and personality traits as logical terms in their preconditions. With this approach, a richer individualized experience is provided to the player, while preserving consistency with the conventions of the chosen genre.

BrainQuest: The use of motivational design theories to create a cognitive training game supporting hot executive function

Abstract For children to yield greater mental performance abilities in real world settings, training approaches should offer practice in problems which have an affective component requiring social interactions, and be motivating over a sustained period. Current cognitive training games often overlook the important relationship between cognition and emotion, characterised by ‘hot executive function’, and correlated with fundamental academic and life outcomes. Here, we present robust qualitative evidence from a case study which documents the social relationships, motivation and engagement of a class of ten-year-old children who used an active smartphone cognitive training game called BrainQuest in their physical education lessons over a period of 5 weeks. Game design elements which are intended to move beyond simple gamification of cognitive tests are presented, along with a discussion of how these design elements worked in practice. The paper also presents and discusses the impact of the game upon the cognitive and emotional regulatory skills, characterised by executive function skills, based on the findings of this initial work. We conclude with recommendations for the designers of cognitive training games in the future and discussion of appropriate research methods for future gamification studies.

Strongly Subgame-Consistent Core in Stochastic Games

This paper investigates stochastic games on finite tree graphs. A given n-player normal-form game is defined at each node of a tree. Transition to a next node of the tree is random and depends on the strategy profile realized in a current game. We construct a cooperative solution of the game by maximizing the total expected payoff of the players. The core is used as the solution concept of the cooperative game. We introduce the definition of a strongly subgame-consistent (strongly time-consistent) core. Finally, we suggest a method for designing a cooperative distribution procedure of an imputation from the core that guarantees its strong subgame consistency.

Using position data to estimate effects of perceptual features of play on passing decisions in soccer

Passes are a performance-relevant parameter in many team sports. They must be played in the highly dynamic and unpredictable contexts of interactive team competitions. The difficulty to plan passes in advance requires real-time decisions and highlights the importance of the perceptual information provided by current game contexts. This study estimates the relevance of perceptual information to passing decisions at an ecological scale by analyzing sports data from real competitions. In support of previous findings of a scenario-based investigation, open passing lanes, spatial proximity to the ball carrier, team members’ positions in front of the ball carrier, and loose defense by opposing players all significantly increased team members’ odds for receiving passes. Together, the four kinds of perceptual information enabled the correct prediction of 41% of the passes played. The prediction rate compares to a base rate of 11% and is substantially higher than that for passing decisions made in static game scenarios. The results are interpreted with regard to the relevance of the perceptual information to passing decisions made in time-constrained competitive situations.

User Experience Design of History Game

User experience (UX) and user interface design of an educational game are important in enhancing and sustaining the utilisation of Game Based Learning (GBL) in learning history. Thus, this article provides a detailed literature review on history learning problems, as well as previous studies on user experience in game design. Future studies on educational history games will benefit from this systematic review and analysis of current educational history games, as this article examines in detail which game features are the most effective in promoting engagement and supporting the process of learning Malaysian history. The results have revealed that mobile game applications with historical content can indeed be a meaningful way to create gaming experience, learning experience, adaptivity and usability, which can facilitate history learning through UX of playing history mobile games. The correlation results of these four dimensions have indicated four positive and significant relationships.

Ad-Hoc Cloudlet Based Cooperative Cloud Gaming

As the game industry matures, processing complex game logics in a timely manner is no longer an insurmountable problem. However, current cloud-based mobile gaming solutions are limited by their relatively high requirements on Internet resources. Also, they typically do not consider the geographical locations of nearby mobile users and thus ignore the potential cooperation among them. Therefore, inspired by existing cloud computing techniques, we propose an ad hoc mobile-cloudlet-cloud based approach to implement cooperative gaming architecture. In this paper, two modules of the architecture are introduced: 1) progressive game resources download, by which mobile users can adaptively download gaming resources from cloud servers or nearby mobile users, 2) ad-hoc mobile based cooperative task allocation, by which gaming components can be executed dynamically on local devices, nearby devices, stationary cloudlet(s), or cloud servers. The mechanisms of both modules are formulated as optimization problems and algorithms are proposed to solve them. Simulations results based on real mobility traces show that our system’s performance depends highly on the ad-hoc network environment. Our scheme has lower system resource usage while utilizing resources of nearby devices, compared to the cloud-based gaming architecture; and performs better with short on-device task duration compared to code-offloading based architecture.

