Game Development Tools Research Articles

Embracing Global and Local

The paper explores cases of immigrant/expatriate game developers (“game expats”) in Finland, focusing on the influence of global platforms and local game development practices. Results from qualitatively analyzing longitudinal interview transcripts (n=64) collected from 2020 to 2023 indicate that the migration of game expats is inherently bound to globally shared and fast-changing game development tools and platforms (e.g., shared game engines, publishing channels). Thus, an individual’s digital compatibility with global technical practices positively affects the motivation to migrate. Meanwhile, countries and companies each have different ways of implementing game development practices into work (e.g., different terminology, prioritization). The individuals’ ability to adapt to such local interpretations of practices positively affects settlement and motivation to stay. However, despite the pluralistic nature of game development — of both global and local factor’s influence — the incidents of cultural encounters and tryouts were often perceived as a risk amongst game developers. This negative perception leads to game expats’ assimilation and self-exploitative work attitudes. Therefore, the paper calls for a joint effort of industrial and societal game ecosystem stakeholders to encourage cultural competence and tolerance in the ecosystem to nurture sustainable talent pools and inclusive game work environments.

GAME DEVELOPMENT TOOLS AND AI BASED ALGORITMS FOR CREATION OF GAMEWORLD

Game development is a complex and time-consuming process that requires the use of specialized tools and technologies to create immersive and engaging game worlds. Game world design theory involves creating a virtual environment that is immersive, engaging, and meaningful for players. In recent years, the use of AI-based algorithms has become increasingly popular in game development, as they offer the ability to generate dynamic and varied game worlds that adapt to the player's actions. In this manuscript we will discuss the main issues connected with game development tools and AI based algoritms for creation of gameworld.

Development of an Enjoyable Educational Game on Fundamental Programming: Designing for Inclusion and Learning Analytics

A well-discussed problem is how to attract a new public to computer programming, and especially how to reach girls and women. At the same time research reports on that children spend considerable amounts of time playing different types of games, where educational games today are part of formal, informal and non-formal learning. However, many educational games still have a design that appeals more to boys than to girls. Another problem addressed in this paper is how to measure the learning outcomes of an education game. It is a challenge per se to design for joyful gaming, but to assess the learning outcomes is important if the game should be accepted by teachers and a part of teaching and learning activities. The aim of this study was to describe and discuss the design and development of an educational game where girls would like to play together and at the same time learn fundamental programming. The research question that guided this study was: " How could a motivating and inclusive educational game on fundamental programming be designed and developed, with minimal prerequisites for students and teachers?". The overall strategy for the design and development of the was the Design Science Research (DSR) approach. This work was carried out according to the recognised DSR process with the five phases of: 1) Explicating the problem, 2) Defining the requirements, 3) Designing and developing the artefact, 4) Demonstrating the artefact, and 5) Evaluating the artefact. Phase one was based on a minor literature study, while Phase 2 was a combination of a larger and more systematic literature study combined with game testing. Phase 3 was conducted with brain storming sessions for design followed by implementation in the Unity game development tool. Finally, the game has been demonstrated for, and tested by, a group of academic game developers. Results from the formative evaluation look promising, but the important next step in this project is a more formal evaluation using game-based learning analytics with a larger and more diverse test audience.

Comparative Analysis of Game Development Tools

This article discusses several engines used for game development. Developers use game engines as a tool to manage complex aspects of the gameplay. The article describes several engines: Unity, Unreal Engine and Cry Engine to choose the best one for the initial stages of development. Research has shown that Unity is a suitable engine for small development teams, Unreal Engine is designed to develop high-quality games with intense graphics, while the feature of Cry Engine is to create realistic natural environments.

