| An Empirical Examination of Behavioral Factors in Creative Development of Game Prototypes | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 3-8 | |
| Michail N. Giannakos; Letizia Jaccheri; Sandro Morasca | |||
| In the last few years, several learning programs, workshops, technologies,
and activities have been introduced and applied to game prototyping activities.
The research goal of this work is to investigate how participants experience
game prototyping activities. This paper presents a one-day intensive course
consisting of both learning and hands-on sessions with open source software
(OSS) tools, tangible materials, and sensor boards for creative development of
games prototypes. The intensive course program was developed using the
empirical experience of the instructors from numerous prior programs. We
present the results of an empirical examination regarding participants'
attitude towards the program. A group of 12 MSc/PhD students, teachers, and
designers participated in the program in our empirical evaluation. We used a
survey grounded in motivational factors for technology and open-ended questions
to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data from the participants.
Quantitative statistical analysis indicates that, in our study, participants'
satisfaction and activity's usefulness are the most influential factors for
participants' intention to attend similar activities in the future. Qualitative
analysis suggests improvements on how to prepare the participants, introduce
the software used in the courses, and enrich the variety of the materials in
our program. Keywords: Game Prototyping; Empirical Examination; Creative Development; Software
Engineering Activities; Behavioral Factors; OSS for Entertainment | |||
| A New Chess Variant for Gaming AI | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 9-16 | |
| Azlan Iqbal | |||
| In this article, we describe a newly-invented chess variant called
Switch-Side Chain-Chess that is demonstrably more challenging for humans and
computers than the standard, international version of the game. A new rule
states that players have the choice to switch sides with each other if a
continuous link of pieces is created on the board. This simple rule increases
significantly the complexity of chess, as perceived by the players, but not the
actual size of its game tree. The new variant therefore more easily allows
board game researchers to focus on the 'higher level' aspects of intelligence
such as perception and intuition without being constrained by a larger search
space as they would be if using a game like Go or Arimaa. They can also
immediately build upon the tried and tested approaches already being used in
strong chess engines instead of having to start from scratch or a lower level
of progress as is the case with other games of this type. Keywords: Chess; variant; complexity; intelligence; intuition; perception | |||
| A Systematic Review of Game Design Methods and Tools | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 17-29 | |
| Marcos Silvano Orita Almeida; Flávio Soares Corrêa da Silva | |||
| The game designer's craft is very young if compared to filmmaking and
software development. The knowledge base and formal techniques of these areas
is far more comprehensive. Even after decades of evolution of the games
production software, the range of design centered techniques and tools is still
limited, as observed by many authors. Thereby, efforts have been made towards
the establishment of game design formal methods. This paper presents a
systematization over the contributions of researchers and designers towards
conceptual and concrete tools. These efforts converge to two approaches: the
build of a shared design vocabulary and a game design modeling language. While
valuable, the existing implementations of these approaches are not mature
enough to gain industry adepts, serving only as reference to future works.
