Game Development Process Research Articles

Investigating the effects of SOLO taxonomy with reflective practice on university students’ meta-cognitive strategies, problem-solving, cognitive flexibility, spatial anxiety: an embedded mixed-method study on 3D game development

ABSTRACT The 3D game development process is significant in improving knowledge and skills, such as literacy of information technologies, computational, analytical, and algorithmic thinking, programming, and spatial abilities. Besides, the 3D game development is a difficult and complex learning process. Within this context, it was decided that teaching should be restructured to support the metacognitive strategies’ use skills of students. SOLO taxonomy was used as a framework for restructuring the content of teaching. In the literature, SOLO is preferred as a solution for teaching contents, which is complex and challenging to learn. The aim of this study is to improve problem-solving skills (PSS), cognitive flexibility, meta-cognitive strategies use skills and spatial anxiety in teaching the 3D game development, supported with metacognitive strategies and restructured with SOLO. An embedded pattern is used in this study. This study showed that experimental intervention influences change in students’ PSS and metacognitive strategies use skills. It is necessary to include SOLO taxonomy in content planning to increase the learning performance. It is supposed that the study results will provide an insight for implementers to design and execute difficult and complex teaching in computer science education and will assist them in developing different perspectives.

The engagement of visual novel digital game entitled single mingle: Career versus marriage

This study is about the development of a Visual Novel game “SINGLE MINGLE: Career vs Marriage”. The game project focused on developing the game individually either in 2D or 3D. This game is created fully in 2D with its own message to be delivered. The objective of this study is to show the process of game development which can be used to solve several current issues that were chosen during pitching. This paper is to focus on the purpose and creation of the game “SINGLE MINGLE” from the very beginning. The project phases are divided into three main phases which include pre-production, production, and post-production. Marketing items such as posters and merchandise were designed and digitalized in the post-production phase. The affirmative end product from the players shows that in spite of single or married ladies, this game really makes them engaged because of the appealing game design interface and interesting gameplay.

Designing physics board games: a practical guide for educators

Board games can be a highly engaging and motivating resource to support physics teaching at all educational levels. However, the development of board games to facilitate the communication of complex science subjects may not be an easy task for those with no prior experience in designing games. For instance, the various classification of educational game features, proliferation of game mechanics and lack of scholarly guidance for designing and on their efficacy in formal learning may hinder the game development process. To address this issue, this study presents a hands-on game development framework for science educators and researchers on how to design educational science games. The framework is divided into five steps with simple exercises that build upon each other to create a student-centred educational resource as well as providing a means of evaluation.

Game‐based, gamified, and gamefully designed assessments for employee selection: Definitions, distinctions, design, and validation

AbstractReflecting practitioner efforts to improve existing psychometric assessments, a new games‐related class of assessments and assessment design approaches has emerged, and research is beginning to examine it as well. Understanding this class of assessments requires understanding of three major terms. First,game‐based assessmentrefers to an assessment method in which job candidates are players participating in a core gameplay loop while trait information is inferred. Second,gameful designrefers to practices by assessment professionals using game mechanics or other game concepts to guide their decision‐making in assessment design. Third,gamificationrefers to practices by assessment professionals changing existing assessments by adding game mechanics and applying game concepts to them. Whereas game‐based assessment is itself an assessment method, the other two are (re)design strategies. In this review, we explore these distinctions in finer terms, describe the game design and development processes necessary to create a functional game‐based assessment, describe theoretical and practical concerns related to the use or addition of game mechanics in traditional assessment methods, and present evaluation guidelines for the entire assessment class. Overall, we conclude that the future of games‐related assessment is promising, but further progress will require a focus on interdisciplinary understanding and much greater integration of design and development into assessment theory.

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.

