scholarly journals How the Visual Design of Video Game Antagonists Affects Perception of Morality

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reyhan Pradantyo ◽  
Max V. Birk ◽  
Scott Bateman
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Mechanical Turk ◽  
Visual Design ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Character Design ◽  
Image Set ◽  
Insight Into

The visual design of antagonists—typically thought of as “bad guys”—is crucial for game design. Antagonists are key to providing the backdrop to a game's setting and motivating a player's actions. The visual representation of antagonists is important because it affects player expectations about the character's personality and potential actions. Particularly important is how players perceive an antagonist's morality. For example, an antagonist appearing disloyal might foreshadow betrayal; a character who looks cruel suggests that tough fights are ahead; or, a player might be surprised when a friendly looking character attacks them. Today, the art of designing character morality is informed by archetypal elements, existing characters, and the artist's own background. However, little work has provided insight into how an antagonist's appearance can lead players to make moral judgments. Using Mechanical Turk, we collected participant ratings on a stimulus image set of 105 antagonists from popular video games. The results of our work provide insights into how the visual attributes of antagonists can influence judgments of character morality. Our findings provide a valuable new lens for understanding and deepening an important aspect of game design. Our results can be used to help ensure that a particular character design has the best chance to be universally seen as “evil,” or to help create more complex and conflicted emotional experiences through carefully designed characters that do not appear to be bad. Our research extends current research practices that seek to build an understanding of game design and provides exciting new directions for exploring how design and aesthetic practices can be better studied and supported.

scholarly journals Against Empathy Bias: The Moral Value of Equitable Empathy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Fowler ◽  
Kyle Fiore Law ◽  
Brendan Gaesser
Keyword(s):  
Moral Life ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Mechanical Turk ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Amazon's Mechanical Turk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Insight ◽  
Insight Into

Empathy has long been considered central in living a moral life. However, mounting evidence has shown that empathy is often biased towards (i.e., felt more strongly for) close and similar others, igniting a debate over whether empathy is inherently morally flawed and should be abandoned in efforts to strive towards greater equity. This debate has focused on whether empathy limits the scope of our morality, with little consideration of whether it may be our moral beliefs limiting our empathy. Across two studies conducted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (N= 604), we investigate moral judgments of biased and equitable feelings of empathy. We observed a moral preference for empathy towards socially close over distant others. However, feeling equal empathy for all is seen as the most morally and socially valuable. These findings provide new theoretical insight into the relationship between empathy and morality with implications for navigating towards a more egalitarian future.

Serious Educational Games (SEGs) and Student Learning and Engagement With Scientific Concepts

2018 ◽  
pp. 629-646
Author(s):  
Shawn Y. Holmes ◽  
Brandi Thurmond ◽  
Leonard A. Annetta ◽  
Matthew Sears
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Educational Games ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Learning Condition ◽  
Design For Sustainability ◽  
Video Game Design ◽  
Serious Educational Games ◽  
Insight Into

Situated in the video game design literature to foster problem-based learning, this chapter illustrates the application of educational theories to create Serious Educational Games (SEGs). SEGs present a learning condition where students can be engaged in standard-based STEM concepts and incorporate these concepts into a fun, interactive challenge where the goal is to solve a problem. This chapter explores a theoretical research investigation of such a learning environment. Students researched standard-based STEM concepts then used design techniques (i.e., story creation, flow chart, decision trees, and storyboarding techniques) and proprietary software to develop their own SEGs. This work sheds light on the process and encourages others to partake in creating similar learning environments, while providing insight into how to design for sustainability.

