Game Description Research Articles

Serious games as interpretive tools in complex natural tourist attractions

With the growing adoption of IT in tourism, mobile games are becoming an attractive interpretive tool, particularly in heritage contexts where a deeper appreciation for the heritage attraction may serve to safeguard it into the future. This study adopts a user-centred approach to systematically explore the process of developing a serious game as an interpretive tool for the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. The study uses a gaming conceptual framework, the Design-Play-Experience (DPE) model and data were collected in situ, on reef tours, by observing respondents’ interactions with the game, video recording and reviewing their gameplay and through pre and post interviews with respondents until data saturation was reached (n = 34). The findings illustrate how games can be designed to represent a complex and threatened ecosystem and elicit positive emotions among tourists, particularly curiosity and delight. The study illustrates the usefulness of the DPE framework to move beyond a simple description of games to a systematic, user-centred analysis of the process of creating a serious game to solve a particular interpretive problem. The study also confirms that designing a bespoke game for a tourist attraction is a costly and difficult process, requiring iterations of the game design, that is arguably outside the scope of many nature-based/heritage tourism businesses.

Application research of nanovideo creation technology in modern art

Nanomaterials are one of the new materials in the 21st century. When the size of the materials is at the nanometre level, they exhibit special physical and chemical properties that macromaterials cannot. At present, nanoproduct design has been widely used in many fields and shows unique performance advantages of nanoproducts. As the most promising material, it has characteristics that are difficult to achieve with ordinary materials. This paper introduces the special properties of nanomaterials, and lays the foundation for product case analysis. Nanoart is a branch of science and art derived from the development of nanotechnology in recent years. Since the development of this discipline is only a few years old, many related concepts and terms are not mature enough and have not been widely recognised by the industry. The paper analyses the definition of nanoart, art forms, and the concepts and words related to nanoart such as DNA art. Finally, the connotation of computer-assisted nanoart is also discussed. As an important form of nanoart, nanovideo has achieved rapid development in recent years. The level of creation of nanovideo works depends on people's understanding of the world of micro-nano, which is directly related to nanotechnology and computer technology. This paper gives the definition and classification of nanovideo art, introduces the creation method of nanovideo, and finally gives a brief description of nano online games in nanovideo.

XML-Based Video Game Description Language

This paper presents the XML-based Video Game Description Language (XVGDL), a new language for specifying Video games which is based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML). The proposal is portable and extensible, and allows games to not only be defined at engine level but also includes specific features that can lead the game design process whilst simultaneously reducing the gap between game specification and its corresponding game implementation. XVGDL is as generic as possible, making it possible to describe different genres of games. This paper focuses on presenting the basis of the language. The paper describes the syntax as well as the components of XVGDL, and provides examples of their use. Defining games via XML structures provides all the advantages of the management of XML files and opens up interesting lines of research. Our proposal provides a number of novel features. So, XVGDL game definitions can be managed as any other XML file, which means that it can be automatically handled by any XML file management software. Another interesting feature is that XVGDL can specify game components (e.g., game Artificial), in-game processes (e.g., the procedural generation of maps) or in-game events (e.g., the checking of the conditions to end a game match) via the association with external (possibly non-XML) files. Moreover, XVGDL files can be easily validated as any XML file what means that validations against a particular Document Type Definition (DTD) or XML Schema Definition (XSD) are possible. In addition, the paper presents a first prototype implementation of a (text-based) interpreter that allows XVGDL game specifications as a playable game to be executed. This tool not only validates our proposal but also represents a first step towards smoothing the path to obtaining an executable version of a game from its game specification.

Being a Realistic Master: Creating Props and Environments Design for AAA Games

To maximize the potential of computer games beyond entertainment, it is crucial to lower design and development costs and delegate production to domain specialists. While specialists may be interested in incorporating games, they often need more technical expertise to design or customize games for their requirements. To simplify game creation and improve user experience, we suggest defining games as a mixture of simpler games developed through combinatorial creativity. This method avoids the cognitive strain of learning a new design language. Along with speeding up game descriptions, designers might use a set of archetypical games to achieve their goals rather than starting from scratch. The design technique is enhanced by a game platform that provides authoring tools for exporting game designs to XML files and a game engine that automatically generates a 3D virtual world for play. This study explored how this approach allows designers to build games and evaluate their validity through play iteratively. Here, the combinatorial technique was assessed in two focus groups, demonstrating its viability and appeal among technical and non-technical users.

Ovid and Statius, Thebaid 6.54–78. Necessary Allusions or a Metapoetic Dialogue?

Statius’ description of the funeral games held in honor of the baby Opheltes contains several utterances reminiscent of Ovid. The paper aims to show that these should not be read as the so-called necessary allusions, but rather as the poet’s complex dialogue with his predecessor.

