Smart Games: Emergent Game Design

<p>Gaming is a rapidly growing recreational activity. Over the last two decades we have seen a proliferation of games across all genres and user demographics. The consumption of content in modern games has grown as a result of the advancing technology available to game designers, as well as the growing expectations of the audience. The need for increasing the value of the content and expanding potential audience grows every day. Using dynamic adjustments to the underlying game systems as the player experiences the game, this paper will demonstrate how using emergent principles combined with other foundational systems, such as evolutionary algorithms, can increase the value of the content created for any game. This added value is of benefit to both those who have made the game, and the users who experience the results.</p>

Smart Games: Emergent Game Design

<p>Gaming is a rapidly growing recreational activity. Over the last two decades we have seen a proliferation of games across all genres and user demographics. The consumption of content in modern games has grown as a result of the advancing technology available to game designers, as well as the growing expectations of the audience. The need for increasing the value of the content and expanding potential audience grows every day. Using dynamic adjustments to the underlying game systems as the player experiences the game, this paper will demonstrate how using emergent principles combined with other foundational systems, such as evolutionary algorithms, can increase the value of the content created for any game. This added value is of benefit to both those who have made the game, and the users who experience the results.</p>

From Tabletop to Screen: Playing Dungeons and Dragons during COVID-19

Media reports suggest that the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons saw its biggest year to date in 2020, with many such reports touting the interactive and social benefits for people facing COVID-19 lockdowns. This paper explores the reported challenges and benefits of playing D&D through teleconferencing hardware and software, and the experience of using virtual tabletops. A thematic analysis of a sample of Reddit threads discussing player experiences of transitioning D&D to remote play during COVID-19 social distancing was undertaken. The findings highlight a variety of player attitudes and preferences towards playing D&D remotely. The data suggest a mostly negative sentiment towards playing D&D online for groups that had transitioned from in-person to remote play. Loss of in-person socialisation was identified as an important contributor to a poor play experience, but groups would persevere with remote play to maintain social relationships, suggesting that, for many players, D&D serves an important social function beyond mere play. Some avenues for future research are identified.

Space Vision

This paper presents a novel mobile serious game, "Space Vision", which uses a hidden-object mechanic with fiducial marker detection to gamify a clinical test of visual acuity - a key marker of childhood eye disease. For Space Vision to become a credible clinical tool that can facilitate the screening and home-monitoring of children's visual acuity, it must be able to sustain player engagement over the extended durations required to detect vision abnormalities. Hence, we pay particular attention to developing effective game characters - a crucial aspect of children's game design. Using an early prototype with 13 school children (aged 5-6 years), we investigate player experiences through a series of evaluation sessions, involving a single one-to-one observational playtest, semi-structured interview, and ideation activity with each child. Thematic analysis of our session video recordings, written observations, and ideation artefacts, found that future game iterations must: increase resonance between players and game characters by providing aesthetic and behavioural customisation, embrace more anthropomorphic styling, better imbue narratives pertaining to children's life scripts, and feature fantasy character powers as a form of self-expression. Meanwhile, greater physical device support and digital incentivisation of body posture and head position are key to improving the reliability of the visual acuity measurement.

The familiar places we dream about: Pokémon GO and nostalgia during a global pandemic

This article explores the impact of COVID-19 on the developers and players of Pokémon GO through the lens of nostalgia. Focusing on the game as a nostalgic text that works to remediate physical and social spaces, we examine how gameplay has changed in response to players’ restricted mobility and isolation during the 2020 global pandemic. The release of Pokémon GO in 2016 was a watershed moment in the development of mobile augmented reality games. Building on a popular culture franchise familiar to many, it fused cutting-edge technology with memories of the past. Previous studies suggest playing Pokémon GO is associated with dreamlike nostalgia for childhood adventures. But these experiences were intimately linked with physical movement, proximity to others, and the exploration of outdoor spaces. Confined to their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, once free-roaming players are now being encouraged to embrace isolated, sedentary play. There is an additional layer of nostalgia in operation as players and developers alike reminisce about socializing and playing in the world outside the home. This article therefore explores how Pokémon GO mediates player experiences and unpacks its role in negotiating both memory and contemporary societal trauma.

Using the Behaviour Change Wheel Program Planning Model to Design Games for Health: Development Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Games for health are a promising approach to health promotion. Their success depends on achieving both experiential (game) and instrumental (health) objectives. There is little to guide game for health (G4H) designers in integrating the science of behavior change with the art of game design. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to extend the Behaviour Change Wheel program planning model to develop Challenges for Healthy Aging: Leveraging Limits for Engaging Networked Game-Based Exercise (CHALLENGE), a G4H centered on increasing physical activity in insufficiently active older women. METHODS We present and apply the G4H Mechanics, Experiences, and Change (MECHA) process, which supplements the Behaviour Change Wheel program planning model. The additional steps are centered on identifying target G4H player experiences and corresponding game mechanics to help game designers integrate design elements and G4H objectives into behavioral interventions. RESULTS We identified a target behavior of increasing moderate-intensity walking among insufficiently active older women and key psychosocial determinants of this behavior from self-determination theory (eg, autonomy). We used MECHA to map these constructs to intervention functions (eg, persuasion) and G4H target player experiences (eg, captivation). Next, we identified behavior change techniques (eg, framing or reframing) and specific game mechanics (eg, transforming) to help realize intervention functions and elicit targeted player experiences. CONCLUSIONS MECHA can help researchers map specific linkages between distal intervention objectives and more proximal game design mechanics in games for health. This can facilitate G4H program planning, evaluation, and clearer scientific communication.

Research on Application of Artificial Intelligence in VR Games

Purposed to promote the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the game field, this article adopts the literature analysis method and the case study method, analyzes the problems with virtual reality (VR) games and explores several popular VR game cases in China and abroad before summarizing the artistic characteristics of VR games. Artificial intelligence technology has brought a new creative mode to the game industry, while providing more suitable game content for players. Further, artificial intelligence technology can equip VR games with better game experience by analyzing players’ physiological and psychological information as well as players’ game strategies. Compared with traditional games, VR games can deliver better interactivity, deeper immersion and higher fidelity. However, VR games impose higher requirements on device data and space scale; in other words, they must meet specific requirements to provide better game experience. VR games also have monotonous game types and high prices. In the future, the integration of VR games with artificial intelligence would generate more profound game-player experiences and richer game contents.