WAYS TO CREATE INTELLECTUAL GAMES FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN

The creation of intellectual games is a laborious process that includes not only the creation of an interesting gameplay, but also the use of modern technologies and tools, as well as the development of effective artificial intelligence algorithms. This report examines the main components of smart games, such as the game mechanism, artificial intelligence and design. In addition, examples of successful intellectual games and prospects for their development in the future were presented. Various game development tools, such as game engines and specialized software, can be used to create intelligent games. The use of artificial intelligence in games allows you to create unique and interesting game scenarios and algorithms for NPC behavior. The development of intellectual games opens up new opportunities in the field of education, media industry and science, so the creation of such games is of great importance for our lives

The Development of Interactive Games for Covid-19 Prevention Using Indonesian Health Protocols

COVID-19 has become a virus spreading quickly across the world.The government of Indonesia also immediately adjusted theconditions to minimize the spread of the COVID-19 virus byimplementing the health protocols 5M namely, wearing a mask,washing hands, keeping distance, avoiding crowds, and reducingmobility. With the advancement of technology, games can be used aseducational media to support users learning processes and increasetheir knowledge. Therefore, we conducted a study using the learningsupport media, namely interactive games based on a personalcomputer platform with the Windows operating system to help theusers understand the prevention of the COVID-19 virus byimplementing health protocols. This study proposes using a structurefor the iterative cycle process called the ADDIE model framework andusing the Unity game engine for its game development tools. Tomeasure the feasibility of interactive games as educational media, weuse the System Usability Scale method. Based on the applicationtesting of 50 respondents, interactive games get a score of 90 on a scalethat is acceptable. The results also indicate that interactive games aseducational media will improve the users learning process andmotivation about implementing the health protocols.

A modeling environment for reinforcement learning in games

Developing Non-Player Characters, i.e., game characters that interact with the game’s environment autonomously with flexibility to experiment different behavior configurations is not a trivial task. Traditionally, this has been done with techniques that limit the complexity of the behavior of Non-Player Characters (NPCs), as in the case of using Navigation Mesh (NavMesh) for navigation behaviors. For this problem, it has been shown that reinforcement learning can be more efficient and flexible than traditional techniques. However, integrating reinforcement learning into current game development tools is laborious, given that a great deal of experimentation and coding is required. For that, we have developed a modeling environment that integrates with a game development tool and allows the direct specification of reward functions and NPC agent components with maximum code reuse and automatic code generation.

A Survey of Estonian Video Game Industry Needs

Designing a video game design and development curriculum in higher education is a challenging task. Information about the needs of the respective industry certainly helps. In this paper, we have surveyed Estonian video game development companies to determine their current needs when it comes to knowledge areas, software tools, languages, abilities, and contextual fluencies. The survey is based on a similar survey conducted a decade ago and this paper compares the current results with those found earlier.
 
 Compared to the prior survey, we have found significant differences in the rated importance of knowledge in optimization, version control technologies, the C, C++, and C# programming languages, and the time management ability for video game development companies looking to hire university graduates. We have also extended the previous survey to include a contemporary selection of game design and development tools. Based on that, we have determined a strong need for graduates with skills specifically in Unity and Unreal Engine game engines, Photoshop raster image editing software, and Git version control software.
 
 While most of our results are largely consistent with the previous research, our added survey items like visual languages and game engines bring the results to the modern context. This allows curriculum designers and managers to see the differences regarding the landscape of industry needs for their graduates and thus make more informed decisions in their work.

2022 Gaming Event: Battle Royale 14 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Reports on the 14th Battle Royal, the annual gaming event that took place from March 4–6, 2022, in Ottawa, ON, Canada. This charity event, hosted by the IEEE Carleton and IEEE uOttawa student branches, fundraised over $1000 for the Ottawa Food Bank. This event also housed a game jam, which is a hackathon but specifically focused on game design and development. Technical workshops and a networking opportunity with industry professionals were offered to game jam attendees, opening the door for students to learn about game development and industry-standard tools and technologies.