Moreover, it is needed to discover the designer's particular methods, which may
contribute to-wards the constitution of a unified design toolbox. Keywords: Game design; game design methods; game design tools | |||
| Augmented Home | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 30-35 | |
| Serge Offermans; Jun Hu | |||
| To combine these opportunities offered by both virtual words and the
physical world, we have developed the Augmented Home, a game which combines the
qualities of both worlds and integrates them into one. The Augmented Home draws
the virtual world into the physical by binding it to the physical environment
for children and parents to experience the virtual world together, being
engaged in activities that benefit the child's educational, social and creative
development. Keywords: virtual worlds; physical play; educational games; development of children | |||
| Debunking Differences between Younger and Older Adults Using a Collaborative Virtual Environment | | BIBA | Full-Text | 36-47 | |
| Oswald D. Kothgassner; Anna Felnhofer; Helmut Hlavacs; Leon Beutl; Jasmine Gomm; Nathalie Hauk; Elisabeth Kastenhofer; Ilse Kryspin-Exner | |||
| Collaborative virtual environments allow younger and older people to interact over long distances and stay in contact with their families and friends. Thus, these virtual environments are considered to be both, a crucial factor for active and healthy ageing and a great chance for future developments that may enhance and alter communication for specific age groups. Yet, to date there is a lack of studies examining differences between younger and older adults with special regards to technology usage factors, presence related factors as well as anxiety measures and psychophysiological arousal during social interactions in a collaborative virtual environment. Consequently, the objective of the current study was to evaluate the above mentioned factors in a group of 20 younger and 20 older adults using a slightly stressful collaborative virtual environment. The corresponding results indicate that virtual environments could indeed be beneficial tools for the communication of both, younger and older adults. Yet, older adults reported significantly lower levels of social presence during the interaction and were less able to handle the system than younger adults. Interestingly however, both groups did not differ in their technology related anxiety or regarding physiological measures of stress during the experience of the virtual environment. | |||
| Exploring Opponent Formats | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 48-60 | |
| Mads Møller Jensen; Majken Kirkegaard Rasmussen; Kaj Grønbæk | |||
| The recent growth in development and research in computer-supported physical
games has sprouted a wide variety of games merging qualities from both computer
games and sports. Despite the increasing interest in this type of games,
exploration of their specific game mechanics and the understanding of how the
opponent format and relationships impact a game are almost absent in current
research. Thus, this paper aims to elucidate how the perception of a
competition differs, depending on the opponent format, by presenting a game
mechanic framework. The paper furthermore presents an interactive
football-training platform, as well as games designed to explore the different
opponent formats. The games are qualitatively evaluated to illuminate the
qualities of and distinctions between different types of opponent formats,
proposed by the framework terminology. Keywords: Sports; framework; game mechanics; exergames; competition | |||
| Investigating the Role of Composition Conventions in Three-Move Mate Problems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 61-68 | |
| Azlan Iqbal | |||
| In improving the quality of their chess problems or compositions for
tournaments and possibly publication in magazines, composers usually rely on
'good practice' rules which are known as 'conventions'. These might include,
contain no unnecessary moves to illustrate a theme and avoid castling moves
because it cannot be proved legal. Often, conventions are thought to increase
the perceived beauty or aesthetics of a problem. We used a computer program
that incorporated a previously validated computational aesthetics model to
analyze three sets of compositions and one set of comparable three-move
sequences taken from actual games. Each of these varied in terms of their
typical adherence to conventions. We found evidence that adherence to
conventions, in principle, contributes to aesthetics in chess problems -- as
perceived by the majority of players and composers with sufficient domain
knowledge -- but only to a limited degree. Furthermore, it is likely that not
all conventions contribute equally to beauty and some might even have an
inverse effect. These findings suggest two main things. First, composers need
not concern themselves too much with conventions if their intention is simply
to make their compositions appear more beautiful to most solvers and observers.
Second, should they decide to adhere to conventions, they should be highly
selective of the ones that appeal to their target audience, i.e. those with
esoteric knowledge of the domain or 'outsiders' who likely understand beauty in
chess as something quite different. Keywords: Chess; problem; convention; beauty; composer | |||
| Mappets: An Interactive Plugin for Transmedia Machinima on Unity3D | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 69-74 | |
| Rafael Kuffner dos Anjos; Eugenio Di Tullio; Rui Prada | |||
| The popularity of Machinima movies has increased greatly in the recent
years. From a transmedia point of view, there was little development regarding
tools to assist the production of Machinima. These are still mainly focused on
the gaming community, and 3D animators. The developed tool aims to bring the
typical workflow present on a normal movie set, into a machinima creation
environment, expanding possibilities for transmedia productions. With Mappets
as a plugin for the Unity3D game engine, we allow a translation from the
typical movie dimension to a virtual one. This work evaluates the current state
of art of machinima development tools and presents a working solution more
adequate for transmedia productions and non-expert users interested in the
production of machinima. Keywords: TransMedia; Entertainment; Machinima; Narratives; Authoring System; Digital
