Video Game Elements Research Articles

Dissociable effects of game elements on motivation and cognition in a task-switching training in middle childhood.

Although motivational reinforcers are often used to enhance the attractiveness of trainings of cognitive control in children, little is known about how such motivational manipulations of the setting contribute to separate gains in motivation and cognitive-control performance. Here we provide a framework for systematically investigating the impact of a motivational video-game setting on the training motivation, the task performance, and the transfer success in a task-switching training in middle-aged children (8–11 years of age). We manipulated both the type of training (low-demanding/single-task training vs. high-demanding/task-switching training) as well as the motivational setting (low-motivational/without video-game elements vs. high-motivational/with video-game elements) separately from another. The results indicated that the addition of game elements to a training setting enhanced the intrinsic interest in task practice, independently of the cognitive demands placed by the training type. In the task-switching group, the high-motivational training setting led to an additional enhancement of task and switching performance during the training phase right from the outset. These motivation-induced benefits projected onto the switching performance in a switching situation different from the trained one (near-transfer measurement). However, in structurally dissimilar cognitive tasks (far-transfer measurement), the motivational gains only transferred to the response dynamics (speed of processing). Hence, the motivational setting clearly had a positive impact on the training motivation and on the paradigm-specific task-switching abilities; it did not, however, consistently generalize on broad cognitive processes. These findings shed new light on the conflation of motivation and cognition in childhood and may help to refine guidelines for designing adequate training interventions.

How Gamification Applies for Educational Purpose Specially with College Algebra

Gaming environments have been used to teach mathematical topics such as addition and division in a fun manner**http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fun.. However, when it comes to college level mathematical concepts such as the use of the quadratic formula, there are very few software that explain these concepts in a fun way. In this paper, we present a first step towards using video game elements and Artificial Intelligence Tutoring system techniques to teach mathematical concepts such as factoring and the quadratic formula. These concepts are explained in a way that helps learners make a connection between the mathematical concepts and their real life experience. These methods of learning are supported by several studies (Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Donovan & Bransford, 2004; Scarlatos, 2006). We use gamification techniques during the training and test phases to help students learn the mathematical concepts. We then compare the performance of students who used our system (MathDungeon) with that of students who used the most popular math tutoring programs used in US colleges: Assessment and Learning, K-12, Higher Education (ALEKS). The number of students who used MathDungeon and scored above the median score on the test of math performance was greater than the number of students who used ALEKS and scored higher than the median score.

Agency mechanics: gameplay design in survival horror video games

This article proposes the notion of ‘agency mechanics’ as an innovative design element of video games. It begins by exploring the well-documented interactive elements of horror cinema, and goes on to explore how strategies such as the sadistic/masochistic gaze and narrative perspective have been further developed in video games. It then explores work to date on the manipulation of interactivity in video games before closely analysing how agency and control are managed in the survival horror franchise Dead Space. It concludes with reflections on further research in the nexus between film and games, and further possibilities for game design through the explicit management of agency mechanics.

Game Transfer Phenomena in Video Game Playing

Video game playing is a popular activity and its enjoyment among frequent players has been associated with absorption and immersion experiences. This paper examines how immersion in the video game environment can influence the player during the game and afterwards (including fantasies, thoughts, and actions). This is what is described as Game Transfer Phenomena (GTP). GTP occurs when video game elements are associated with real life elements triggering subsequent thoughts, sensations and/or player actions. To investigate this further, a total of 42 frequent video game players aged between 15 and 21 years old were interviewed. Thematic analysis showed that many players experienced GTP, where players appeared to integrate elements of video game playing into their real lives. These GTP were then classified as either intentional or automatic experiences. Results also showed that players used video games for interacting with others as a form of amusement, modeling or mimicking video game content, and daydreaming about video games. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate how video games triggered intrusive thoughts, sensations, impulses, reflexes, optical illusions, and dissociations.

It's not all about the words: Non-textual information in World of Warcraft

In this exploratory study, the use of non-textual information in World of Warcraft, a game played over the Internet with a focus on fantasy, is examined. To date, very little research has focused on the visual and audio elements of video games from an informational perspective. However, video games incorporate elements of video, images, music, audio, and text to create a rich and complex environment. Through utilizing the ethnographic method of participant observation, the ways in which non-textual information is presented and how it affects the information received by the player was examined. In World of Warcraft, visual elements such as colour, shape, size, orientation and motion are brought together to create the visual experience. Audio elements include ambient sounds, sound effects, vocalizations, and music. Visual and audio elements work together to provide players with important information about how to play the game, as well as the game narrative. They work together as an information system that provides usability information, as well as an immersive experience.

