Digital Role-playing Game Research Articles

Managing and controlling digital role-playing game elements: A current state of affairs

Role-playing games (RPGs) are interactive gaming experiences designed and driven by the intricate development of narratives and characters. However, these games also highlight elements, such as combat, exploration, creativity, and crafting. Game developers helped to shape the market by incorporating RPGs into digital media; however, they suffered restrictions in their game design and storytelling caused by technological limitations. Fortunately, academia has studied these challenges and mitigated these latter issues to better understand and connect digital RPGs with their analog versions. Our research offers a comprehensive overview of studies centered on technologies for managing, generating, and controlling digital RPG elements. We aim to characterize Artificial Intelligence research within this domain and elucidate the diverse techniques employed. In this context, we examined 72 papers about Procedural Content Generation (PCG) in RPG, which were identified by mixing a database search with a snowballing method. In this paper, we provide an overview of PCG techniques investigated within the realm of RPGs and present the trending approaches for future developments in the field.

Introducing the Single Player Offline Game Corpus (spoc): a corpus of seven registers from digital role-playing games

This paper describes the compilation and design of the Single Player Offline Game Corpus (spoc), which is being made freely available for research and educational purposes. The spoc was compiled by extracting the localisation files from the digital directories of four popular commercial digital role-playing games: Divinity: Original Sin II, Fallout 4, the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The 3.7 million word corpus contains more than 30,000 texts and is unique compared with other game corpora in that it has the following three characteristics: ( 1) the texts are categorised into seven registers using Biber and Conrad’s (2019) register framework, ( 2) texts are systematically parsed into the smallest meaningful units of observation, and ( 3) all texts were compiled from the data files of the games themselves. Nearly all language use in the four games is accounted for and parsed into register categories based on their underlying situational characteristics – in particular, the communicative purposes and the associated contexts in which the texts appear in the games.

An Exploratory Investigation of a Digital Role-Playing Game in Vocational Teacher Education

In the professionalization of aspiring teachers, the fostering of digital media competencies is increasingly coming into focus. Although digital games predominantly arrived in the lifeworld of students and teachers as digital natives and gamer generation teachers, their application in form of Digital Game-Based Learning in teacher training stays behind expectations. This paper deals with the digital role-playing game InCoLearn which shall enable the collaborative acquisition of vocational competencies and the reflection on teaching methods and classroom situations in vocational lectureship. The investigation employing the prototype provides results on gender- and user-specific differences and attitudes towards digital games.

Book Review: The Digital Role-Playing Game and Technical Communication: A History of Bethesda, BioWare, and CD Projekt Red by Reardon, Daniel, & Wright, David

Book Review: <i>The Digital Role-Playing Game and Technical Communication: A History of Bethesda, BioWare, and CD Projekt Red</i> by Reardon, Daniel, &amp; Wright, David

Using Digital Games to Promote Equity in Career and Health Education: A Prototype of Caduceus Quest

Black and Latinx adolescents in urban schools can derive numerous benefits from tailored career and health education. However, many factors may prevent schools and teachers from offering such programing. To address the need for career and health education, we prototyped Caduceus Quest, a theory-based, digital role-playing game designed to provide information on health and biomedical science careers and sexual health (specifically HIV) for Black and Latinx adolescents. Forty high-school-aged adolescents participated in small group sessions to playtest the prototype. Post-intervention, adolescents reported increased interest in health and biomedical science careers, as well as HIV knowledge and PrEP awareness.