Formation Skills of An Officer-Leader

Education of a cadet as a leader is integral to training of officers at many military educational institutions worldwide. A number of them appreciate the necessity of purposeful formation of psychological skills of a leader in future officers. However, psychological training of cadets is limited, since military specialty courses take the lead in the general officers training system. It is possible to create effective conditions for formation and development of psychological skills of a leader in future officers over a fairly short period of time using a role-playing game in the form of psychological hands-on classes. The research objectives were identifying the characteristics of the activities of army officers as leaders and a set of relevant psychological skills; making an overview of the need for leadership (psychological) training of cadets in various countries of the world based on study of official sites of military academies; outlining traditional approaches to education of a military leader and substantiating the expediency of using a role-playing game in the form of psychological hands-on classes; giving a description of a role-playing game; revealing the essence of individual psychological skills of an officer-leader and specifics of their enhancement in the course of a game. This paper reveals the theoretical and experimental aspects of research devoted to introduction of this role-playing game. In particular, it gives its description, identifies the psychological skills of an officer-leader that were studied, and describes the state of these skills enhancement.

General Video Game AI: A Multitrack Framework for Evaluating Agents, Games, and Content Generation Algorithms

General video game playing aims at designing an agent that is capable of playing multiple video games with no human intervention. In 2014, the General Video Game Artificial Intelligence (GVGAI) competition framework was created and released with the purpose of providing researchers a common open-source and easy-to-use platform for testing their artificial intelligence (AI) methods with potentially infinity of games created using the video game description language (VGDL). The framework has been expanded into several tracks during the last few years to meet the demands of different research directions. The agents are required either to play multiple unknown games with or without access to game simulations, or to design new game levels or rules. This survey paper presents the VGDL, the GVGAI framework, existing tracks, and reviews the wide use of GVGAI framework in research, education, and competitions five years after its birth. A future plan of framework improvements is also described.

Ролевая игра как элемент ранней языковой профессионализации

Role-playing games develop the ability to organize and implement educational and cognitive activities in the field of vocational education. The article defines the role-playing game, its scenario features, methodical orientation. It also reveals its difference from business games. The author provides a description and analysis of several role-playing games that can be carried out at an early stage of language learning for the purpose of language professionalization. The selection of material for games involves both lexical units necessary for linguo-cultural communication, and grammatical rules that can help the development of a given topic. To analyze the results, the author uses data from a survey conducted among students who participated in the game. On the basis of these data, the charts demonstrating the readiness of students to work with Italian partners and in a multicultural environment are constructed. The carts show an increase of students’ confidence in their business communication skills with foreign partners. Knowledge of professional discourse and the ability to deal with it relieves stress, contributes to personal development. At the end of the article the author concludes that the use of a role-playing game as a productive modern technology for training international economists in a foreign language at an early stage contributes to the development of professional competencies.

A Web-Based Simulation Game for Teaching Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management (SCM) is a complex business discipline because it combines the concepts of forecasting, inventory management, logistics and distribution, vertical and horizontal integration, and global issues. This complexity creates a challenge when teaching the concepts to both undergraduate and graduate students. A web-based computer simulation can be very useful in helping students to grasp the difficult concepts. It helps students to think systematically and logically as they progress through scenarios with uncertainties and complexity. This article provides detailed implementation protocols for using a web-based SCM game including game descriptions, classroom pedagogy, and simulation assessment. Recommendations are also provided based on the instructor’s experience.

A real-time decentralized algorithm for task scheduling in multi-agent system with continuous damage

In this paper, a common model of task scheduling problems in agent rescue scenario is proposed, in which tasks with continuous dynamic damage are introduced to capture the emerging applications of using rescue robots and other resources to enhance human disaster rescue capability. Beyond this, we mainly focus on finding the optimal task scheduling strategy. We design a heuristic algorithm based on greedy strategy to obtain the optimal dynamic scheduling strategy of agents. Compared with solving global integer programming directly, the computational time is greatly reduced. The proof of the greedy strategy’s validity is also demonstrated under some specific damage functions. By comparing with the two strategies commonly used in real life, it is proved that our strategy is optimal. For practical application, we design an automatic negotiation framework, which realizes the real-time decentralized automated negotiation of agents. Then, using Game Description Language (GDL) as a tool, an automated negotiation algorithm is implemented, which enables agents to adjust the plan dispersedly. Experiments show that the algorithm is more efficient than the centralized algorithm in the case of limited communication.