Formative evaluation of an adaptive game for engaging learners of programming concepts in K-12

As the global demand for programmers is soaring, several countries have integrated programming into their K-12 curricula. Finding effective ways to engage children in programming education is an important objective. One effective method for this can be presenting learning materials via games, which are known to increase engagement and motivation. Current programming education games often focus on a single genre and offer one-size-fits-all experience to heterogeneous learners. In this study, we presented Minerva, a multi-genre (adventure, action, puzzle) game to engage elementary school students in learning programming concepts. The game content is adapted to play and learning styles of the player to personalize the gameplay. We conducted a formative mixed-method evaluation of Minerva with 32 Korean 6th grade students who played the game and compared their learning outcomes with 32 6th grade students who studied the same concepts using handouts. The results indicated that, in terms of retention, learning was equally effective in both groups. Furthermore, the game was shown to facilitate engagement among the students. These results, together with uncovered issues, will guide Minerva’s further development.

The effect of using games in teaching conservation.

Games are an increasingly popular approach for conservation teaching. However, we know little about the effectiveness of the games on students’ experiences and knowledge acquisition. Many current games are supplemental games (SG) that have no meaningful interaction with the subject matter. We adapted the experiential gaming (EG) model where students were immersed in goal-orientated tasks found in real-life situations, and they tackled questions to complete actions for their main task. Classroom-based games were created for eight different conservation topics for an annual Wildlife Conservation Course and an annual Diploma in International Wildlife Conservation Practice. Data were collected over two cycles, a total sample size of 55 multinational students. We used a combination of repeated-measures design and counterbalanced measures design; each student was subjected at least twice to each of the EG and didactic instruction (DI) treatments, and at least once to the SG approach. We compared students’ perception, learning and behavioural responses to the treatments, including measures of student personality types and learning styles as explanatory variables. Findings revealed multiple benefits of the classroom EG compared to the DI approach, such as increased attention retention, increased engagement and added intrinsic motivation. The improved level of intrinsic motivation was mainly facilitated by increased social bonding between participants. Further, we show that this EG approach appeals to a wide range of learning styles and personalities. The performance of SG was generally intermediate between that of EG and DI. We propose EG as a beneficial complement to traditional classroom teaching and current gamified classes for conservation education.

Passing Decisions in Football: Introducing an Empirical Approach to Estimating the Effects of Perceptual Information and Associative Knowledge

The importance of various information sources in decision-making in interactive team sports is debated. While some highlight the role of the perceptual information provided by the current game context, others point to the role of knowledge-based information that athletes have regarding their team environment. Recently, an integrative perspective considering the simultaneous involvement of both of these information sources in decision-making in interactive team sports has been presented. In a theoretical example concerning passing decisions, the simultaneous involvement of perceptual and knowledge-based information has been illustrated. However, no precast method of determining the contribution of these two information sources empirically has been provided. The aim of this article is to bridge this gap and present a statistical approach to estimating the effects of perceptual information and associative knowledge on passing decisions. To this end, a sample dataset of scenario-based passing decisions is analyzed. This article shows how the effects of perceivable team positionings and athletes' knowledge about their fellow team members on passing decisions can be estimated. Ways of transfering this approach to real-world situations and implications for future research using more representative designs are presented.

A Study on Game Art Character Design and Traditional Culture

Along with the continuous development of modern technology information, current game consumption of our country has been the important pillar industry, having certain pushing effect on the economy of our country. But the whole modeling has appeared the phenomenon of westernization and tending to Japanese and Korean style, especially in the aspect of character modeling, not highlighting the distinct artistic style of our country. China is a country with long history, extensive and profound culture, abundant and colorful artistic elements, and it has formed its unique artistic aesthetics during the long-term social development and history development. The character modeling in the game art design of domestic market should be made enough research at present days with booming game industry, and eventually, Chinese traditional elements are mixed in on the basis of actual situation. This paper has made the analysis with the game art design and game art design elements; then made the discovery with the main application of traditional culture art elements in the game art design; finally, made practical creation analysis with the character modeling pattern in the game art design.

