Computer Games Technology

The current paper reviews and discusses digital game design for
elderly users. The aim of the paper is to look beyond the traditional perspective of usability requirements imposed by age-related functional limitations, towards the design opportunities that exist to create digital games that will offer engaging content combined with an interface that seniors can easily and pleasurably use.

"Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered.
The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games.
We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented."

Serious games are growing rapidly as a gaming industry as well as a field of academic research. There are many surveys in the field of digital serious games; however, most surveys are specific to a particular area such as education or health. So far, there has been little work done to survey digital serious games in general, which is the main goal of this paper. Hence, we discuss relevant work on serious games in different application areas including education, well-being, advertisement, cultural heritage, interpersonal communication, and health care. We also propose a taxonomy for digital serious games, and we suggest a classification of reviewed serious games applications from the literature against the defined taxonomy. Finally, the paper provides guidelines, drawn from the literature, for the design and development of successful serious games, as well as discussing research perspectives in this domain.

Current computing techniques using the cloud as a centralised server will become untenable as billions of devices get connected to the Internet. This raises the need for fog computing, which leverages computing at the edge of the network on nodes, such as routers, base stations and switches, along with the cloud. However, to realise fog computing the challenge of managing edge nodes will need to be addressed. This paper is motivated to address the resource management challenge. We develop the first framework to manage edge nodes, namely the Edge NOde Resource Management (ENORM) framework. Mechanisms for provisioning and auto-scaling edge node resources are proposed. The feasibility of the framework is demonstrated on a PokéMon Go-like online game use-case. The benefits of using ENORM are observed by reduced application latency between 20%-80% and reduced data transfer and communication frequency between the edge node and the cloud by up to 95%. These results highlight the potential of fog computing for improving the quality of service and experience.

Video games are part of our culture like TV, movies, and books. We believe that this kind of software can be used to increase students' interest in computer science. Video games with other goals than entertainment, serious games, are present, today, in several fields such as education, government, health, defence, industry, civil security, and science. This paper presents a study around a serious game dedicated to strengthening programming skills. Real-Time Strategy, which is a popular game genre, seems to be the most suitable kind of game to support such a serious game. From programming teaching features to video game characteristics, we define a teaching organisation to experiment if a serious game can be adapted to learn programming.

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented.

Recent years have seen a surge in online collaboration between experts and amateurs on scientific research. In this article, we analyse the epistemological implications of these crowdsourced projects, with a focus on Zooniverse, the world's largest citizen science web portal. We use quantitative methods to evaluate the platform's success in producing large volumes of observation statements and high impact scientific discoveries relative to more conventional means of data processing. Through empirical evidence, Bayesian reasoning, and conceptual analysis, we show how information and communication technologies enhance the reliability, scalability, and connectivity of crowdsourced e-research, giving online citizen science projects powerful epistemic advantages over more traditional modes of scientific investigation. These results highlight the essential role played by technologically mediated social interaction in contemporary knowledge production. We conclude by calling for an explicitly sociotechnical turn in the philosophy of science that combines insights from statistics and logic to analyse the latest developments in scientific research.

Contemporary 3D games are often situated within large urban
environments. This necessitates a time-consuming and expensive content creation process involving the modelling of vast amounts of geometric detail: including terrain, roads, buildings, and other associated features. We present a system called Citygen that aims to automate as much of this as possible by employing procedural generation methods to rapidly create the urban geometry typical of a modern city. Procedural methods have long been used within the graphics and game development communities to generate natural phenomena such as plants and trees. We employ these
methods to generate the underlying road networks that form the structure of cities and urban neighbourhoods. These road
networks are automatically mapped to any supplied terrain model, and adapt themselves to the specific geometry of the underlying terrain. Building footprints are automatically extracted from the resulting model and buildings can then be inserted either procedurally or by hand. Our system is unique in that it is designed to allow developers hands-on interactive control over the generation process. We achieve this by providing an interface allowing the user to directly manipulate geometric elements such as road intersection nodes, and to directly control and specify many aspects of the procedural generation. The results are updated in real time, thus facilitating an interactive design process.