Game Developers' Approaches to Communicating Climate Change

Educational games are potential tools for communicating climate science to the public and thus improving public understanding of climate change. In this article we explore the use of co-design methodologies, a participatory open design process, to communicate climate change to a wider audience. To this end, we hosted Climate Jam 2018, a game jam with the objective of creating games to communicate climate change science and to gain insight into how developers approach educational game design. The inclusive event attracted professional game developers and hobbyists from four continents. Participants received a science pack with scientific information about climate change and completed a pre- and post-game-jam survey containing questions relating to climate change, motivations, and game design principles. We present a description of select games that highlight different approaches to communicating climate change to a general audience. Additional results from the surveys showed that few game developers engaged with the science pack and other resources in depth, that communicating climate science was of medium interest to game developers, and that the games’ potential learning effects relate mostly to memorizing and recalling the information communicated in the games. The results are discussed with respect to improving communication between scientists and game developers in the co-creation process.

GAME-BASED LEARNING ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING GRADE 7 SCIENCE

Game – based learning is a process of inquiry that requires asking questions, observing, data exploration and data manipulation. It requires learning to apply and generalize scientific knowledge. Creating such learning environment requires engaging learners in different games. Active engagement in learning activities develops conceptual understanding and motivates students to seek further information.
 The study described the game – based learning activities in teaching science as assessed by science teachers relative to motivation, application, feedback and reinforcement. It also analyzed significant differences in the teachers’ assessments on the game – based activities according to profile variables. The extent by which the learning competencies were achieved and the constraints met using game – based learning activities were determined.
 The descriptive method was used with the questionnaire as the main instrument to gather important data complimented by interview. Respondents were 35 science teachers in and the statistical tools used were weighted mean, frequency, t-test and F-test were the statistical tools used in this study.
 The findings revealed that majority of secondary science teachers in Oblate Schools were female, single, early adult with bachelor’s degree. The science teachers strongly agreed that game – based learning activities utilized in application component. There is a significant difference between the descriptions of game – based learning activities when grouped according to age. The learning competencies in Biology and Physics are achieved to a moderate extent but slightly achieved in Earth Science and Biology. Insufficient materials and individual differences of the students were constraints met by science teachers.

A Revised Definition of Games: An Analysis of Grasshopper Errors, Omissions, and Ambiguities

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I review Suits’ classic description of games and cite three kinds of problems—mischaracterizations, omissions, and ambiguities. I build on previous criticisms by myself and others leveled at his definition. However, in contrast to much of this previous work, I will present what I hope is an improved description. The latter part of the essay is devoted to defending this alternate characterization. I conclude by arguing that my revisionist work paradoxically both supports and undermines the merits of Suits’ anti-Wittgensteinian efforts to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for games.

Developing a Robot-Guided Interactive Simon Game for Physical and Cognitive Training

Enveloping cognitive or physical rehabilitation into a game highly increases the patients’ commitment with their treatment. Specially with children, keeping them motivated is a very time-consuming work, so therapists are demanding tools to help them with this task. NAOTherapist is a generic robotic architecture that uses Automated Planning techniques to autonomously drive noncontact upper-limb rehabilitation sessions for children with a humanoid NAO robot. Our aim is to develop more robotic games for this platform to enrich its variability and possibilities of interaction. The goal of this work is to present our first attempt to develop a different, more complex game that reuses the previous architecture. We contribute with the design description of a novel robotic Simon game that employs upper-limb poses instead of colors and could qualify as a cognitive and physical training. Statistics of evaluation tests with 14 adults and 56 children are displayed and the outcomes are analyzed in terms of human–robot interaction (HRI) quality. The results demonstrate the application-domain generalization capabilities of the NAOTherapist architecture and give an insight to further analyze the therapeutic benefits of the new developed Simon game.

Inscription and ‘Anscription’: Surface and System in Cybernetics, Deconstruction, and Don DeLillo

This essay proposes the concept of ‘anscription’, and employs it to re-think some of the typical valences of inscription in media theory. The word is derived from the German anschreiben, which can simply mean, ‘to write up’, but also refers to the specific act, and the set of social relations that come into place, when one writes something up on a blackboard. Not quite encompassed by inscription, it offers an essential counterpart to the term for media-oriented thinkers. The essay draws out this corresponding function through readings of three imagined (but not-quite-imaginary) media, across which emerges a dialectic in the cultural imaginary of inscription. The first comes from the mathematician Norbert Wiener’s description of a mechanism that would translate written text into tactile impressions; the second, from Jacques Derrida’s historical framing of the project of deconstruction in relation to writing systems; and the third, from a thirty-two-page description of an American football game in Don DeLillo’s 1972 novel, End Zone. Each will offer a different exemplification of the function termed ‘anscription’. Just as significantly, each example presents this function in relation to the technical possibilities of media and articulates it through a theory of the body that is entangled with writing.