The Effects of Gamification on E-learning Education: Systematic Literature Review and Conceptual Model

The concept of implementing games or gamifification in education is becoming a growing area in the last decade and a blistering topic among researchers, professors and educational systems. Gaming in education aims to simplify and improve the learning process using technology. Nevertheless, accessibility and inclusion of gaming elements in the higher educational systems inside universities are considered yet. Most of the graduated students endure achieving the mandatory eLearning training to succeed in their integration inside companies. For example, engineers must follow some eLearning courses about Security, Ethics, Agility, Phishing Detection, General Data Protection Regulation...etc., which is tedious. Hence, our research seeks to ease and succeed the integration into companies by applying gamifification to these eLearning courses to engage and motivate students to master them before graduation. This paper discusses the use of games in education, then presents a literature review about learning theories, game theory and design, game development process and tools. By collecting hundreds of papers from multiple research databases, we conceived a journal classifification, a word frequency analysis using cloud visualization. Then a comparative study based on the topic’s occurrences in our corpus. Finally, a comparison of different conceptual models for gamifification of e-learning environments. These results offer an insightful introduction to the application of game elements in educational settings and the implementation of gamifification in e-learning courses.

Biofeedback Methods in Entertainment Video Games

The area of biofeedback interaction has grown over recent years, thanks to the release of more affordable and reliable sensor technology, and the accessibility offered by modern game development tools. This article presents a systematic literature review focusing on how different biofeedback interaction methods have been used for entertainment purposes in video games, between 2008 and 2020. It divides previous contributions in terms of a proposed interaction classification criteria and five different biofeedback methods (with a sixth category combining them): electroencephalography, electrocardiography, eye tracking, electrodermal activity, electromyography, and multi-modal interaction. The review describes the properties, sensor technologies, and the type of data gathered for every included biofeedback method, and presents their respective interaction techniques. It summarizes a set of opportunities and challenges for each included method, based on the results from previous work, and discusses these findings. It also analyzes how these interaction techniques are distributed between different common game genres. The review is beneficial for people interested in biofeedback methods and their potential use for novel interaction techniques in future video games.

The development of two-level cardboard game tool

ABSTRACT The use of virtual reality in games allows players to experience immersive game content, while the development of virtual reality content includes hardware, programming, art and design professionals. Playing virtual reality games with Cardboard is cheaper and easier to promote, but the display performance and delay time of the mobile phone used in Cardboard are poor. Under the hardware limitation, in order to reduce the visual discomfort of the player, 2D and 3D art will be combined to create a 3D model with low number of polygons, and more computer graphics technology will be used to reduce the burden on the hardware and enhance the display effect. However, the gameplay is limited by the operation of the device, which limits its game design. Cardboard game design and development are difficult. The game development tool developed in this study has two levels of basic templates and flexible modules, so that beginners and experienced students can reduce the pressure of programming when making Cardboard games, so as to improve the quality of the games produced by students.

Germinate: A Mixed-Initiative Casual Creator for Rhetorical Games

Digital games are hindered as an artform by significant technical barriers to entry, which exclude many would-be game developers from participating in this medium of expression. Casual creators for game design attempt to mitigate these barriers, but—like conventional game development tools—often require users to “work their way up” from low-level mechanics to high-level rhetorical or expressive goals, rather than allowing them to start with high-level rhetorical goals and “work their way down.” The constraint-based game generator Gemini is well-suited to the generation of games that meet high-level expressive goals, but is difficult for casual users to work with. We present Germinate, a mixed-initiative casual creator for rhetorical games that extends Gemini with a more approachable graphical user interface. A preliminary expert evaluation revealed that Germinate affords a playful approach to rhetorical game design by generating games that successfully meet user intent in surprising and novel ways.