Autism spectrum disorder refers to a neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by repetitive behavior patterns, impaired social interaction, and impaired verbal and nonverbal communication. The ability to recognize mental states from facial expressions plays an important role in both social interaction and interpersonal communication. Thus, in recent years, several proposals have been presented, aiming to contribute to the improvement of emotional skills in order to improve social interaction. In this paper, a game is presented to support the development of emotional skills in people with autism spectrum disorder. The software used helps to develop the ability to recognize and express six basic emotions: joy, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, and fear. Based on the theory of facial action coding systems and digital image processing techniques, it is possible to detect facial expressions and classify them into one of the six basic emotions. Experiments were performed using four pub...

This paper traces the development of techniques of recording carvings on megalithic tombs and on open-air rock-art in Ireland from 1699 to the present day. Analysis shows that after the initial pioneering phase, recording methodologies tended to develop in accelerated bursts, interspersed with lulls in activity. In all, four phases of activity can be identified; in each there were a critical number of researchers who interacted with each other, driving forward advances in various forms of recording methods. Part 2 of the paper describes the application of new methods of digital recording, notably Structure from Motion photogrammetry. It shows how the resulting data have been used to create new ways of experiencing Irish prehistoric art in virtual environments, either as entire monuments in the landscape or within a “virtual museum”, using the open-source Blender 3D animation and game engine software.

This paper provides a rationale for a class of mobile, casual, and educational games, which we call UbiqGames. The study is motivated by the desire to understand how students use educational games in light of additional distractions on their devices, and how game design can make those games appealing, educationally useful, and practical. In particular, we explain the choices made to build an engaging and educational first example of this line of games, namely Weatherlings.
Further, we report results from a pilot study with 20 students that suggest that students are engaged by the game and are interested in learning more about academic content topics,
specifically weather and climate, after playing the game. Research should continue to determine whether Weatherlings specifically does increase learning in these areas, and more generally to determine whether any learning gains and similar results with regard to engagement can be replicated in other content areas following the general model for game design.

Schema theory provides a foundation for the analysis of game play patterns created by players during their interaction with a game. Schema models derived from the analysis of play provide a rich explanatory framework for the cognitive processes underlying game play, as well as detailed hypotheses for the hierarchical structure of pleasures and rewards motivating players. Game engagement is accounted for as a process of schema selection or development, while immersion is explained in terms of levels of attentional demand in schema execution. However, schemas may not only be used to describe play, but might be used actively as cognitive models within a game engine. Predesigned schema models are knowledge representations constituting anticipated or desired learned cognitive outcomes of play. Automated analysis of player schemas and comparison with predesigned target schemas can provide a foundation for a game engine adapting or tuning game mechanics to achieve specific effects of engagement, immersion, and cognitive skill acquisition by players. Hence, schema models may enhance the play experience as well as provide a foundation for achieving explicitly represented pedagogical or therapeutic functions of games.

How to design useful digital game-based learning is a topic worthy of discussion. Past research focused on specific game genres design, but it is difficult to use when the target game genre differs from the default genres used in the research. This study presents macrodesign concepts that elucidates 11 crucial game-design factors, including game goals, game mechanism, game fantasy, game value, interaction, freedom, narrative, sensation, challenges, sociality, and mystery. We clearly define each factor and analyze the relationships among the 11 factors to construct a game-based learning design model. Two application examples are analyzed to verify the usability of the model and the performance of these factors. It can assist educational game designers in developing interesting games.

The growth of self-tracking and personal surveillance has given rise to the Quantified Self movement. Members of this movement seek to enhance their personal well-being, productivity and self-actualization through the tracking and gamification of personal data. The technologies that make this possible can also track and gamify aspects of our interpersonal, romantic relationships. Several authors have begun to challenge the ethical and normative implications of this development. In the present article, we build upon this work to provide a detailed ethical analysis of the Quantified Relationship (QR). We identify eight core objections to QR and subject them to critical scrutiny. We argue that although critics raise legitimate concerns, there are ways in which tracking technologies can be used to support and facilitate good relationships. We thus adopt a stance of cautious openness towards this technology and advocate the development of a research agenda for the positive use of QR technologies.

This paper is a call for research in the field of game engine architecture and design, a more comprehensive and thorough understanding of which we consider to be essential for its development. We present a number of key aspects that may help to define the problem space and provide a catalogue of questions that we believe identify areas of interest for future investigation.