Serious Games for Children with Chronic Diseases: A Systematic Review.

The purpose of this study was to systematically review the literature to assess if serious games impact health outcomes for children less than 18 years of age with chronic diseases. Additionally, the impact of self-efficacy, adherence, knowledge, use of theory, parent involvement, and study quality was also examined. Searches were conducted in databases EBSCO, PubMed, and Web of Science between June and August 2016. Randomized controlled trials using a serious game as an intervention, for participants under 18 years of age, to improve their chronic disease were included. Data were extracted by two independent researchers, including: Title, author, and publication year; chronic disease; game description; number and age of participants; intervention duration; significant findings; parent involvement; theory; and study quality. Any disagreements were tackled and consensus was achieved. Eighteen studies were included in the review. The areas of health addressed included cerebral palsy, asthma, diabetes, developmental coordination disorders, and vision disorders. In these articles, eight health outcome variables were measured, including: lung function, glycemic control, hospital visits, motor proficiency, and visual acuity. Psychosocial variables that were assessed included self-efficacy and knowledge. Two articles included parents in the intervention, and three articles used theory. Six studies had significant health outcome finding, and four studies found a significant change in one psychosocial variable. This review demonstrates the potential for games to improve health outcomes of young individuals. However, the mixed results suggest that more serious game interventions need to be better designed and rigorously tested to support their impact on improving health outcomes.

Pengaruh Permainan Tradisional Dalam Meningkatkan Keterampilan Sosial Siswa SMP

This study aims to determine the description of traditional games as a medium of counseling in improving the social skills of students and know the influence of traditional games as a medium of counseling in improving students' social skills. The research used quasi experiment with Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design design research. The samples used purposive sampling with 12 experimental group and 12 control group. Instrument using social skill scale. The findings of this study reveal that 1) the level of social skills of students in SMP Negeri 18 Makassar before being treated in the form of traditional games are in the "low" category and after being given a traditional game increases or is in the 'high' category. 2) there is a significant positive effect of traditional games in improving students' social skills. That is, the students' social skills can be improved by the provision of traditional games.

5. Juego de palos venezolano, praxiología motriz y educación

El juego de palos venezolano, mejor conocido como juego de garrote, por lo general se ubica en un contexto folclórico-cultural vinculado con música, danza y religión (juego de la batalla). Es poco conocido en su origen utilitario, una esgrima maderera. Desde este enfoque, como un método de pelea, hay pocos estudios académicos; contiene un legado de aprendizajes, tradiciones y creencias, así como costumbres sociales y culturales que conforman la identidad nacional. Ello es fundamental para la educación. Este ensayo hace una descripción breve de dicho juego tradicional desde una perspectiva: la Praxiología Motriz, como un aporte para su conocimiento, comprensión, difusión e implementación de esta manifestación cultural. La experiencia desarrollada de quien escribe demuestra que puede ser usado como herramienta para la formación integral. Se busca estimular una veta de nuevas formas que puedan dar aportes a la educación, en particular en el área de la Educación Física

Using Game Description Language for mediated dispute resolution

Mediation is a process in which two parties agree to resolve their dispute by negotiating over alternative solutions presented by a mediator. In order to construct such solutions, the mediator brings more information and knowledge, and, if possible, resources to the negotiation table. In order to do so, the mediator faces the challenge of determining which information is relevant to the current problem, given a vast database of knowledge. The contribution of this paper is the automated mediation machinery to resolve this issue. We define the concept of a Mediation Problem and show how it can be described in Game Description Language (GDL). Furthermore, we present an algorithm that allows the mediator to efficiently determine which information is relevant to the problem and collect this information from the negotiating agents. We show with several experiments that this algorithm is much more efficient than the naive solution that simply takes all available knowledge into account.

Towards a Grid for Characterizing and Evaluating Crisis Management Serious Games

Over the last few decades, interest has grown in the use of serious games (SG) and their assessment in almost every sector. A privileged application domain of SG is crisis management (CM) in which these tools improve crisis behavior and/or management in a safe environment while reducing training costs. However, it is difficult to characterize and evaluate such specific SG. This article proposes a comprehensive grid defining features for description, analysis and evaluation of Crisis Management Serious Games (CMSG). First of all, the authors introduce SG, CM as well as evaluation and assessment concepts, and discuss their particular challenges by highlighting the need of using assessment and evaluation techniques to support learning and/or training. Then, the authors present, classify and compare the most relevant techniques dedicated to address this need by encompassing the state of the art of learners' assessment and evaluation approaches used in CMSG. Finally, this article presents in detail the proposed grid and discusses the major findings and contributions.