Goal Of Game Research Articles

Hold or roll: reaching the goal in jeopardy race games

We consider a class of dynamic tournaments in which two contestants are faced with a choice between two courses of action. The first is a riskless option (“hold”) of maintaining the resources the contestant already has accumulated in her turn and ceding the initiative to her rival. The second is the bolder option (“roll”) of taking the initiative of accumulating additional resources, and thereby moving ahead of her rival, while at the same time sustaining a risk of temporary setback. We study this tournament in the context of a jeopardy race game (JRG), extend the JRG to \(N > 2\) contestants, and construct its equilibrium solution. Compared to the equilibrium solution, the results of three experiments reveal a dysfunctional bias in favor of the riskless option. This bias is substantially mitigated when the contestants are required to commit in advance how long to pursue the risky course of action.

Bringing Augmented Reality to a Metabolic Pathways Puzzle

During several years of using a paper puzzle to introduce students to the principles of metabolic pathways, we noticed that both the number of instructors and the time they spend with the students, plays a major role in the success of the activity. An insufficient number of instructors does not permit adequate contact with all the students, which both frustrates and discourages them. To bring this activity to larger audiences, while involving only a few instructors, we added a technological tool called augmented reality to the paper puzzle, turning it into a game. One of the game goals is still to assembly the puzzle, but by using an app that runs in a tablet, the students can now check their achievements as they progress through the activity. The app also includes answers to some of the frequently asked questions, while the augmented reality permits the addition of more information to the cards, via virtual flashcards. The virtual flashcards displayed on the tablet screens show information such as the molecular 3D structure, and clues for assembling the puzzle. The abovementioned technological improvement to the paper puzzle has enabled its use in larger classrooms with fewer instructors, but we still recommend also using the paper cards with students playing in groups as a powerful way of promoting student learning about metabolic pathways.This research was partially supported by FAPESP and CNPq, Brazil.

Goal setting outcomes: Examining the role of goal interaction in influencing the experience and learning outcomes of video game play for earthquake preparedness

Video game goals are important features of video games. Player’s interaction with goals can not only shape the gaming experience by evoking cognitive and affective reactions in players, but also lead to learning outcomes. However, there are few empirical studies on the effects of interacting with game goals, and no previous research has manipulated goal setting. In two experimental studies, participants were randomly assigned to one of the following five conditions: self-set goal repetitive play, assigned goal repetitive play, no-set goal repetitive play, no-set goal single play, and no play. Results show that playing earthquake preparedness video games generates significant learning outcomes; playing repeatedly with self-set goals yields greater learning compared to playing once with no-set goals or not playing; and cognitive reactions mediates the relation between goal interaction and learning. Implications of the results for the design and evaluation of future video games for learning are explored.

Minimizing Shirking in Auctions and Tournaments

The present paper deals with two-player all pay contests in which a tie is due to slacking, showing that to reduce the likelihood of such an occurrence, slackers should be denied any reward, or even punished. The denial of reward, or the punishment, inflicted on substandard performers, may spur some players to bigger efforts, or induce others to avoid contests in which they are unable to meet standards. However denying any reward to those making small but not substandard efforts, would not raise the proportion of those making the maximum effort, while more competitors would abstain from any effort at all, detracting from overall performance. The point allocation rule suggested by this paper is thus shown to improve on its alternatives. The paper proposes changing the rules of point allocation in soccer, to reduce the incidence of non-scoring draws, often the outcome of bad playing or of extreme risk avoidance, expressed in purely defensive game strategies. Under the new rules, a win would award a team with three points, a scoring draw would entitle the teams to one point each, but neither team would receive any points for non-scoring draws. We show that this change would reduce the numbers of games ending in 0:0, while raising the numbers of goals in other games, thus boosting spectator enjoyment.

내러티브 기반 소셜 이슈 기능성 게임의 사용자 감정 경험 연구

ABSTRACT To affect users' attitudes on social issues, some serious games use narrative which can be an effective tool to provoke users' emotions. In this paper, focus group interview on the experiences about playing was conducted to figure out if the parts of narratives containing educational goals can actually provokeaincert emotions or not. From the interview, words having emotional meaning were extracted and matched with Korean Emotion Terms Database. Then the emotion terms were compared with Russell's schematic map of core affect and were categorized. The result showed that users mostly felt unpleasant emotions during the play. The unpleasant emotions helped to achieve the game's goal which is conveying the tragedy of war.Keywords : cialso issue serious game, persuasive game, narrative, emotion, emotion terms, Nanu Planet, 소셜 이슈 기능성 게임, 기능성 게임, 내러티브, 감정, 감정 단어, 나누별 이야기 Received: Oct. 02, 2012 Accepted: Oct. 24, 2012 Corresponding Author: Seoung-Ho Ryu(Kangwon National Univ.)E-mail: shryu@kangwon.ac.krISSN: 1598-4540Ⓒ The Korea Game Society. All rights reserved. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.otg/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Learning About Organizational Capabilities, Structures and Strategies from Virtual Gaming Teams