Virtual Psyche in Play and Tending the Collective Unconscious

2016 ◽  
pp. 156-179
Author(s):  
Susan Marie Savett
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Archetypal Psychology ◽  
Collective Unconscious ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Pivotal Point ◽  
James Hillman ◽  
Video Game Design ◽  
Insight Into

Knowingly or unknowingly, games manifest archetypal forces from the unconscious. Through play and fantasy, unconscious content of the psyche is able to express its deep longings. Hypnogogic landscapes of videogames provide immersive realms in which players enact psychological dramas. Game designers reside on a unique axis from which their work with the imaginary realm can create profound psychic containers. At this pivotal point in our culture, digital games hold tremendous influence over the creation of new myths, lore, and possibilities. This chapter investigates archetypal psychology concepts of Carl Jung and James Hillman for insight into 21st century realm of virtual play and its relationship to the collective unconscious. It focuses on how games provide a means for bringing individual and cultural unconscious impulses into consciousness through personification, pathologizing and meaning making within virtual play. It aims to introduce an alternative lens to bridge psychological dynamics with the video game design.

scholarly journals Unboxing the Design of English as a Second Language (ESL) Learning Video Game for Indigenous Learners: An Empathic Designbased Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Mohd Syazwan Wan Mahzan ◽  
Nor Aziah Alias ◽  
Izaham Shah Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Formative Evaluation ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Empathic Design ◽  
Video Game Design ◽  
One To One ◽  
Indigenous Learners

A learning application that can conjure meaningful learner experiences has always been the ultimate aim for any design and development initiative. Instructional designer longs for not only considerably rich inputs from expert members in design stage but those inputs ought to be sensitive to cognitive and emotional learner experiences, illuminating the core concept of empathic design which is deep reflection on how targeted learners impacted by the design would react when engaging with the proposed design solutions. This exploratory qualitative method study examined how subject matter experts empathised the cognitive and emotional experiences of the indigenous learners when they were designing a learning video game that aimed to heighten learning engagement in ESL classroom. A semi-structured interview with six experts was conducted. Once the proposed technology was ready for formative evaluation, one-to-one evaluation was conducted on three targeted learners to assess their usability experience. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse the interview verbatim transcriptions and one-to-one evaluation qualitative notes. The design findings indicate that the experts transformed the learner cognitive and emotional experiences for the learning video game design in the form of seven design principles and the evaluation findings show that there is a congruence between the effectiveness of those principles and the learner usability experience.

scholarly journals Creator’s discussion of the growing focus on, and potential of, storytelling in video game design

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mata Haggis
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Video Game Industry ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
Video Game Design ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Made In

The video game industry, by its wider reputation, is not commonly regarded for its deep and thoughtful experiences. In its common media presence it is represented as frequently dealing with content that is excessively violent and usually expressing themes and genres that are otherworldly: science-fiction, horror, or fantasy. However, the broad reputation of video games’ reputation is not wholly deserved, partly due to an arthouse-esque movement growing rapidly alongside the larger, traditional releases. In the last decade, and five years especially, there have been an increasing number of games which tell personal stories that are either inspired by life or that are autobiographical and that defy that broader reputation. These games are often highly concerned with creating vivid and believable characters, telling personal stories, or conveying emotional experiences using interaction to enhance the narrative. This article discusses some of the key titles in this area, the debates in video game culture surrounding them, and some of the choices made in the development of the author's own narrative game experience 'Fragments of Him'.

Serious Educational Games (SEGs) and Student Learning and Engagement with Scientific Concepts

2012 ◽  
pp. 464-486
Author(s):  
Shawn Holmes ◽  
Brandi Thurmond ◽  
Leonard A. Annetta ◽  
Matthew Sears
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Educational Games ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Learning Condition ◽  
Design For Sustainability ◽  
Video Game Design ◽  
Serious Educational Games ◽  
Insight Into

Situated in the video game design literature to foster problem-based learning, this chapter illustrates the application of educational theories to create Serious Educational Games (SEGs). SEGs present a learning condition where students can be engaged in standard-based STEM concepts and incorporate these concepts into a fun, interactive challenge where the goal is to solve a problem. This chapter explores a theoretical research investigation of such a learning environment. Students researched standard-based STEM concepts then used design techniques (i.e., story creation, flow chart, decision trees, and storyboarding techniques) and proprietary software to develop their own SEGs. This work sheds light on the process and encourages others to partake in creating similar learning environments, while providing insight into how to design for sustainability.