ARgent: Web Tabanlı Dinamik İçerik Destekli Artırılmış Gerçeklik Geliştirme Altyapısı

Günümüzün dünyasında insanlar interaktif teknolojilere daha fazla ilgi duyuyor. İnteraktif teknolojilerin en yenilikçi örneklerinden biri olan artırılmış Artırılmış gerçeklik (AG), her ne kadar işe yarasa da, AG uygulamaları geliştirmek programlama ve oyun geliştirme araçları hakkında uzun süren eğitimler sonucu kazanılan bilgi ve tecrübeler gerektiriyor. Diğer yandan tasarım ve içerik oluşturma konusunda yetenekli insanlar, AG uygulaması geliştirmekten ve yönetmekten mahrum kalabiliyor. Bu makalede ARgent, Unity’de geliştirilen bir AR geliştirme aracı tanıtılacaktır. Bu altyapı iş akışının tamamını kapsayan bir yol haritası temin eder ve sunucu, web arayüzü ve mobil uygulama gibi üç ayrı cephede hizmet verir. Sunucu objelerin paketlenmesi ve optimizasyonu, veritabanı yönetimi ve verinin web arayüzü ve mobil arayüze sağlanması gibi görevleri üstlenir. Web arayüzü kullanımı kolay ve herkes tarafından erişilebilir olması neticesiyle bir içerik yönetim sistemi olarak görev görür. Mobil uygulama ise son kullanıcı tarafından kullanılacak uygulamadır. ARgent sadece kullanıcı arayüzünü (GUI) kullanarak ve hiçbir programla yapmaya gerek kalmadan uygulamalar geliştirilmesini sağlayacaktır. Kullanıcılara alışık oldukları bir deneyim sunmak amacıyla, işlemler halihazırda varolan diğer araçlara benzer olacaktır. Unity’de görsellerin dinamik olarak içeri aktarılması sebebiyle ortaya çıkan performans problemleri, ARgent’in sunduğu ve yenilikçi bir yöntem olan “asset bundling” yöntemi ile çözülmüştür. Son olarak, altyapı bir Javascript motoru barındırır ve böylece kullanıcılar kendi betiklerini entegre ederek isteğe göre kullanıcı arayüzü ve nesne davranışı tanılmayabilir.

도심비행환경 3D GIS맵을 이용한 복합항법 성능 검증을 위한 Unity3D기반 PILS 설계

This paper presents PILS using Unity3D, a game development tool, for verification of navigation performance in various environments. The navigation performed with PILS is a fusion/complex navigation using GPS navigation and 3D GIS maps and multiple distance sensors in urban environments where satellite signals are not reliable. Accordingly, the topography and the building are constituted by utilizing the Unity3D program, and the virtual data are created by modeling sensors, vehicles, and vehicle’s guidance and controller. To create a more realistic simulation, actual sensor noise characteristics, and actual flight maneuvers are analyzed. Data are transferred to a navigation module used for actual flight by using serial communication, a navigation solution obtained from the navigation module is plotted in GCS. Solutions are transferred to a PC again where data are generated and finally compared with a true value in real-time.

Nonlinear Storytelling Method and Tools for Low-Threshold Game Development


 In our research project, an educational computer game was developed. To enable a low-threshold participation to the game development process for people with low information technology skills, tools for nonlinear storytelling software were reviewed. Nonlinear storytelling is a method in digital storytelling where the storyline is not linear but has branches. This is typical for interactive stories such as computer game plots. The aim of the study was to find easy to use tools suitable for educational game development. The history of nonlinear storytelling is shortly discussed from the early experimental literacy in pre-information technology age to hypertext and game development tools of information technology. Software for nonlinear storytelling is reviewed. Special attention is paid for usability, software licensing models, and integration with modern game engines. An open source storytelling software Twine was chosen for this project. Nonlinear stories (n = 14) were collected during the game development project. Participants were over 30 year old adults who had low information technology skills. A qualitative analysis of the collected stories is performed. Writing nonlinear stories is activity that is not familiar to most people. Common errors and misconceptions in collected stories are studied. Usability of the stories in the context of game integration is examined. These observations and findings are used to develop storytelling process more meaningful to students and to harness the nonlinear storytelling method more effectively in educational game development.