Applied Artificial Intelligence in 3D-game (HYSTERIA) using UNREAL ENGINE4

Game development industry spreading it roots at wider level. With the advancements in gaming technologies industries adopted latest trends for developing modern games. Artificial intelligence (AI) with programming provided countless support for latest technology adoption in game industry. This paper aims to highlight some major points of our research “Creation of third person shooter game in unreal engine 4”. We discussed how we can use one of the most powerful current generation game engines in an attempt to create our own game “Hysteria”. Endeavoring used to replicate the process of the major game production cycle .It is used by modern gaming industries. We attempted it to create an action adventure shooting game by creating its own original storyline. The game Hysteriaisplayedfromathirdperson perspective in which the player must go through multipleenvironmentsfightinghordesof enemies and try to reach the end of level. Depending on the difficulty level that the player sets, there will be the number of enemies and their fighting intensity. The game has been developed but running at initial stages; further enhancement will be required to give it a much professional impression so that in near future it could be successfully commercialized.

Learning Avatar's Locomotion Patterns Through Spatial Analysis in FPS Video Games

This article describes how current video games offer an extreme use of media fusion. Such construction implies a novel form of complexity regarding game control and active response from game to player. All of these elements produce deeper immersion effect in players. In order to perform a detailed supervision over this kind of game, additional controls should be included in game. Some of these controls are the moving and decision schemes. Authors believe that players move around virtual scenarios following some sort of pattern. Every player would have a specific pattern, according to his/her experience and capability to manage the gamepad layout. Current proposal consists in a 3D geometrical model surrounding player's avatar. Data unwittingly provided by the player, have elements to discover and, eventually, learn some gamers' patterns. The availability of these patterns would allow an improved game response and even the possibility of machine learning, as well as other artificial intelligence strategies. Every 3D game may include the model proposed in this paper, due to its noninvasive operation.

Is there an uncanny valley of virtual animals? A quantitative and qualitative investigation

Abstract Approaching a high degree of realism, android robots, and virtual humans may evoke uncomfortable feelings. Due to technologies that increase the realism of human replicas, this phenomenon, which is known as the uncanny valley , has been frequently highlighted in recent years by researchers from various fields. Although virtual animals play an important role in video games and entertainment, the question whether there is also an uncanny valley for virtual animals has been little investigated. This paper examines whether very realistic virtual pets tend to cause a similar aversion as humanlike characters. We conducted two empirical studies using cat renderings to investigate the effects of realism, stylization, and facial expressions of virtual cats on human perception. Through qualitative feedback, we gained deeper insight into the perception of realistic computer-generated animals. Our results indicate that depicting virtual animal-like characters at realism levels used in current video games causes negative reactions just as the uncanny valley predicts for humanlike characters. We conclude design implication to avoid that sensation and suggest that virtual animals should either be given a completely natural or a stylized appearance. We propose to further examine the uncanny valley by the inclusion of artificial animals.

Designing and implementing interactive and realistic augmented reality experiences

In this paper, we propose an approach for supporting the design and implementation of interactive and realistic Augmented Reality (AR). Despite the advances in AR technology, most software applications still fail to support AR experiences where virtual objects appear as merged into the real setting. To alleviate this situation, we propose to combine the use of model-based AR techniques with the advantages of current game engines to develop AR scenes in which the virtual objects collide, are occluded, project shadows and, in general, are integrated into the augmented environment more realistically. To evaluate the feasibility of the proposed approach, we extended an existing game platform named GREP to enhance it with AR capacities. The realism of the AR experiences produced with the software was assessed in an event in which more than 100 people played two AR games simultaneously.

The effect of flow and context on in-vivo positive mood in digital gaming

Abstract Although research extols the positive effects of social gaming, the dynamic processes underlying these effects remain unclear. In a hitherto unused approach in this field, we utilised a Smartphone App to model the effect of in-vivo flow and gaming context on positive mood. We also explored individual-level factors including demographic gaming variables (average hours per week playing, gamer-type, preferred type of play) and Big-5 personality traits. Data was obtained from 41 gamers producing a total of 2796 data-points. Multi-level modelling revealed positive mood was associated with in-vivo reports of flow in gameplay, current context and individual-level variance in the number of hours typically spent engaged in playing per week. Specifically, in-vivo positive mood was higher for players when playing online with friends (relative to those playing solo). Higher reports of flow were, nonetheless, associated with decreases in positive mood. Finally, players who indicated playing less frequently experienced higher positive mood, relative to those who played more. These findings support and extend previous work which explores the emotional affordances of gaming and highlight the importance of obtaining situated measures of experiences. They demonstrate that positive mood in gaming is not static, but changeable depending on one's current gaming environment and flow.