Entertainment; Entertainment Technology; Artificial Intelligence | |||
| MobileWars: A Mobile GPGPU Game | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 75-86 | |
| Mark Joselli; Jose Ricardo, Jr. Silva; Esteban Clua; Eduardo Soluri | |||
| Nowadays mobile phones, especially smartphones, are equipped with advanced
computing capabilities. Most of these devices have multicore processors such as
dual-core CPUs and many-core GPUs. These processors are designed for both low
power consumption and high performance computation. Moreover, most devices
still lack libraries for generic multicore computing usage, such as CUDA or
OpenCL. However, computing certain kind of tasks in these mobile GPUs, and
other available multicores processors, may be faster and much more efficient
than their single threaded CPU counterparts. This advantage can be used in game
development to optimize some aspects of a game loop and also include new
features. This work presents an architecture designed to process most of the
game loop inside a mobile GPU using the Android Renderscript API. As an
illustrated test case for the proposed architecture, this work presents a game
prototype called "MobileWars", completely developed using the proposed
architecture. Keywords: Mobile; Mobile Multicore Computing; Game Architecture; GPGPU; Game Physics;
Game AI; RenderScript API; Android | |||
| StepByStep: Design of an Interactive Pictorial Activity Game for Teaching Generalization Skills to Children with Autism | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 87-92 | |
| Alberto Gruarin; Michel A. Westenberg; Emilia I. Barakova | |||
| Translating acquired behavioral skills from training environments to
daily-life situations is difficult for children with autism. This study
introduces the StepByStep platform, in which pictorial activity schedules are
implemented. Design decisions that increase the sameness in the environment and
the comfort of the children were implemented to isolate the learning task and
promote the training of generalization skills. Differently from existing visual
scheduling systems, we use photographs of the child that is trained instead of
general activity pictures. The design promotes the features of easy
individualization of the training and of playfulness while learning. StepByStep
was used by one participant in a pilot study, who showed behavior acquisition
and translation to real life situations. Keywords: Interactive game design; training generalization skills; assistive
technology; pictorial activity; personalized training for children with ASD;
visual scheduling | |||
| Technologically Mediated Intimate Communication: An Overview and Future Directions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 93-104 | |
| Elham Saadatian; Hooman Samani; Arash Toudeshki; Ryohei Nakatsu | |||
| Emerging field of intimate computing relates to the technologies that aim to
mediate affective communication across distance. Conventional telecommunication
media are originally designed for collaborations and task oriented goals with
the poor support of intimate experiences. Contemporary lifestyle changes leaded
to design and adoption of technologies in support of long distance
relationships. The present work is a study of existing prototypical systems and
related conceptual studies in this realm of study. Their design perspective,
mechanism and human factors are described. Challenges coupled to this domain
are studied and future research directions are proposed. Keywords: Telepresence; Mediated intimacy; Telematic emotional communication; User
interface; Perspective | |||
| 2D vs 3D Visualization and Social Networks Entertainment Games: A Human Factor Response Case Study | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 107-113 | |
| Zlatogor Minchev | |||
| In today's world modern 3D visualization screens are already entering the
entertainment world of future smart homes together with the social networks
popular games. The paper describes and experimental study of volunteers' focus
group spontaneous EEG dynamic changes related to 2D/3D screen modes stimuli
during short-time gaming activities. A quantitative difference between 2D and
3D gaming stimuli have been found by implementing relative power spectra
approach. Keywords: social networks entertainment games; human factor response; visualization;
EEG | |||
| A Game Design Analytic System Based on Data Provenance | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 114-119 | |
| Lidson B. Jacob; Troy C. Kohwalter; Alex Machado; Esteban W. G. Clua | |||
| This paper presents a game system approach to assist game designers to make
decisions and find critical points in their game through data provenance
collected from a game. The proposed approach is based on generating graphs from
collected data to quickly visualize the game flow. We test and validate our
approach with an infinity run genre for mobile devices. Keywords: Provenance; Game Analytics; Infinity Run | |||
| Evaluation of Interaction Methods for a Real-Time Augmented Reality Game | | BIBA | Full-Text | 120-125 | |
| Frederic Pollmann; Dirk Wenig; Mareike Picklum; Rainer Malaka | |||
| Augmented reality is a way to enhance mobile games and can be easily implemented on today's powerful smartphones. Developers need to consider additional constraints when choosing the input method for such an AR game. We implemented three control methods for a mobile AR multiplayer fighting game using a virtual joystick, a touch interface and continuous crosshair tracking. We evaluated the effect of the control methods on the game experience with 43 participants and conducted a survey using a questionnaire for intuitive use (QUESI [1]) and individual interviews. We found significant differences between two of the three implemented input methods, but in the interviews the test persons did not prefer the control method with the highest survey score. | |||
| Exercise My Game: Turning Off-The-Shelf Games into Exergames | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 126-131 | |
| Benjamin Walther-Franks; Dirk Wenig; Jan Smeddinck; Rainer Malaka | |||
| Exercise video games (exergames) can motivate players to be more physically
active. However, most exergames are controlled by confined and predefined
movements and do not promote long-term motivation. Well-funded commercial games
often excel at long-term motivation, but are not operated with motion input.