Analytical Framework for Facial Expression on Game Experience Test

Game experience testing, an essential process for developing and servicing high-quality games, aims to evaluate and improve the play experience from the user perspective. Previous game experience tests are usually held offline with recruited test participants. Participants play the game in a controlled environment, and their experiences are recorded and analyzed by domain experts. However, this process not only requires substantial resources in terms of time and cost but also misses momentary data that can infer the user’s experience directly and quantitatively, such as facial expressions or body gestures of the participants while playing the game. In this paper, we propose a framework that can automatically collect and analyze video data of participants in a remote environment. We designed various experiments to verify that the proposed framework can automatically collect and analyze facial data in a remote environment. The experimental results show that our framework can be applied in gaming experience tests for popular commercial games currently in service. This paper presents a pioneering work that applies the face analysis method to the commercial game development process, and its purpose is beyond that of a pure research work.

Development life cycle of the games through software engineering

The games in our time are the main factor in the world of entertainment and it does not depend on young children, but also enjoyed by the elderly and also have the ability to influence their behavior, which leads to new ideas and strategies that affect the positive character of the game .,, But also are used for serious purposes and can be launched on various areas such as health care and education. We will try to highlight software development in the game development process and will try to bridge the gap between the software developments processes used to develop the games. © 2018 JASET, International Scholars and Researchers Association

“Let Us Save Venice”—An Educational Online Maze Game for Climate Resilience

Climate resilience competencies improve people’s capacity to recognize and adopt strategies for mitigating negative climate effects. Especially concerning the built cultural heritage protection in the coastal areas, both professionals and citizens have to be prepared for water-related extreme events, such as floods, sea-level rise, and altered precipitation. Considering these challenges, the authors explore the efficiency of serious video games and describe the process of design and validation of the pilot educational online maze game “Let us save Venice”. More specifically, the main research question motivating the study is to identify what the experience factors and the mini-games are that contribute mostly to raising awareness to climate resilience and built heritage sustainability. The question implies two main research objectives: first, to explore what role user-centered game design plays in creating immersive and enjoyable educational video maze games, and second, to investigate which factors influence user experience and game playability in the design phase, and how they contribute to learnability and raising awareness. The background section of the article focuses on a preliminary study of the educational potential of serious games and introduces the EU-funded project e-Creha. Then, it explores the process of game design, development, and validation, focusing on metrics such as game learnability and game experience. The results outline the main findings that immersion, positive affect, and competence appeared to be the main experience factors contributing to raising awareness to climate resilience and built heritage sustainability. Lastly, the discussion section provides further directions for game improvement and future work.

Design of a Digital Game Intervention to Promote Socio-Emotional Skills and Prosocial Behavior in Children

In emergency contexts such as the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health risk factors affect children and may affect behavioral and emotional problems including anxiety, self-blame, emotional disturbance, and stress. Preventive measures are crucial to address these health risks. Research highlights strength-based factors, such as socio-emotional skills and prosocial behaviors, as important for childhood development and socio-emotional wellbeing. Yet, the initial evidence base shows mixed effectiveness and insufficient behavior change theory application into socio-emotional and prosocial digital game interventions. Additionally, few interventions are designed with a clear process to convert theory into practical game solutions and very limited guidance on the digital game development process exists. This study describes the Intervention Mapping Protocol (IMP) and theory application in the design of a digital game intervention which aims to strengthen social-emotional skills development and promote prosocial behavior in 8–11-year-old children. The method systematically describes the steps of the IMP process in detail to guide future theory-based game design. The results explain the final digital game prototype that was co-designed with continuous input and insights provided by stakeholders and feedback from children. This paper contributes to our understanding of theory application in the design of digital game interventions focused on health and behavior change and provides much needed guidance on how theory and stakeholder input can be incorporated into a final game design.

The Impact of Teacher Training Using Mobile Augmented Reality Games on Their Professional Development

Ongoing technology progress sustains innovative teaching approaches. Mobile devices, augmented reality (AR), and games are a few of the new resources that teachers have at their disposal to promote student learning. However, their effective integration into practices requires training, so there is a need to analyze the impact of training initiatives on teacher professional development. A case study is being conducted on the development process of mobile AR games for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning by 14 Portuguese in-service teachers in a 50 h workshop. This contribution refers to the analysis of this training’s impact on teacher professional development through a questionnaire filled in at the beginning and end of the workshop. This study registered a higher impact on teachers’ understanding of AR educative use, the less-known approach, compared to mobile and game-based learning. Moreover, teachers became more experienced with these approaches as learners, and reported having explored them with their students during the workshop period. Teacher ability to identify benefits and barriers in these approaches increased with the workshop, particularly the learning that could be promoted with mobile AR games. The presented set of barriers to implementation is relevant to future teacher professional-development initiatives.