Curriculum 2013 was designed as a multidisciplinary
thematic curriculum with learning process more focus on student
activity. But in fact, the implementation of curriculum is not fully
implemented in accordance with the concept that has been made.
The teachers feel a lot of obstacles in implementing the
curriculum 2013 which are related to the learning approach,
learning methods, the creation of learning tools, the use of
instructional materials, implementation of assessment, and other
aspects. In addition, the constraints stemming from the students
is the lack of student motivation in implementing the learning
process, especially mathematics. This causes the level of student
understanding becomes not meet the standards expected.
To overcome this problem, the authors design and develop
learning activities that focus on student activity, can motivate
students to learn math and give them gradual understanding in
math and reduce the workload of the teacher. Learning activity
consists of playing educational games that are integrated with
field activities and daily activities at home. The design of game
content is based on a theme that developed into a mission or
objective games. Mathematics topic that became the case study is
the connection between numbers and social arithmetic in
everyday life. Games built using storyline, the challenge level and
reward systems. The game is intended for 7th-grade junior high
school students. The design of game using model Three Layered
Thinking. This model integrates gaming goals into the
curriculum goal and design game by reducing the complexity of
design tasks and improving four factors: the ability (skill),
challenge, concentration and pleasure.
The conclusion from this research are (1) the use of educational
games in the learning process does not have a significant impact
toward the enhancement of student learning outcomes. (2) But,
the student gives positive feedback about the use of the game to
support their learning process in the school. (3) The design of
learning activity which is using game integrated with field
activity (outside classroom) and daily activities at home have a
potential to improve the capacity of education, reduce student
lesson hour in the school and teacher's work hours.

This paper charts the distinctive challenges of designing mobile experiences for cyclists and presents two studies of mobile cyclebased experiences: one a heritage tour; the other an exploration of a city at dusk involving recording and listening to personal stories. and observations are drawn on to derive eight lessons for designing cycle-based interaction including: cycling proficiency, physicality, impact of the environment, media and hardware design, collaboration, and safety. The conclusion is that design has to respect the distinctive nature of cycling as a mode of transport and needs to carefully interweave moments of interaction with it.

Gaze visualizations represent an effective way for gaining fast insights into eye tracking data. Current approaches do not adequately support eye tracking studies for three-dimensional (3D) virtual environments. Hence, we propose a set of advanced gaze visualization techniques for supporting gaze behavior analysis in such environments. Similar to commonly used gaze visualizations for two-dimensional stimuli (e.g., images and websites), we contribute advanced 3D scan paths and 3D attentional maps. In addition, we introduce a models-of-interest timeline depicting viewed models, which can be used for displaying scan paths in a selected time segment. A prototype toolkit is also discussed which combines an implementation of our proposed techniques. Their potential for facilitating eye tracking studies in virtual environments was supported by a user study among eye tracking and visualization experts.

Psychophysiological methods provide covert and reliable measurements of affective user experience (UX). The nature of affective UX in interactive entertainment, such as digital games, is currently not well understood. With the dawn of new gaming consoles, scientific methodologies for studying user interaction in an immersive entertainment context are needed. This paper reports a study on the influence of interaction modes (Playstation 2 game controller vs. Wii remote and Nunchuk) on subjective experience assessment and brain activity measured with electroencephalography (EEG). Results indicate that EEG alpha and delta power correlate with negative affect and tension when using regular game controller input. EEG beta and gamma power seem to be related to the feeling of possible action in spatial presence with a PS2 game controller. Delta as well as theta power correlate with self-location using a Wii remote and Nunchuk.

Games have their own economic models. Today, players can not only collect digital currencies, but they can also use real currencies to buy virtual goods. Business models in games such as freemium and in-app purchases, for example, sustain this structure. Within this context, there is also the expansion of models outside the game realm like eSports, which happens in the form of tournaments. With this, there is constant exchange of value that emerges from games, which could also include the use of cryptocurrencies. In this chapter, we give an overview of the current state of the art of economic models within games and eSports. The current chapter aims to situate and analyse the application of these business models derived from games, e-sport and the future of ludic economies.