The second generation of web development and design commonly referred to as Web 2.0 focuses primarily on user generated content and inter-human connections. The effectiveness of the applications and services increases with the number of people and the type of people making using of them. This concept has now extended to online computer games with the evolution of the Massively Multiplayer Online Games genre. These games are based on continuous real interactions with real people although in a virtual environment. Furthermore the game play promotes team building with complex game goals that necessitate large strong teams. Such teams often slowly turn into large communities containing hundreds of players. The online communities thus formed are consistently active and dedicated towards success. They begin to develop intricate team structures, processes, and strategies towards winning. Even the players are assigned specific roles and are part of specialized functional teams. These communities have become organizations in their own sense; they have become highly dynamic and evolving virtual organizations. An analysis and study of these communities and virtual organizations has a unique prospect of understanding the evolution and formation of an organization. Furthermore, frequent inter-organizational interactions in the game world and the easy access to self made leaders in these organizations make it a unique study on development of leadership, building organizational capabilities and organizational strategy in a dynamic environment.

Serious games para la puesta en valor de la cultura. Un caso práctico: SUM

<p>Although video games and serious games are based on similar technologies, their uses and purposes are completely different. Some examples of what serious games are designed for include achieving objectives, acquiring complex life skills and promoting cooperation at work. The main goal of a serious game is to make culture accessible to everyone using Information and Communication Technologies.<br />This paper will present the case study of Sum, an on-line serious game which aims to promote Spanish culture as a global culture that has been directly influenced by the historical events that have taken place in the past throughout the country.</p>

컴퓨터게임에서 유저의 게임플레이 숙련도 측정 방법

ABSTRACT Computer games should keep user's immersion for fun. Flow can be occured on the balance of user's game skill level and the difficulty level of the challenges by an immersion theory[5]. Computer games can make automatic control of the challenge difficulty level but user's game skill makes difficult to know instantly its level on gameplay because the skill is decided by game goals, user tendency, or user experience. In this paper, we proposed a method of measurement of user's gameplay skill level that we can know the skill level instantly on gameplay. The proposed methods require to be implemented in the stages of the design and implementation of the computer game to be used. Computer games can keep continuously the balance of user's game skill level and the difficulty level of the challenges in order to occur flow immersion by using the proposed measurement method and automatic control methods of the difficulty of game challenges.Keywords : Immersion, Measurement of Gameplay Skill Level, Computerl Games

Suitability of Nintendo Wii Balance Board for rehabilitation of standing after stroke

Background: Normal standing requires ongoing postural adjustments while performing a variety of everyday tasks. Reduced muscle strength and dexterity affect the ability to stand after stroke. Biofeedback has been shown to be effective in training lower limb activities in people with stroke. Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Wii Balance Board, and Nintendo Wii Fit Plus are potentially useful devices for providing feedback to train standing after stroke.Objectives: What specific Nintendo Wii Fit Plus games are suitable for rehabilitation of standing in patients with stroke?Method: A criteria-based review of the Nintendo Wii Fit Plus was carried out to determine the movements required, feedback provided, demands upon the patient, difficulty of and instruction provided by the Nintendo Wii Fit Plus games in the context of stroke rehabilitation. Seventy-five Nintendo Wii Fit Plus games were reviewed and 20 were included for in-depth review.Major findings: The games require movements of the centre of mass in different directions, provide feedback in different ways and place additional physical and cognitive demands upon the patient. Only five games are suitable for people who have severely impaired ability to stand. Six games are suitable for people with moderately impaired standing and nine games are suitable only for people with mildly impaired standing ability. Game goals and the position of the patient can be modified to make the games target physiotherapy goals.Conclusions: Enough suitable games exist to make the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Wii Fit Plus an appropriate biofeedback device for rehabilitation of standing after stroke.