Modelling Goal-Directed Players in Digital Games

The pursuit of a viable model of player behaviour has gained momentum in research in recent years, and it is beginning to attract the attention of the designers of next-generation digital games. In this paper, we present a novel enhancement to player modelling that is well-suited to the digital role-playing and puzzle game industries, titled Goal-Directed- Player Modelling, in which state abstraction based on a player's goals is used to improve the performance of a classifier for predicting player actions. We survey a set of related research, formally introduce a method for Goal-Directed-Player Modelling, and present empirical results which clearly show the ability of Goal-Directed-Player Modelling to greatly improve the accuracy of a simple, online, low cost incremental classi ier to a level near those of more advanced and complex of line methods.&lt;/p&gt;

Digital game-based learning of information literacy: Effects of gameplay modes on university students’ learning performance, motivation, self-efficacy and flow experiences

Information literacy (IL) is important for university students. In this research, we developed a digital role-playing game to enhance students’ learning of IL and investigated the effects of gameplay modes on their learning performance, motivation, self-efficacy and flow experiences. A total of 90 students participated in the study and played the game in collaborative, competitive and solo modes. Their IL knowledge was measured through a post-test after they completed the game and associated exercises. Their motivation, self-efficacy and flow experiences were evaluated through a questionnaire survey. The results indicated statistically significant effects of the gameplay modes on the students’ learning performance, motivation, self-efficacy and flow experiences. The solo mode was inferior to the other two in all four aspects. The collaborative mode significantly outperformed the competitive mode in terms of enhancing learning performance and flow experience, while the competitive mode was significantly better in terms of promoting self-efficacy. These two modes were similarly effective in the dimension of motivation. Based on the results, we suggest that students play games in the collaborative or competitive modes when conditions permit. We also advise teachers to provide students with rich opportunities for discussion, collaboration and interaction and believe that an appropriate competitive atmosphere is important.

A digital role-playing game for learning: effects on critical thinking and motivation

ABSTRACT The present research examined the effect of digital role-playing game-based learning on high school students’ critical thinking ability. Playing a digital game designed with RPG Maker and whose story lines featured critical thinking questions, a total of 32 high school student participants were given a learning context to practice critical thinking skills repeatedly. A quasi-experimental design was implemented to explore how students’ performances in critical thinking skills and their learning motivation changed after participation in a four-day workshop camp. The results of the study showed that student participants achieved significant progress both in overall critical thinking performance and in learning motivation. Similar studies on the effectiveness of digital game-based learning on learning performance and learning motivation among students were also compared in lieu of the results of the present study. Both the quantitative and qualitative results of this study not only agreed with a majority of previous research findings on students’ learning performance and learning motivation, but revealed some distinctive pedagogical qualities among different skills of critical thinking. Practical suggestions were also provided to help future studies and instructional designs of digital game-based learning achieve effective learning and enhance learning motivation among students.

Reimagize – a digital card-based roleplaying game to improve adolescent girls’ body image

The perceived importance of beauty and physical appearance in 21st-century society is immense. Research has previously been found that being thin and/or muscular has become associated with being “hard-working, successful, popular, beautiful, strong, and self-disciplined,” whereas being “fat” is associated with being “lazy, ignorant, hated, ugly, weak, and lacking in will-power.” These stereotypes can negatively affect one’s self-esteem and ultimately result in poor performance or eating disorders. With that in mind, Reimagize, a role-playing with decision-making, was conjured, implementing social psychological concepts like counter-stereotyping and perspective-taking. As the game works implicitly to influence body image, it even counters image issues beyond personal body dissatisfaction. This study explored whether a digital role-playing card game, incorporating some of the most common prejudices of body image (like size prejudice, prejudices from the media, etc.) as identified by a digital survey/questionnaire completed by Indian girls aged 11-21, could counter these issues and reduce personal body dissatisfaction. The real-world effectiveness of the game was tested among 44 high school-age Indian girls using the Body Esteem Scale. In the pre- and post-game phases, there was a significant increase in the scores of the girls in the experimental group, specifically in weight concern and physical condition. Subscores in sexual attractiveness remained stagnant. With this success, there is scope to expand to other genders to improve body image, creating a positive change.