There is an attention shift within the gaming industry toward more natural (long-term) behavior of nonplaying characters (NPCs). Multiagent system research offers a promising technology to implement cognitive intelligent NPCs. However, the technologies used in game engines and multiagent platforms are not readily compatible due to some inherent differences of concerns. Where game engines focus on real-time aspects and thus propagate efficiency and central control, multiagent platforms assume autonomy of the agents. Increased autonomy and intelligence may offer benefits for a more compelling gameplay and may even be necessary for serious games. However, it raises problems when current game design techniques are used to incorporate state-of-the-art multiagent system technology. In this paper, we will focus on three specific problem areas that arise from this difference of view: synchronization, information representation, and communication. We argue that the current attempts for integration still fall short on some of these aspects. We show that to fully integrate intelligent agents in games, one should not only use a technical solution, but also a design methodology that is amenable to agents. The game design should be adjusted to incorporate the possibilities of agents early on in the process.

Progress in image sensors and computation power has fueled studies to improve acquisition, processing, and analysis of 3D streams along with 3D scenes/objects reconstruction. The role of motion compensation/ motion estimation (MCME) in 3D TV from end-to-end user is investigated in this chapter. Motion vectors (MVs) are closely related to the concept of disparities, and they can help improving dynamic scene acquisition, content creation, 2D to 3D conversion, compression coding, decompression/decoding, scene rendering, error concealment, virtual/augmented reality handling, intelligent content retrieval, and displaying. Although there are different 3D shape extraction methods, this chapter focuses mostly on shape-from-motion (SfM) techniques due to their relevance to 3D TV. SfM extraction can restore 3D shape information from a single camera data.

Software process improvement programs are partly founded on software measurement. However, despite their importance, it has been pointed out in the literature that many students are leaving the academic world without the necessary skills to conduct this kind of process. This can be understood by people’s attitudes to this process which is regarded as time-consuming and difficult to understand—factors that explain the lack of interest in it during a student’s academic life. In light of this, the application of serious games or gamification can show useful alternative ways of meeting this need, because the strategies they involve are well accepted by students and have a motivational and engaging effect on them. The objective of this work is to discover different approaches to the teaching of software measurement and software process improvement through gamification projects and serious games. This involves carrying out a systematic review of the literature, which is aimed at character...

The use of digital tools has become a tremendous aid in the creation of digital, historical reconstructions of architectural projects. While common visualization techniques focus on pre-rendered graphics, it is possible to apply Game Engines for real-time architectural visualization. This article presents the results of different reconstruction case studies, using a variety of design applications and techniques. Specific focus is placed on the use of Building Information Modeling software and on the inherent complexity and limitations in the process of translating an active, evolving model into an environment suitable for use in a real-time system.

In this paper, we present an approach for facial expression classification, based on Active Appearance Models. To be able to work in real-world, we applied the AAM framework on edge images, instead of gray images. This yields to more robustness against varying lighting conditions. Additionally, three different facial expression classifiers (AAM classifier set, MLP and SVM) are compared with each other. An essential advantage of the developed system is, that it is able to work in real-time -a prerequisite for the envisaged implementation on an interactive social robot. The realtime capability was achieved by a two-stage hierarchical AAM tracker and a very efficient implementation.

There is a growing emphasis in many countries on matters such as participation in e-government, e-democracy, the provision of forums for online debate, and so on. A critical issue in all of these cases is one of encouraging engagement across a broad spectrum of potentially interested parties and stakeholders. In this paper, we use an ethnographic study of an online event, designed to encourage debate, to explore some critical issues in how the mechanisms productive of debate have shifted in company with the Web 2.0 phenomenon. By contrasting this with a prior study of how players managed their gameplay in a multiplayer pervasive game, we focus upon how different ways of constructing games and events can have serious implications for their ordinary everyday reportability in routine face-to-face interactions. We conclude that designing for reportability should be an active consideration when designing the resources for online debate and consider some ways in which that might be accomplished.

Keywords:
Ethnographic studies e-Democracy Online debate Web 2.0 Pervasive games Reportability Ethnomethodology

Procedural content generation and design patterns could potentially be combined in several dierent ways in game design. This paper discusses how to combine the two, using automatic platform game level design as an example. The paper also present work towards a pattern-based level generator for Super Mario Bros, namely an analysis of the levels of the original Super Mario Bros game into 23 dierent patterns.