A study on genetic algorithm and neural network for mini-games

Physics simulation and character control are two important issues in computer games. In this paper, we propose two games which are tailored for investigating some aspects of these two issues. We study on the applications of neural network and the genetic algorithm techniques for building the controllers and the controllers should be able to finish the specific tasks in the two games. The goal of the first game is that the controller can shoot a ball so that the ball collides with the other two balls one after another. The challenge of this game is that the ball should be shot from the proper position and the goal is achieved every time. The second game is a duel game and two virtual characters are controlled to fight with each other. We develop a method for verifying whether or not the skill power of the two virtual characters is balanced. The controllers of both games are evolved based on neural network and genetic algorithm in an unsupervised learning manner. We perform a comprehensive study on the performance and weaknesses of the controllers.

Exploring the boundary of half-positionality

Half positionality is the property of a language of infinite words to admit positional winning strategies, when interpreted as the goal of a two-player game on a graph. Such problem applies to the automatic synthesis of controllers, where positional strategies represent efficient controllers. As our main result, we present a novel sufficient condition for half positionality, more general than what was previously known. Moreover, we compare our proposed condition with several others, proposed in the recent literature, outlining an intricate network of relationships, where only few combinations are sufficient for half positionality.

The Magic Bullet

This paper outlines a simple and effective model that can be used to evaluate and design educational digital games. It also facilitates the formulation of strategies for using existing games in learning contexts. The model categorizes game goals and learning objectives into one or more of four possible categories. An overview of the model is provided and the four categories are defined. The model is used to analyze several games. The implications that this model has for the design and use of games as instructional technologies are then described.

Training Goal Recognition Online from Low-Level Inputs in an Action-Adventure Game

A method is presented for training an Input-Output Hidden Markov Model (IOHMM) to identify a player's current goal in an action-adventure game. The goals were Explore, Fight, or Return to Town, which served as the hidden states of the IOHMM. The observation model was trained by directing the player to achieve particular goals and counting actions. When trained on first-time players, training to the specific players did not appear to provide any benefits over a model trained to the experimenter. However, models trained on these players' subsequent trials were significantly better than the models trained to the specific players the first time, and also outperformed the model trained to the experimenter. This suggests that game goal recognition systems are best trained after the players have some time to develop a style of play. Systems for probabilistic reasoning over time could help game designers make games more responsive to players' individual styles and approaches.

Triadic and collaborative play by gorillas in social games with objects

Interaction with others over objects has until recently been thought lacking in the social play of non-human great apes, in contrast to that of children; even now, only bonobos have been observed to engage in social play involving objects. Human children's triadic interactions with objects involve joint attention, showing and giving, communication that maintains interaction, and sharing of emotions and experiences. We question assertions that chimpanzees, and non-human great apes in general, lack the key characteristics of children's collaborative play. Here, we show that zoo gorillas play games that are both triadic and collaborative. These games were videotaped at the San Francisco Zoo in five different years and involved five different pairings of gorillas. The context was in most cases playfully competitive, involving objects such as balls, bags and leather pieces as foci of joint attention; the ostensible goal in most games was to gain or keep possession of a particular object. In some episodes, roles as possessor or pursuer of an object were exchanged many times; in others, one gorilla retained possession of an object but encouraged pursuit from a partner. Through gaze and gesture, gorillas invited others to: share interest in and attention to objects; share patterns of play; and re-engage after breaks in play. Sometimes, gorillas would assist others in their efforts to engage in collaborative play: older gorillas encouraged younger partners by 'self-handicapping' their own actions. Collaborative games may occur later in the ontogeny of gorillas than in humans, and depend on the challenges and artifacts available in a particular group's habitat.

Designing playful interactions for social interaction and physical play

This paper describes three design values that we apply for designing playful interactions. Interactive play objects can stimulate social interaction and physical play by providing motivating feedback to players’ behavior; they can allow players to create their own game goals and rules in an open-ended play context and support social player interaction patterns. This design approach is illustrated by six design cases in which our assumptions were examined in various play contexts. The results show that the application of these design values can lead to rich and appealing innovative play concepts. Players can create a wide range of (physical) games using open-ended play objects, and properties of the play objects, such as being personal or shared, influence the type of social interaction.

Playful Persuasion

Abstract The use of video games for advertising purposes is persuasive communication which directly involves the recipient in the construction of an argument. This form is becoming increasingly common, and the present article explores the phenomenon of game-based advertising. We begin by discussing the increased reliance on participatory and digital rhetoric. We then proceed to examine game-based persuasion in light of rhetorical theory, and we propose an analytical model for such games which is applied to three sample games. The analytical model takes into account the degree to which the game makes a self-contained argument, the degree to which the product or service is integrated into the game, and whether the game goal and learning goal overlap. Finally, we discuss perspectives for the integration of communication studies and game studies.