Exercise My Game (XMG) is a design framework for turning off-the-shelf action
games into full-body motion-based games. Challenges with this approach involve
finding mappings from control input to game-action, as well as blending active
input feedback with the game's interface. XMG facilitates transforming
well-produced, non-exercise video games into captivating exergames by
structuring the design space and outlining game requirements. We illustrate XMG
with the example of turning the popular first-person action game Portal 2 into
the exergame Sportal. Keywords: exergames; active games; design framework | |||
| How Do People Talk with a Virtual Philosopher: Log Analysis of a Real-World Application | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 132-137 | |
| Xuan Wang; Ryohei Nakatsu | |||
| Conversation with computers is an important form of human computer
interaction. Inappropriately designed conversational agents can easily lead to
unsatisfying user experience and even frustration, and this is especially true
when the application is deployed in the real world. Currently, research on
casual non-task oriented systems and our understanding in how people interact
with such agents are still limited. To gain more insights on this issue, we
carried out both quantitative and qualitative content analysis of conversation
logs collected from a real-world application, featuring a non-task oriented
conversational agent as a virtual philosopher. We construct a taxonomy of user
utterances to the agent and discuss a few strategies that an agent might employ
to provide a better user experience. Keywords: non-task oriented conversational agent; log analysis; virtual philosopher | |||
| Life-Like Animation System of Virtual Firefly Based on Animacy Perception | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 138-144 | |
| Daiki Satoi; Hisanao Nakadai; Matteo Bernacchia; Jun'ichi Hoshino | |||
| In this paper, we propose a computational model to generate life-like motion
for firefly-like creatures. By using a two-stage stochastic process and simple
operational elements, we could generate various life-like motion patterns.
Then, we incorporated these patterns in our animation system, where virtual
fireflies move and emit light dynamically. We experimented and verified using
surveys that the virtual fireflies look like living beings, and that different
animations give rise to different impressions. Keywords: Procedural Animation; Artificial Life; Firefly; Animacy Perception | |||
| A Model-Driven Engineering Approach for Immersive Mixed-Reality Environments | | BIBA | Full-Text | 147-150 | |
| Marija Nakevska; Jasen Markovski; Matthias Rauterberg | |||
| We propose a model-based engineering approach for development of immersive mixed-reality environments based on supervisory control theory that provides for automated software synthesis. The proposed approach greatly improves the consistency of the design process by employing models as means of communication, whereas supervisory control synthesis caters for system flexibility and evolvability. | |||
| A Technique to Improve Freehand Sketches of Multi-touch Interactions | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 151-155 | |
| Gil Barros; Leandro Velloso; Luis Carli | |||
| Sketching is a core activity in design, but sketching practices in
interaction design are sometimes insufficient, especially in the case of
freehand sketching. In this article we indicate how a technique developed
originally for the WIMP paradigm was extended to include multi-touch
interfaces. We describe the technique, provide examples and show some future
directions. Keywords: Sketching; multi-touch; freehand; technique; ActionSketch | |||
| An Artificial Emotional Agent-Based Architecture for Games Simulation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 156-159 | |
| Rainier Sales; Esteban Clua; Daniel de Oliveira; Aline Paes | |||
| Emotions are fundamental in any person's life, and would be no different in
games. While games are based at the gameplay for achieving the necessary fun
factor, emotive elements are becoming common and in some cases even necessary.