Hitchers is a game for mobile phones that exploits cellular position-ing to support location-based play. Players create digital hitch hikers, givingthem names, destinations and questions to ask other players, and then drop theminto their current phone cell. Players then search their current cell for hitchers,pick them up, answer their questions, carry them to new locations and drop them again, providing location-labels as hint to where they can be found. In thisway, hitchers pass from player to player, phone to phone and cell to cell, gather-ing information and encouraging players to label cells with meaningful placenames. A formative study of Hitchers played by 47 players over 4 monthsshows how the seams in cellular positioning, including varying cell size, densityand overlap, affected the experience. Building on previous discussions of designing for uncertainty and seamful design, we consider five ways of dealingwith these seams: removing, hiding, managing, revealing and exploiting them.This leads us to propose the mechanism of a dynamic search focus, to explore new visualization tools for cellular data, and to reconsider the general relation-ship between ‘virtual’ and ‘physical’ worlds in location-based games.

Keywords:
Mobile games, cellular positioning, ubiquitous computing, seamful design

This study aims to analyze the effects of using on-screen and paper maps on navigation efficiency in 3D MUVEs. There were 48 participants in the study, which has a randomized true experimental design. The researchers administered a demographics questionnaire and the spatial visualization test to the participants and formed three groups by checking a variety of independent variables, the On Screen Map (OSM) group, the Paper Map (PM) group, and the Coordinate System(CS) group, which did not use any kind of map. The participants completed three tasks with increasing difficulty levels. There was a statistically significant difference between the methods for the completion times of the first task and aggregate tasks. This difference was between CS and PM as well as between CS and OSM. Participants got confused and lost the most in the CS group and the least in the OSM group. The CS group took longer to complete the tasks and got lost more frequently. Navigational aids that included visual tips about the environment increased the navigation efficiency of the participants using the MUVE.

We propose a visualization approach for analyzing players' action behaviors. The proposed approach consists of two visualization techniques: classical multidimensional scaling (CMDS) and KeyGraph. CMDS is for discovering clusters of players who behave similarly. KeyGraph is for interpreting action behaviors of players in a cluster of interest. In order to reduce the dimension of matrices used in computation of the CMDS input, we exploit a time-series reduction technique recently proposed by us. Our visualization approach is evaluated using log of an online game where three-player types according to Bartle's taxonomy are found, that is, achievers, explorers, and socializers.

To adapt game difficulty upon game character’s strength, Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) and some other learning strategies have been applied in commercial game designs. However, most of the existing approaches could not ensure diversity in results, and rarely attempted to coordinate content generation and behaviour control together. This paper suggests a solution that is based on multi-level swarm model and ecosystem mechanism, in order to provide a more flexible way of game balance control.

The aim of this study is to assess the use of MinecraftEdu in classroom practice analyzing the outcomes and attitudes of all members of the educational community through a quasi experimental approach. The research presents three dimensions oriented to assessing the use of this application in a didactic unit “History and Architecture” compared through statistical inference (t-student) to a control group that develops the same unit with slides and traditional expositional methods. The second dimension values the attitudes of teachers, students and parents regarding the implementation of video games in formal education using descriptive analysis and
nonparametric statistical inference through the Jonckheere-Terpstra test and the Kruskal-Wallis test, which
allows each group ranks to be compared. The third dimension analyzes interactions in a virtual learning environment related to the implementation of MinecraftEdu. Although there are no significant improvements regarding academic outcomes and some parents hold negative attitudes, it is noteworthy that the majority of the sample considered that MinecraftEdu is fun, enhances creativity, develops discovery and is a good application for creating and exploring immersive historical environments.

In this paper we present a method for the automatic generation of content for the physics-based puzzle game Cut The Rope. An evolutionary game generator is implemented which evolves the design of levels based on a context-free grammar. We present various measures for analyzing the expressivity of the generator and visualizing the space of content covered. We further perform an experiment on evolving playable content of the game and present and analyze the results obtained.

The ‘‘fortress simulator’’ game Dwarf Fortress (Bay 12 Games, 2006-present) allows players the space to conduct experiments in economics. The player is not granted an avatar in the world, but this does not mean the player is granted the role of a transcendent deity either. Instead, the player operates on the relational level—completely managing all economic interactions and assigning social codes to different spaces. Lacking a ‘‘win’’ condition, players are free to engage with the game however they wish, including allowing for the immediate and unsympathetic demise of the community. As play continues, Dwarf Fortress ceases to be a fortress and becomes what the autonomists describe as a ‘‘laboratory.’’ The social relations of the fortress are upturned and become the site for experiments in production. The fortress too becomes the site for thought experiments on alternative economies, containing not one but many social laboratories.