Extended Defeasible Reasoning for Common Goals in n-Person Argumentation Games

Argumentation games have been proved to be a robust and flexible tool to resolve conflicts among agents. An agent can propose its explanation and its goal known as a claim, which can be refuted by other agents. The situation is more complicated when there are more than two agents playing the game. Wepropose aweighting mechanism for competing premises to tackle withconflicts from multiple agents in an n-person game. An agent can defend its proposal by giving a counter-argument to change the opinion of the majority of opposing agents. Furthermore, using the extended defeasible reasoning an agent can exploit the knowledge that other agents expose in order to promote and defend its main claim.

Gaming the design: Using game design techniques in the realm of investing

Dominic La Cava is a senior information architect at the Vanguard Group, working to improve the company’s retail website. Dom is also an adjunct professor at Drexel’s iSchool, teaching courses in human computer interaction and information organization, retrieval and use. Dom has published on scenario-based design and has reviewed and critiqued various institutions’ websites. He is widely involved in many user interface communities, especially PhillyCHI. He can be reached at dommocave yahoo.com T he use of aspects of game design in the design of other types of interfaces has increased as designers try to use the best design practices available, including those from outside their own disciplinary backgrounds. However, this borrowing from other design theories and philosophies can complicate the design process, particularly if not done thoughtfully and with an eye toward improving the user experience and meeting users’ needs. The following is a case study on how one design team used game design techniques to inform the redesign of a transactional web task: opening a financial account online. In the spring of 2007 our design team was tasked with the redesign of the process through which clients opened new accounts. Titled 27x, this project was a redesign of the money movement transaction at Vanguard. The intent was to reduce the average number of steps (27) of Open an Account (OA) down to an appropriate single number of x. The current serial process can take users anywhere from 17 to 80 steps depending on asset type, account type and funding method. The 27x design team’s goals were to understand the issues and dependencies around moving money to and within Vanguard and to engineer a solution, resulting in an innovative and intuitive user interface and a dynamic user experience. The design paradigm the design team employed focused on creating a dynamic user interaction on the back-end through mapping dependencies in the process and in the user interface by utilizing design principles from games. Considering the vast amount written about game design, play theory and psychology, this paper will focus on how games capture players’ attention and place them in an immersive environment where they tend to spend hours playing and engaging in the game’s story. Gamers can spend between 12 and 30 hours a week, with an average of 45 minutes to 4 hours a day, playing video games [1, 2]. These statistics consider an aggregate of ages, children to adults, and gender. The interactive nature of games entices users to play by creating an environment in which, as players complete their tasks and progress through the game, they become engaged and gratified in knowing they are moving toward their goal. This feeling of reward encourages players to invest their time in games and to return to game play day after day. In looking to game design, we had to understand and address a contradiction between our design goals and the design goals of games. Games are meant to keep people playing, while our goal was to significantly reduce the number of steps it took for a user to complete the open account process. So while a successful game is measured by the time and investment that people put into game play and the simple idea that the longer users play, the better the game is, we had the task of reducing the time users spent trying to navigate our screens. But while we realized that the goals might be contradictory, we also realized that games could provide us useful avenues

Making Computer Games and Design Thinking

This article provides an overview of computer software and instructional strategies intended to engage young people in making computer games, to achieve a variety of educational goals. It briefly describes the most popular of such programs and compares their key features, including the kinds of games that can be created with the software, the types of communities and resources that are associated with each program, claims made for learning outcomes resulting from use of the software, and the results of empirical research (if any) on the application and outcomes of the software in formal or informal educational settings. A key finding is that existing software and educational applications stress the goal of teaching users about computer programming and place little or no emphasis on teaching concepts related to game design. It concludes by discussing the potential value of explicit attention to “design thinking” as goal of game making in education.

Simulation Game Playing – A Nursing Instructional Strategy

As children we learn much through play and students can learn important information through the use of simulation game playing. This article describes the use of a simulation game, evaluated by both undergraduate and graduate students, as a fun and effective teaching strategy to identify assessments and interventions for the obstetric patient. Incorporated into the simulation game is a multidisciplinary theme in which players learn patient assessments and interventions from the perspective of the nurse, physician, social worker, and chaplain. Game goals, instructions, procedures, and evaluation reports are discussed.