In some computing entertainment based systems, including and bringing emotional
aspects from the real world may aspects of reality, turning the virtual
characters more believable. This poster proposes a novel architecture for
supporting Non-player character (NPC) behavior modeling, enhancing emotive
agents. Personality, mood and emotive features are determined to the agents,
based on well-established models developed in psychology. We validate our
system in simulation games. Keywords: Emotional Agents; Digital Games; Artificial Intelligence; NPC | |||
| An Enriched Artifacts Activity for Supporting Creative Learning: Perspectives for Children with Impairments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 160-163 | |
| Michail N. Giannakos; Letizia Jaccheri | |||
| In this paper we present the results of a creative development program for
young students with the name, OurToys. In our empirical evaluation, a group of
researchers and artists designed and implemented two workshop pro-grams of a
total of 66 pupils, exploring their experiences with open source software and
hardware. The workshops were based on Reggio Emilia philosophy of creative
reuse and the open-source software Scratch. The results showed that: software
and hardware intensive activities raise awareness of technology, intensify the
experience, and invite students to explore boundaries and increase
collaboration and the exchange of views and ideas. Keywords: Creative activities; empirical evaluation; software and hardware
development; physical digital creativity | |||
| Automatic Emotional Reactions Identification: A Software Tool for Offline User Experience Research | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 164-167 | |
| Pedro A. Nogueira; Vasco Torres; Rui Rodrigues | |||
| Current affective response studies lack dedicated data analysis procedures
and tools for automatically annotating and triangulating emotional reactions to
game-related events. The development of such a tool would potentially allow for
both a deeper and more objective analysis of the emotional impact of digital
media stimuli on players, as well as towards the rapid implementation of this
type of studies. In this paper we describe the development of such a tool that
enables researchers to conduct objective a posteriori analyses, without
disturbing the gameplay experience, while also automating the annotation and
emotional response identification process. The tool was designed in a
data-independent fashion and allows the identified responses to be exported for
further analysis in third-party statistical software applications. Keywords: Player modelling; digital media; emotional reaction identification | |||
| Evaluating Paper Prototype for Tabletop Collaborative Game Applications | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 168-171 | |
| Marylia Gutierrez; Maurício Cirelli; Ricardo Nakamura; Lucia Filgueiras | |||
| Identifying the natural gestures for a tabletop application is one of the
most challenging tasks developers must accomplish in order to achieve a good
system user interface. This problem is even more difficult in a collaborative
environment. Cooperative Gestures allow richer interaction and must be
evaluated when designing a new multi-user tabletop interface. In this paper we
present the use of paper prototyping to analyze user interaction on a tabletop
collaborative game application. Our results show that it is possible to extract
natural gestures for an application using this technique, regardless of some
limitations. Keywords: Paper prototyping; game design; tabletop interfaces; test | |||
| Initial Perceptions of a Touch-Based Tablet Handwriting Serious Game | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 172-175 | |
| Chek Tien Tan; Junbin Huang; Yusuf Pisan | |||
| This paper aims to evaluate a handwriting serious game that makes use of
popular modern touch-based tablets to preserve traditional handwriting
practice. A first playable prototype was built and a pilot study performed on
an initial group of twenty participants. Significantly positive results were
observed in the perceptions of usefulness and also across all gameplay
dimensions except for flow. Keywords: Serious Games; Player Experience; Handwriting | |||
| Motivation-Based Game Design: A Framework for Evaluating Engagement Potential | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 176-179 | |
| Charles Butler | |||
| Video games excel at capturing and maintaining the interest of players all
around the world. However, actually moving a game from an initial concept to an
attention-grabbing best-seller is quite a difficult and unlikely event. Even
though the best games seem to have an almost magical ability to generate
engagement among players, the vast majority of games fall far short of this