The Woods

While loneliness in our real lives is increasingly recognized as having dire physical, mental, and emotional consequences, cooperative games have been shown to build empathy and provide positive social impact. In this paper, the authors present "The Woods," a local cooperative, mixed-reality game using augmented reality and 4-channel audio spatialization panning that provides players with face-to-face interactions in pursuit of a shared goal. This paper discusses the narrative, mechanical, and sonic components of the game, as well as the game's development process and the players' experiences. The goal of our team is to develop a narrative-driven AR game that promotes collaborative problem-solving and engages players in an emergent physical and digital experience.

Narrative Extraction, Processing and Generation for Interactive Fiction and Computer Games

Often, computer games require meaningful stories and complex worlds in order to successfully engage players. Developing a high-quality story and rich characters can be one of the hardest tasks in the game development process. Narrative is a key element in building game worlds for interactive digital entertainment. I am particularly interested in computational narrative algorithms that can analyze stories, model narrative, and generate plots to be used in various forms and game domains.

Implementation Dijkstra’s Algorithm for Non-Players Characters in the Game Dark Lumber

Forest is a unitary ecosystem in the form of a stretch of land containing biological natural resources dominated by trees in their natural environment, which cannot be separated from one another. The importance of forest preservation is based on law, namely ensuring the existence of forests in a sustainable manner while maintaining sustainability and not destroying the environment and the surrounding ecosystem. However, public awareness in preserving the forest is still lacking. Therefore, technology is needed that can provide information about forests and the impact of illegal logging in an attractive manner. Games are multimedia entertainment that is made as attractive as possible. Action games require players to concentrate and think quickly in order to avoid obstacles. Dijkstra’s algorithm looks for the shortest path in a number of steps from which each step selects the minimum weighted value and enters it into the set of solutions. Dijkstra’s algorithm implemented on non-player characters in a game to determine the shortest path to the target player. Games built using unity and developed using the Game Development Life Cycle (GDLC) method. GDLC is a game development process that applies an iterative approach consisting of 6 development phases, starting from the initialization or concept creation, preproduction, production, testing, beta and release phases.

Effectiveness of game development-based learning for acquiring programming skills in lower secondary education in Croatia.

A European initiative CODING4GIRLS (C4G) promotes the acquisition of programming skills through a game development process with the aim of preparing young learners, especially girls, to enter computer science careers and raising awareness of the relationship between ICT and the real world. Using the C4G game development-based learning methodology, students develop serious games for which they need to learn specific programming concepts. This paper presents the results of a study with a mixed-gender group of both boys and girls (N = 773) carried out with the aim of examining the effectiveness of the C4G development-based learning approach in lower secondary education in Croatia. In-service and pre-service teachers organized learning activities for students based on the C4G learning scenarios, which include the development of games in the programming language Snap! with topics that are interesting for both boys and girls and which involve solving real-world problems. The results showed that students accepted the C4G methodology and were motivated to learn how to program by developing games for solving real-world problems. Teachers and experts consider this approach as a relevant and effective method for achieving learning objectives related to programming, applicable and suitable for lower secondary students (11–15 year olds).

Penerapan Game Development Life Cycle Untuk Video Game Dengan Model Role Playing Game

The development of technology and information drives the acceleration of a very dynamic world. With this discovery, computer technology, which was created as a tool for human work, has now developed into a means of games, entertainment, communication and so on. In the entertainment sector, one of the most popular pieces of technology is the video game industry. However, information and knowledge regarding video game development is not very popular in Indonesia, especially about the Life Cycle in the video game development process. In addition, video games have a wide variety of genres and different role-plays. So that not all Game Development Life Cycle (GDLC) models fit into certain game categories, especially the RPG (Roled Playing Game) genre which has unique role-playing. So it is necessary to have a suitable testing model. This study aims to test whether the Life Cylce Development Game proposed by Rido Ramadan and Yani Widyani can be used in the development of RPG (Roled Playing Game) video games. The results show that video game development using the Game Development Life Cycle (GDLC) proposed by Rido Ramadan and Yani Widyani, this video game can run well.