SIMPLIFICATION OF GAME DEVELOPMENT LEARNING VIA MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (MOOC): A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS

The complication of game development tools creates barriers of entry for the majority of students to eliminate a potential creative platform. Generally, this leads to students’ lack of interest in game development. Creativity among students remains highly untapped without a platform for creative development and engagement. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) offers a platform to teach a variety of courses without boundaries of time, space, and cost, including game development learning. Therefore, a preliminary analysis is conducted to identify current game development tools that can facilitate in the simplification of game development for students, to understand students’ perception on game development and their interest in engagement with it. The analysis is also to determine obstacles and hurdles they face in embracing it, to establish learning possibilities, and solutions that can be incorporated into a university program in hope that these tools can invigorate creative talents of students. This paper presents the review of literature on MOOCs and self-organized learning. The methodology of preliminary analysis is also discussed. Finally, the analysis of results and findings on student’s perceptions on applying game-based learning in education and their interest in game development courses, perception of game development-based learning are presented. The game development tool is evaluated to rate its specific features. The findings of preliminary analysis are hope ton help to improve enrolment, the suitability of MOOCs to engage students in creative learning of game development learning.

A Friendly Game Development Tool for Game Designer

This paper presents a friendly used game design tool for designer. Game design is a design work combined with design, art and programming techniques. Professional game engine (like Unity) used in game design need to write computer program in developing a game. In general, the students in design department are not familiar with the programming technology so easy to learn game design. If the program was written into the friendly user interface tools will enable designers to focus on design work for game design. Based on the above concept, this study develops a game modular programming tool with friendly user interface on Unity, which contains the living system of character, the reaction system when character touch objects, treasures collection, weapons control, NPC control and user interface systems, so that design students can use this tool easy to learn game design, and they can even develop a game by single person. This paper will also present the results of student work.

Perancangan Permainan Gelembung Huruf (Tokoh Wayang) Berbasis Sistem Operasi iOS Menggunakan Gamesalad

Currently, the globalization and modernization of the country make us forget the traditional culture. Not surprisingly, more people are not familiar with puppet , let alone moved to preserve it. Therefore, in this era get involved use of mobile devices such as smartphones as the most efficient tool as interactive learning media. Now, the use of smart mobile devices are no longer limited by age, therefore developers will try to exploit this as a media that can be used for interactive learning.Puppets as one of traditional Indonesian art is very typical of Indonesia. Aside from the form or shape, it can be seen also particularities of the story and the character of each puppet characters . Games that are culturally especially puppet is still rare, especially for mobile devices based on its iOS operating system. Thus the authors tried to make a game design that aims to increase knowledge about the names of the puppet characters.Game development tool use to make this game is GameSalad, with object -oriented programming concepts. GameSalad is one of game development tools that game developers can use to facilitate the making of the game for mobile devices based on the iOS operating system. The design phase begins with analysis requirement and system design. Implementation stage is done by building and developing the game in accordance with the draft that has been made, the implementation of the program. The testing phase is done with a black-box method.The results show that this game can run well on mobile devices with the iOS operating system. The buttons and functions on the game also can function properly and in accordance with their respective functionality. Based on the assessment provided by a sample of users, the game "Gelembung Huruf (Tokoh Wayang)” is considered attractive, easy to understand and play, able to gain knowledge about the names of the puppet characters, raises curiosity, as well as look good game, so the user's attention to play this game again.

Wither Mario Factory?

This article examines the role that game development tools have in the design and creation of video games. It does so through the lens of a series of patents by Nintendo that outlined the technological foundations for a truly (co)creative production platform for games. Game development tools shape and are shaped by the kinds of games they are used to produce as well as the underlying technologies of game consoles. The roles, sites, and means by which users are allowed to or encouraged to engage with (co)creative tools significantly impacts the kinds of interventions users may make. The article makes the argument that tools, like Mario Factory, form a technological foundation for (co)creation, participatory design, and convergence at a level that differs significantly from the current forms.