1,720,973 research outputs found
Environmental Awareness in Game Agents
No full textAgents make up an important part of game worlds, ranging from the characters and monsters that live in the world to the armies the player controls. Despite their importance, agents in current games rarely display an awareness of their environment or react appropriately, which severely detracts from the believability of the game. Most games use agents that have a basic awareness of the player and other agents, but are still unaware of important game events or environmental conditions. This article describes an agent design that combines cellular automata for environmental modeling with influence maps for agent decision-making. The result is simple, flexible game agents that are able to respond to dynamic changes to the environment (e.g., rain or fire) while pursuing a goal
Teaching games level design using the StarCraft II editor
Full text linkLevel design is often characterised as “where the rubber hits the road” in game development. It is a core area of games design, alongside design of game rules and narrative. However, there is a lack of literature dedicated to\ud
documenting teaching games design, let alone the more specialised topic of level design. Furthermore, there is a lack of formal frameworks for best practice in level design, as professional game developers often rely on\ud
intuition and previous experience. As a result, there is little for games design teachers to draw on when presented with the opportunity to teach a level design unit. In this paper, we discuss the design and implementation of a\ud
games level design unit in which students use the StarCraft II Galaxy Editor.\ud
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We report on two cycles of an action research project, reflecting upon our experiences with respect to student feedback and peer review, and outlining our plans for improving the unit in years to come
Current AI in games : a review
No full textAs the graphics race subsides and gamers grow weary of predictable and deterministic game characters, game developers must put aside their “old faithful” finite state machines and look to more advanced techniques that give the users the gaming experience they crave. The next industry breakthrough will be with characters that behave realistically and that can learn and adapt, rather than more polygons, higher resolution textures and more frames-per-second. This paper explores the various artificial intelligence techniques that are currently being used by game developers, as well as techniques that are new to the industry. The techniques covered in this paper are finite state machines, scripting, agents, flocking, fuzzy logic and fuzzy state machines decision trees, neural networks, genetic algorithms and extensible AI. This paper introduces each of these technique, explains how they can be applied to games and how commercial games are currently making use of them. Finally, the effectiveness of these techniques and their future role in the industry are evaluated
Revisiting the GameFlow model with detailed heuristics
No full textThe GameFlow model strives to be a general model of player enjoyment, applicable to all game genres and platforms. Derived from a general set of heuristics for creating enjoyable player experiences, the GameFlow model has been widely used in evaluating many types of games, as well as non-game applications. However, we recognize that more specific, low-level, and implementable criteria are potentially more useful for designing and evaluating video games. Consequently, the research reported in this paper aims to provide detailed heuristics for designing and evaluating one specific game genre, real-time strategy games. In order to develop these heuristics, we conducted a grounded theoretical analysis on a set of professional game reviews and structured the resulting heuristics using the GameFlow model. A selection of the resulting 165 heuristics are presented in this paper and discussed with respect to key evaluations of the GameFlow model
Motivations for videogame play: Predictors of time spent playing
No full textThe aim of the current research was to identify factors that are associated with the amount of time people play videogames. The current study extends previous research by exploring this question with a variety of genres of videogames. Five hundred and seventy-three participants completed an online survey of their gaming habits, preferences and their experiences while playing. Beyond differences in hours of play associated with gender and game genres, greater time spent playing was found to be associated with playing with others and with higher experiences of competence, autonomy and relatedness during gameplay. The findings are interpreted in light of previous research and the potential implications for links between videogame play and wellbeing are considered
Active versus passive screen time for young children
No full textIn this paper, we report some initial findings from our investigations into the Australian Government’s Longitudinal Study of Australian Children dataset. It is revealed that the majority of Australian children are exceeding the government’s Screen Time recommendations and that most of their screen time is spent as TV viewing, as opposed to video game play or computer use. In light of this finding,we review the body of research surrounding children’s engagement in Screen Time activities and the associated positive and negative effects. Based on existing evidence,we define two categories of Screen Time—Active Screen Time and Passive Screen Time. It is proposed that this distinction provides a more accurate classification of Screen Time and a more informative lens through which to consider the associated benefits and detrimental effects for young children
Creating good lives through computer games
No full textIn this chapter we aim to explore how videogames can lead to improvements in wellbeing. Following Keyes (2007) and Huppert and So (2012) we view wellbeing as a multidimensional concept with both hedonic and eudaimonic aspects. In this chapter we take a broad approach in terms of exploring the impact of videogames on the psychological, social, and physical components of wellbeing. We explore how videogames have been shown to have an impact in each of these domains. Although there is a great deal of evidence for the actual and potential positive impacts of videogames, there are many unanswered questions regarding the situations in which there is likely to be an impact of videogame play on wellbeing, as well as the aspects of wellbeing that are likely to be impacted by videogame play. We conclude the chapter by outlining the key questions for future research. Our focus in this chapter is on the positive influences of videogames. We do not explore research on contexts in which negative impacts are possible or subgroups for which videogames could cause harm. However, these questions are obviously important and we see balanced engagement with age-appropriate videogames as a key prerequisite for any of the wellbeing benefits discussed below
GameFlow: A model for evaluating player enjoyment in games
No full textAlthough player enjoyment is central to computer games, there is currently no accepted model of player enjoyment in games. There are many heuristics presented in the literature, based on elements such as the game interface, mechanics, gameplay and narrative. However, there is a need to integrate these heuristics into a validated model that can be used to design, evaluate and understand enjoyment in games. We have drawn together the various heuristics into a concise model of enjoyment in games that is structured by flow. Flow, a widely accepted model of enjoyment, includes eight elements that we found to encompass the various heuristics from the literature. Our new model, GameFlow, consists of eight elements – concentration, challenge, skills, control, clear goals, feedback, immersion and social interaction. Each element includes a set of criteria for achieving enjoyment in games. An initial investigation and validation of the GameFlow model was carried out by conducting expert reviews of two real-time strategy games, one high-rating and one low-rating, using the GameFlow criteria. The result was a deeper understanding of enjoyment in real-time strategy games and the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the GameFlow model for evaluating enjoyment in games. The GameFlow criteria were successfully able to distinguish between the high-rated and low-rated game and identify why one succeeded and the other failed. We concluded that the GameFlow model can be used in its current form to review games and further work will provide tools for designing and evaluating enjoyment in games
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