Design de Jogos Digitais: análise comparativa de modelos projetuais

O jogo é conceituado como um processo voluntário de atividadeslúdicas, em uma esfera temporária, com orientação própria, dotado de umfim em si mesmo. Na contemporaneidade, os games constituem um campopromissor de aplicações e estudos, por serem produtos socioculturais comgrande impacto no setor econômico e tecnológico. Ao longo da história dodesenvolvimento dessa mídia, diversos modelos projetuais foram difundidospor meio da literatura para o desenvolvimento de jogos digitais. Diante dis-so, este estudo apresenta o tema por meio de revisão de literatura e métodocomparativo para descrever diferentes abordagens projetuais, com o intuitode evidenciar as similitudes e diferenças entre as etapas do processo de de-senvolvimento um game. Os resultados expõem a contribuição por meio dareflexão da análise comparativa de diferentes modelos para projetar jogos edestacam as incidências e as lacunas recorrentes encontradas

Lessons from co-designing a resource-recovery game for collaborative urban sanitation planning

The aim of this study is to describe the development of an innovative planning tool to promote the knowledge and collaboration needed to overcome challenges in the sanitation sector. A serious game was designed to share knowledge about resource recovery and support attitude-change and collaboration between stakeholders. This study documents the co-design process of game development from conception based on a set of specifications the game should achieve, through iterative testing with relevant stakeholders as players. The resulting prototype of the game showed that it was not possible to include all the original desired specifications in the final game. Stakeholders found that the game was engaging, stimulated creativity and achieved its goal.

Platformisation in game development

This article draws on case studies of two software development platforms, Unity and Twine, to unpack how the game development process both adheres to and challenges understandings of ‘platformisation’.

Video Game Automated Testing Approaches: An Assessment Framework

The video-game industry has recently grown from focused markets to mainstream. The advancements the industry has been enjoying motivated researchers to propose techniques and tools to support the activities across the different phases of the game development lifecycle. Game testing is one of the crucial activities within the game development process. Due to the nature of game testing, many automated game testing techniques have been proposed in the literature. However, there is no framework that could be used to aid practitioners in selecting appropriate techniques suitable for their particular development efforts. In this article, we present an attribute-based framework to classify and compare these techniques and provide such aid to practitioners. The framework is also meant to guide researchers interested in proposing new game testing techniques. The article discusses a number of prominent techniques against the framework. Analysis of the discussion reveals gaps and suggests open points for future research.

A serious game to extract Hofstede’s cultural dimensions at the individual level

Cultural dimensions are an important aspect of a user model and useful for many applications such as adapting user interface, managing marketing campaigns, customer relationship management, and human resource management. Traditionally, these dimensions are measured through CVSCALE, which is a reliable and standard scale provided to measure Hofstede’s cultural dimensions at the individual level. The problems with the questionnaire-based data collection are low response rates, lack of willingness to complete, poor engagement of participants, and concern about the quality of data collected. To solve these problems, we present a serious video game called “Treasure Island” to measure the cultural dimensions of the player at the individual level (currently only for the Persian language). We have developed and validated a Persian-language version of CVSCALE applied to design the game. We developed the very first general game development process to build serious games for gathering the same data as a standard psychometric questionnaire. Treasure Island has been evaluated by statistical analysis of the data collected from a sample of 285 participants that have played the game and completed the questionnaire. The results indicate that Treasure Island is effective to measure the individual cultural dimensions. Moreover, the efficiency of the game has been tested in terms of task load imposed on the user during playing the game and completing the questionnaire. The results demonstrate that the game imposes less task load on the user, consequently, improves user satisfaction and engagement. Since individual cultural dimensions can be considered an important facet of a user model for certain applications, the proposed serious game can be applied for user modeling and personalization purposes.