Designing a Digital Roleplaying Game to Foster Awareness of Hidden Disabilities

On Fighting Shadows (OFS) is a two-dimensional roleplaying game that tells the story of Marvin, a young adult that experiences hidden disabilities, focusing on hydrocephalus and its possible mental health implications, such as anxiety and depression. Developed with the goal of being both informational and engaging, OFS aims to increase awareness and foster discussions not only about hidden disabilities as medical conditions, but also as phenomena that are experienced in society. The objective of this design case is to describe the development process, including the design dilemmas, of the prototype of OFS, as well as to discuss future directions of this project. Both in the prototype design phase and in usability testing, the tension between learning and entertainment was observed, aligning with reflections from previous studies (Prestopnik, 2016). Playing OFS was also observed to engage users in experiencing symptoms of hydrocephalus and understanding the character’s feelings. Possible directions to improve the experience for different user profiles involve adaptation of game conditions for players that would like to prioritize educational information over fun, and vice-versa.

Gaming for peace: Gender awareness training and the Polish military

&lt;i&gt;Despite regulatory and legal changes, women are persistently underrepresented in military organisations on peacekeeping missions. This article argues that part of the reason for this can be found in persistent stereotypical ideas about gender roles, and looks at the attitudes and experience of Polish military personnel who have been deployed on peacekeeping missions as evidence of this. However, witnessing other militaries stance on gender, where such stereotypes are still there, but not as entrenched, can cause personnel to contextualise if not question their own organisation’s stance on gender. Sixteen Polish military peacekeepers were interviewed in-depth about their experiences on peacekeeping missions as part of a European H2020 project, Gaming for Peace (GAP). The interviews were used to build scenarios for a digital role-playing game to develop soft skills among peacekeeping personnel, and these soft skills included gender awareness. This article analyses the interviews to explore the experience of gender for both men and women in the Polish military, and shows that there is an urgent need for the type of training in gender awareness that is part of GAP.&lt;/i&gt;

Digital Role-Playing Games as Artefacts of Media Culture

Cultural significance of digital role-playing games is associated with dynamic emergence of communication technologies, media entertainment and new – digital – forms of cultural production. However, computer (digital) role-playing games (also called cRPGs) are, mainly in case of scholarly analyses and existing theoretical concepts, often compared to other, mostly live forms of role-playing. The academic reflections on undeniable differences between various types of role-playing tend to suggest that computer role-playing, even though it is a (financially as well as culturally) significant part of the digital games industry, is just a less diverse form of role-play that lacks both formal variety and content ingenuity and thus cannot be used as a tool for socialisation, education or therapy. The article, however, works with a basic assumption that the relationship between contemporary subcultures (or rather taste cultures and lifestyles), entertainment forms, computer role-playing games and the everyday lives of media audiences includes a complex set of aspects and specific features which are socially significant and rich in both form and content. The author focuses on defining digital role-playing games in relation with industrially produced culture, which is disseminated by the media, and argues that they are able to function not only as commercially efficient media products but also as valuable cultural artefacts. The main goal of the text is to offer complex theoretical outlines related to understanding computer role-playing and its cultural significance. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n2p368

Revitalizing Japanese American Internment: Critical Empathy and Role-Play in the Musical Allegiance and the Video Game Drama in the Delta

The incorporation of interactive technology into the memorialization of the World War II incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans enables those with no prior connection to this history to role-play the internment experience. This essay compares the author’s digital role-playing game Drama in the Delta with the Broadway-bound musical Allegiance , arguing that the shared impulse to use performance to walk in internees’ shoes threatens to eclipse historical understanding with an uncritical form of empathy.

The role of feedback in foreign language learning through digital role playing games

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the use of digital games for purposes other than pure entertainment, including (formal) training and education. This paper examines the cognitive benefits of the genre of digital role-playing games for foreign language learning, with specific attention to the role of focus-on-form approaches and language-directed feedback. Suggestions for research are made, with particular reference to how formal properties and learner perceptions of feedback may mediate learning outcomes as well as gameplay experience.

Book Review: The Mergence of Spaces by Elke Hemminger

Review of Elke Hemmingers doctoral thesis The Mergence of Spaces. Experiences of Reality in Digital Role-Playing Games