In contrast to most scientific disciplines, sports science research has been characterized by comparatively little effort investment in the development of relevant phenomenological models. Scarcer yet is the application of said models in the practical domain. The present paper presents a framework which allows resistance training practitioners (coaches or athletes themselves) to employ a recently proposed model of neuromuscular engagement and adaptation in actual training program design. The first novelty concerns the monitoring aspect of coaching. A method for extracting training performance characteristics from loosely constrained video sequences, effortlessly and with minimal human input, using computer vision is described. The extracted data is subsequently used to infer the value of the parameters of the underlying neuromuscular model. This is achieved by using known differential equations describing the motion of the resistance during a particular exercise, in what is usually termed the inverse dynamics problem. Lastly, a computer simulation of hypothetical training bouts, using athlete specific capability parameters, is used to predict the effected adaptation and with it the changes in performance. The software developed and for the first time described here allows the practitioner to manipulate hypothetical training parameters and immediately see their effect on predicted adaptation for a specific athlete. Thus, this work presents a holistic view of the monitoring-assessment-adjustment loop. By bridging the gap between the theoretical and applied aspects of sports science, the present contribution serves to strongly encourage a further research focus on the development of more general, comprehensive models in this field.

"The aim of this study was to identify, classify, and explain gamers’ perceptual experiences referred to as Visual Game Transfer Phenomena (VGTP), to contribute to the understanding of the effects of post-video game playing, and encourage healthy and safe gaming. A total of 656 experiences from 483 gamers were collected from 54 online gaming forums. The findings suggest that intensive playing can result in misperceptions and visual distortions of real life objects and environments, stereotypical visual experiences that arise from mind visualization, and pseudo-hallucinatory experiences with video game content. Gamers' experiences can be explained by the interplay of physiological, perceptual, and cognitive mechanisms. Observation of video game features suggests that in most cases a relationship between the games’ structural characteristics, gamers’ VGTP experiences, and gamers’ playing habits appeared relevant. VGTP can occur while gaming, immediately after stopping play, or after some delay. Further VGTP characteristics and their psychosocial implications are discussed.
""

Previous research shows that the influence of a computer game’s task demand on the mood-repair capacity of game play follows a quadratic trend: mood repair increases as task demand goes from low to moderate levels, after which further increases in demand reduce repair. Applying selective exposure logic to this finding, we reasoned that familiarity with games known to vary in task demand should influence game choice among users experiencing negative moods. To test this, a 2 x 3 experiment was conducted, varying induced participant mood (boredom, stress) and computer game task demand (low, moderate, or high). Findings revealed a curvilinear association between task demand and game choice replicating the association between task demand and mood repair in previous research. Participants preferred moderate task demand over high and low task demand, and this preference was stronger for stressed participants. In addition and in line with mood management theory, resultant mood repair was greatest for stressed individuals choosing moderate demand, and bored individuals choosing high demand.

For seizing the potential of serious games, the RAGE project—funded by the Horizon-2020 Programme of the European Commission—will make available an interoperable set of advanced technology components (software assets) that support game studios at serious game development. This paper describes the overall software architecture and design conditions that are needed for the easy integration and reuse of such software assets in existing game platforms. Based on the component-based software engineering paradigm the RAGE architecture takes into account the portability of assets to different operating systems, different programming languages, and different game engines. It avoids dependencies on external software frameworks and minimises code that may hinder integration with game engine code. Furthermore it relies on a limited set of standard software patterns and well-established coding practices. The RAGE architecture has been successfully validated by implementing and testing basic soft...

The aim of the study is to develop a new instrument to measure engagement in videogame play termed as consumer videogame engagement. The study followed the scale development procedure to develop an instrument to measure the construct of consumer videogame engagement. In this study, we collected the data in two different phases comprising study 1 (n=136) and study 2 (n=270). We employed SPSS 22.0 for exploratory factor analysis using study 1 respondents to explore the factors for consumer videogame engagement and reliability analysis. Results of EFA resulted with six-factor solution. We further used SmartPLS 3.0 software on study 2 respondents to further confirm the six-factor solution as reflective measurement model on the first-order level, and three second-order formative constructs on the second-order or higher-order level as formative measurement model. Results of the reflective measurement model and formative measurement model evidenced that consumer videogame engagement has st...