A Ludomusicologist Goes to the Museum

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-132
Author(s):  
Martine Mussies
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Video Game Design ◽  
Victoria And Albert Museum ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Selection Of

From September 2018 to February 2019, the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London hosted Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, a major exhibition on contemporary video game design and culture. Announced as “a unique insight into the design process behind a selection of groundbreaking contemporary videogames,” this immersive exhibition was the end presentation of a project that took four years to undertake. Dutch PhD student Martine Mussies went over the Channel to take a look and write down her experiences for this first issue of the Journal of Sound and Music in Games.

scholarly journals Against Empathy Bias: The Moral Value of Equitable Empathy

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762097996
Author(s):  
Zoë Fowler ◽  
Kyle Fiore Law ◽  
Brendan Gaesser
Keyword(s):  
Moral Life ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Mechanical Turk ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Amazon's Mechanical Turk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Insight ◽  
Insight Into

Empathy has long been considered central to living a moral life. However, mounting evidence has shown that people’s empathy is often biased toward (i.e., felt more strongly for) others that they are close or similar to, igniting a debate over whether empathy is inherently morally flawed and should be abandoned in efforts to strive toward greater equity. This debate has focused on whether empathy limits the scope of our morality, but little consideration has been given to whether our moral beliefs may be limiting our empathy. Across two studies conducted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk ( N = 604), we investigated moral judgments of biased and equitable feelings of empathy. We observed a moral preference for empathy toward socially close over distant others. However, feeling equal empathy for all people is seen as the most morally and socially valuable approach. These findings provide new theoretical insight into the relationship between empathy and morality, and they have implications for navigating toward a more egalitarian future.

Will Love Tear Us Apart: Adapting the Lyrical to the Ludic

CounterText ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-235
Author(s):  
Gordon Calleja
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Lyrical Poetry ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Made In

This paper gives an insight into the design process of a game adaptation of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart (1980). It outlines the challenges faced in attempting to reconcile the diverging qualities of lyrical poetry and digital games. In so doing, the paper examines the design decisions made in every segment of the game with a particular focus on the tension between the core concerns of the lyrical work being adapted and established tenets of game design.

A Video Game for Brazilian T1D Children about Knowledge of Disease and Self-care: A Methodological Study

2021 ◽  
pp. 193229682110175
Author(s):  
Valéria de Cássia Sparapani ◽  
Sidney Fels ◽  
Noreen Kamal ◽  
Rebecca Ortiz La Banca ◽  
Lucila Castanheira Nascimento
Keyword(s):  
Health Behavior ◽  
Behavior Change ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Health Behavior Change ◽  
Self Management ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Methodological Study ◽  
Video Game Design ◽  
Management Behaviors

Background: Video games are interactive technologies able to support children in health promotion, behavior changes, and chronic disease self-management. The use of health behavior change determinants in video game design can increase its effectiveness. This study describes the process of designing a video game for Brazilian children with T1D clarifying the use of health behavior change determinants that may influence self-management behaviors. Methods: This was a methodological study based on health behavior change theories and the user-centered design approach. The results of a qualitative study conducted with children aged 7 to 12 years identified learning needs about knowledge on diabetes and self-care tasks which contribute to inappropriate behaviors. A Behavioral Diagnosis presented health behavior change determinants, capable of influencing children’s learning needs and behaviors, that were considered to design The Heroes of Diabetes—the power of knowledge. Results: The results presented the process of designing 4 mini games with its description and theory foundation to reach children’s lack of understanding about T1D, insulin’s role, SMBG requirements, food groups and physical activity’s role in glycemic control. Knowledge, goal settings, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation determinants were related with video games design features. Conclusions: The findings support the use of health behavior change determinants into video game design as a guide to achieve children learning needs and that might influence self-management behaviors.

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