Towards a better understanding of the overall health impact of the game of squash: automatic and high-resolution motion analysis from a single camera view

Abstract In this paper, we present a method for locating and tracking players in the game of squash using Gaussian mixture model background subtraction and agglomerative contour clustering from a calibrated single camera view. Furthermore, we describe a method for player re-identification after near total occlusion, based on stored color- and region-descriptors. For camera calibration, no additional pattern is needed, as the squash court itself can serve as a 3D calibration object. In order to exclude non-rally situations from motion analysis, we further classify each video frame into game phases using a multilayer perceptron. By considering a player’s position as well as the current game phase we are able to visualize player-individual motion patterns expressed as court coverage using pseudo colored heat-maps. In total, we analyzed two matches (six games, 1:28h) of high quality commercial videos used in sports broadcasting and compute high resolution (1cm per pixel) heat-maps. 130184 manually labeled frames (game phases and player identification) show an identification correctness of 79.28±8.99% (mean±std). Game phase classification is correct in 60.87±7.62% and the heat-map visualization correctness is 72.47±7.27%.

Enjoying death among gamers, viewers, and users: A network visualization of Dark Souls 3’s trends on Twitch.tv and Steam platforms

In current Game Research, gaming service platforms such as PlayStation Network, Steam, and Twitch.tv represent a still poorly investigated topic. Despite the millions of monthly viewers and members, little efforts have been done to shed light on their dynamics and trends. This article aims to address such a lack by presenting the findings of an empirical inquiry guided by the key concepts of “platform” and “actor–network theory” with the support of a novel network visualization technique. Specifically, the role-playing game Dark Souls 3–related activity on Steam and Twitch.tv was collected for the first 20 days from the release (12 April–1 May 2016). Targeted data concerned several variables among which: most viewed streamers, streaming types, debating topics and reviews’ highlights on Steam (etc.) through screenshots, user-generated content, and text gathering. Data were processed and then visualized with the network-oriented software Gephi for uncovering associations and patterns in the targeted online environments. The action game The Division worked as an exploratory case study and counter-example for stressing the proposal. Although with some limitations, the visualization strategy adopted (four networks for each platform) proved to be effective in framing and communicating the results in a straightforward way. Finally, findings enlightened a phenomenon (i.e. gaming service platforms), that is, getting increasingly central in digital entertainment, and might inform further investigations with alternative designs and focuses.

EvoCommander: A Novel Game Based on Evolving and Switching Between Artificial Brains

Neuroevolution [i.e., evolving artificial neural networks (ANNs) through evolutionary algorithms] has shown promise in evolving agents and robot controllers, which display complex behaviors and can adapt to their environments. These properties are also relevant to video games, since they can increase their longevity and replayability. However, the design of most current games precludes the use of any techniques which might yield unpredictable or even open-ended results. This paper describes the game EvoCommander, with the goal to further demonstrate the potential of neuroevolution in games. In EvoCommander the player incrementally evolves an arsenal of ANN-controlled behaviors (e.g., ranged attack, flee, etc.) for a simple robot that has to battle other player and computer controlled robots. The game introduces the novel game mechanic of “brain switching,” selecting which evolved neural network is active at any point during battle. Results from playtests indicate that brain switching is a promising new game mechanic, leading to players employing interesting different strategies when training their robots and when controlling them in battle.

Valuation and Hedging of Sports Futures Wagers

This study investigates, in a conceptual way, the intrinsic valuation of sports futures wagers and, given the absence of a viable secondary market, strategies for locking in pre-expiration value by hedging with the existing set of futures wagers, proposition wagers, and game wagers. An interesting finding is that effective hedging with game wagers generally involves games of teams other than the futures team, in addition to the futures-team’s games. The paper also shows how to use current game odds and futures odds to find the implicit projected odds on future games, conditional on the match-ups to be determined by the outcomes of current games.