mark. Likewise, many serious games and gamified products have considerable
difficulty achieving their desired levels of engagement. Success with in these
areas can be even more elusive as they are burdened with some disadvantages of
traditional games without being able to leverage all of the advantages. This
paper presents a motivation-based framework intended to evaluate the engagement
potential of a game design, whether it be a traditional game, serious game, or
gamified product. Keywords: game design; game mechanics; gamification; motivation; serious games | |||
| Mubil: Creating an Immersive Experience of Old Books to Support Learning in a Museum-Archive Environment | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 180-184 | |
| Alexandra Angeletaki; Marcello Carrozzino; Michail N. Giannakos | |||
| In this paper we present our design approach of transposing old books and
manuscripts using 3D technology in a game frame. MUBIL is an interdisciplinary
collaboration initiated by the NTNU University library of Trondheim and PERCRO
at Scuola Santa Anna in Pisa. The books are enriched with 3D objects,
additional explanatory content, in pictures, drawings, videos audios and texts
in both Norwegian and English. This experimental setting is also supplemented
by a game, the Alchemist's lab with content related directly to the book of
medicine by Adam Lonicer written in 1590. The experiment to be carried out in
the digital lab is a reconstruction of a distillation process described in this
particular book that can be played as an interactive game using a stereo
Powerwall and Nvidia 3D glasses in our MUBIL digital Laboratory in Trondheim.
The applications are under development and we present here the system
description and the workshop design adapted to visits of school children in our
3D lab. Keywords: Augmented Books; Cultural Heritage; Immersive Systems; 3D; Archives and
Libraries; XVR Systems | |||
| Suspended Walking: A Physical Locomotion Interface for Virtual Reality | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 185-188 | |
| Benjamin Walther-Franks; Dirk Wenig; Jan Smeddinck; Rainer Malaka | |||
| We present a novel physical locomotion interface for virtual environments.
It suspends the user in a torso harness so that the feet just touch ground. Low
friction materials allow walking motions with ground contact similar to real
walking, while maintaining the user in the same position. We detail the
hardware and motion tracking setup and outline results of a first user study. Keywords: physical locomotion interfaces; virtual environments; games | |||
| Usability Evaluation of an Application Designed for the Older Adults | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 189-192 | |
| André Luiz Satoshi Kawamoto; Valéria Farinazzo Martins; Flávio Soares Corrêa da Silva | |||
| Nowadays, population aging has attracted the interest of research areas such
as Health, Social Sciences, and Economics. Aging can trigger unwanted phenomena
associated to muscle weakness, loss of memory and loss of autonomy. This paper
presents a computer application based on the Corsi Test designed for the
elderly audience, which can be used for testing and for training of the
visuospatial memory. The application development is presented, as well as the
results of an Usability Evaluation. This work aims to contribute to the
usability evaluation of gesture interfaces, especially in applications aimed to
the elderly audience. Keywords: Gesture-based interface; Usability Evaluation; Kinect | |||
| Demonstrating Hundreds of AIs in One Scene | | BIBA | Full-Text | 195-199 | |
| Kjetil Raaen; Andreas Petlund; Håkon Kvale Stensland | |||
| This demo shows how a server can process heavy, game-enhancing workloads without sacrificing response time by implementing a highly parallelisable game server architecture. The architecture "LEARS" allows for the utilisation of more processing resources for tasks that will enhance the game experience. Using the A* path-finding algorithm, we demonstrate how the server distributes the resources under different levels of load, and how this impacts the response time for the game-clients. The demo allow the viewers to adjust game parameters such as the number of pathfinding entities, the number of player characters and the number of available threads and observe the impact on response time and CPU utilisation. | |||
| Educational: 3D Design for Mobile Augmented Reality | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 200-203 | |
| Ivar Kjellmo | |||
| Using Unity and the Vuforia platform in the course "3D design for Mobile
Augmented reality" at The Norwegian School of IT. In the course students
learned to make efficient, optimized and visually coherent content for
Augmented Reality apps for mobile devices. Keywords: Educational; Augmented Reality; Unity; Vuforia; 3D; IoS; Android; Mobile | |||