Technology is changing the landscape of learning and teaching in America. The use of virtual worlds enable engineering and technology programs to implement software programs such as Second Life and Open Simulator to enhance what they may currently already have. Additionally, virtual worlds can add a more dynamic environment in the online classroom for multiple platforms such as the Personal Computer (PC), wearables, and mobile devices. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a review of these programs to include how to implement these items into an engineering course. Further detailed in this submission is how to incorporate Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) documentation and other engineering guidelines into the projects. Included in this chapter is a detailed layout of a simulated environment as well as various approaches of structuring and organization for classroom activities.

HIV prevention interventions can help college students engage in safe sexual behaviors. We used the Information , Motivation, Behavioral Skills model to frame four focus group discussions with Black women (n 5 32) attending a historically Black college/univer-sity or a traditional university to understand their HIV prevention needs. Participants wanted clear information about sexually transmitted infections/HIVand access to contraception. Motivators for practicing safe sex were related to cultural and religious expectations, desire to avoid pregnancy, and conscious efforts to defy racial stereotypes. Barriers to practicing safe sex included issues of accountability, stigma associated with accessing HIV testing/prevention services, and media influences. We found general consensus about the need to develop skill-building HIV prevention interventions focused on communication skills, condom negotiation, access to services, and empower-ment. We offer insight into culture-and age-appropriate HIV prevention for Black college women to guide the development of future interventions.

We report on the design, premiere and redesign for touring of a multifaceted audience interface for a complex non-linear musical performance called Climb! which is particularly suited to being experienced more than once. This interface is designed to enable audiences to understand and appreciate the work, and integrates a physical instrument and staging, projected visuals, personal devices and an online archive. A public premiere concert comprising two performances of Climb! revealed how the audience reoriented to the second performance through growing understanding and comparison to the first. Using trajectories as an analytical framework for the audience 'journey' made apparent: how the trajectories of a single performance are embedded within the larger trajectories of a concert and the creative work as a whole; the distinctive demands of understanding and interpretation; and the potential of the archive in enabling appreciation across repeated performances. The Climb! Archive

This article is designed to learn more about the increasing importance attributed to the logic of user participation and sharing (associated with the neoliberal Web 2.0) within and across institutional and platform boundaries. It aims to yield insight into the boundaries of a digital ethics in this context. For this purpose, the study draws on a prominent instance of 3D/games software culture where interdependencies can be seen to develop between institutions, users, and ICTs directing our attention to the exploration of 'ownership', thereby highlighting the boundaries of participation and competition. Drawing out the dynamics of ownership is an useful stratagem to yield insight into the mechanisms of production and cooperation. By interrogating the (organization of) social imaginaries involved as a means to draw out how different actors understand and make sense of these cross-border dynamics, it yields a perspective of ownership vis-à-vis the logic of participation, emphasizing - rather than legal conceptions per se - the make-up of negotiations and renegotiations guided by a distributed morality in software development between and across various institutional and platform boundaries.

The design of an engaging and motivating serious game (SG) requires a strong knowledge of learning domain, pedagogy, and game design components, which are hard to be found and restrained by an individual or one entity. Therefore and in the light of this statement, the collaboration between domain content, pedagogical, and playful experts is required and crucial. Despite the fact that the existing models that support SG design are intended to have a combination of learning and fun, the design of SG remains difficult to achieve. It would then be appreciated to propose means and guidelines that facilitate this design. To do so, this paper proposes a taxonomy, which classifies models that treat SG design, and then presents an opening as a functional architecture for supporting SG conception, which promotes the separation during the design, the collaboration between different involved experts, and the reuse of prior expert productions.

Previous studies have demonstrated that the playing of videogames can have both intended and unintended effects. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of videogames on players’ mental processes and behaviours in day-to-day settings. A total of 1,022 self-reports from 762 gamers collected from online videogame forums were classified, quantified, described and explained. The data include automatic thoughts, sensations and impulses, automatic mental replays of the game in real life, and voluntary/involuntary behaviours with videogame content. Many gamers reported that they had responded–at least sometimes–to real life stimuli as if they were still playing videogames. This included overreactions, avoidances, and involuntary movements of limbs. These experiences lasted relatively short periods of time and some gamers experienced them recurrently. The gamers’ experiences appeared to be enhanced by virtual embodiment, repetitive manipulation of game controls, and their gaming habits. However, similar phenomena may also occur when doing other non-gaming activities. The implications of these game transfer experiences are discussed.