Physical Entropy in Computer Games

Digital computers are by design completely deterministic, yet they are often consumers of randomness in cryptography, simulations, science experiments and computer games. To generate randomness in software, programmers implement special mathematical algorithms, which produce a series of numbers that appear nondeterministic, so called pseudo random number generators (PRNGs). Computer games make heavy use of such PRNGs to make game simulations and behaviors of game elements appear more natural. An important design element of many video games is game physics, the simulation of physical reality in video games. Generally overlooked by game developers, is the fact that randomness based on PRNGs are mere simulations themselves and randomness is not treated as a physical property of reality, and thus a form of game physics. Since the dynamics of the very small and the very complex invariably contains randomness, the author suggests this can be used to extend to the scope of game physics by defining two new game physics elements: 1. providing physics based random data to games or interactive media and 2. extracting true randomness from game-player interactions themselves.

From Edutainment to Serious Games: A Change in the Use of Game Characteristics

Serious games use instructional and video game elements for nonentertainment purposes. Serious games attempt to create instructionally sound and relevant learning experiences for a wide variety of audiences and industries. The author contends that for serious games to be effective, instructional designers and video game designers need to understand how the game characteristics, competition and goals, rules, challenges, choices, and fantasy, used in both edutainment and serious games, can influence motivation and facilitate learning.

Ozymandias: Or, Writing, Lost Libraries, and Wonder

❦Mention Ozymandias and many English speakers will remember some exposure to Percy Shelley’s sonnet during high school. The poem continues to influence popular culture: a search for “Ozymandias” on the Internet reveals three rock-and-roll songs, an album by a German “electro-medieval” musical ensemble, a pianist’s musical project, three different comic-book characters, and elements of video games and science-fiction. 1 Nor has elite culture forgotten the poem: a recent review of Gunther Grass’s autobiography compared the celebrated German novelist to Ozymandias. By belatedly confessing his service in the Nazi army as a teenager, claims the reviewer, the novelist has ceased being “a moral authority on frank and timely facing up to the Nazi past,” relinquishing his previously unquestioned right to criticize his compatriots’ evasion of responsibility. Grass’s monumental cultural stature is compared to a statue that he has “demolished,” its “ruins lying, like Shelley’s Ozymandias, as a warning beside the roadside” (Garton Ash 23). Shelley’s poem has made Ozymandias an emblem of self-deluding hubris, the ambition to be remembered favorably by posterity, and the refusal to acknowledge time’s destruction of human achievement. Yet This essay celebrates the wonder that John Freccero’s Dante course inspired in a particularly naive Yale undergraduate in 1970. It is part of a chapter included in a monograph I am preparing, Writing and Wonder: Mythical Books and Lost Libraries in the Premodern Imagination. All translations are my own except as noted. 1

Video Game Structural Characteristics: A New Psychological Taxonomy

Excessive video game playing behaviour may be influenced by a variety of factors including the structural characteristics of video games. Structural characteristics refer to those features inherent within the video game itself that may facilitate initiation, development and maintenance of video game playing over time. Numerous structural characteristics that influence gambling frequency and expenditure have been identified in the gambling literature, and some researchers have drawn comparisons between the rewarding elements in video gaming and those in slot machine gambling. However, there have been few rigorous attempts to classify and organise the psycho-structural elements of video games in a similar way to gambling. In order to aid current psychological understanding of problem video game playing and guide further research questions in this area, a new taxonomy of video game features is proposed, which includes: (a) social features, (b) manipulation and control features, (c) narrative and identity features, (d) reward and punishment features, and (e) presentation features. Each category is supported with relevant theory and research, where available, and the implications of these features for excessive video game playing are discussed.

Building an information literacy first‐person shooter

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine the feasibility of modifying a commercial off‐the‐shelf video game that incorporates elements of information literacy.Design/methodology/approachThis paper examines six game design elements of educational video games and discusses the resources required to design and build Benevolent Blue, a “modded” video game.FindingsThis paper provides a discussion of the skills, time and funding required to build a “mod” incorporating information literacy.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough modifying commercial videogames is quite popular, very little discussion or work is written about “modding” and its potential use designing video games for libraries. Further research is required to determine if the knowledge transfer of information literacy skills occurs with players. Additional study could look at incorporating information literacy into video games of different genres and well as the impact that video games have on undergraduate student engagement and satisfaction.Practical implicationsThis paper outlines the resources needed to modify a commercial off‐the‐shelf video game and provides suggestions on how others in libraries might do the same.Originality/valueThis paper looks at serious educational games in a new way – the modification of commercial off the shelf games to develop complete game play experiences that sit outside the classroom and emphasize the importance of play.