‘Blind Faith’. An experiment with narrative agency in game design

This paper reports on the current field of narrative-based game design through case study analysis with a particular focus on balancing high narrative agency with low production resources.

A game of balance and disguise: Examining experiential value and game attributes in social marketing m-games

Experiential value is an important driver of customer repeat behaviour and is necessary for achieving sustained behaviour. Understanding the value gained by consumers is particularly important when adopting innovative techniques, such as new technology. Social marketing (behaviour change) practice is increasingly using the technology of mobile games (m-games), yet there is little scholarly research to explain how these games can create experiential value for the user, or which game attributes influence this value. A key finding of this thesis is the importance of achieving a balance between entertainment value and behaviour value through the use of key game attributes relating to disguise and performance. The research offers a contribution to address current managerial problems faced by social marketing practitioners looking to employ m-games to achieve behavioural outcomes.

Monte Carlo analysis of a puzzle game

When a puzzle game is created, its design parameters must be chosen to allow solvable and interesting challenges to be created for the player. We investigate the use of random sampling as a computationally inexpensive means of automated game analysis, to evaluate the BoxOff family of puzzle games. This analysis reveals useful insights into the game, such as the surprising fact that almost 100% of randomly generated challenges have a solution, but less than 10% will be solved using strictly random play, validating the inventor’s design choices. We show the 1D game to be trivial and the 3D game to be viable.

The ninth 48hr game making challenge (2015)

The 48 hour game making challenge has been running since 2007. In recent years, we have not only been running a 'game jam' for the local community but we have also been exploring the way in which the event itself and the place of the event has the potential to create its own stories. The 2015 challenge is part of a series of data collection opportunities focussed on the game jam itself and the meaning making that the participants engage in about the event. We are continuing the data collection commenced in 2012: "Game jams are the creative festivals of the game development community and a game jam is very much an event or performance; its stories are those of subjective experience. Participants return year after year and recount personal stories from previous challenges; arrival in the 48hr location typically inspires instances of individual memory and narration more in keeping with those of a music festival or an oft frequented holiday destination. Since its inception, the 48hr has been heavily documented, from the photo-blogging of our first jam and the twitter streams of more recent events to more formal interviews and documentaries (see Anderson, 2012). We have even had our own moments of Gonzo journalism with an on-site press room one year and an ‘embedded’ journalist another year (Keogh, 2011). In the last two years of the 48hr we have started to explore ways and means to collect more abstract data during the event, that is, empirical data about movement and activity. The intent behind this form of data collection was to explore graphic and computer generated visualisations of the event, not for the purpose of formal analysis but in the service of further story telling." [exerpt from truna aka j.turner, Thomas & Owen, 2013) See: truna aka j.turner, Thomas & Owen (2013) Living the indie life: mapping creative teams in a 48 hour game jam and playing with data, Proceedings of the 9th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, IE'2013, September 30 - October 01 2013, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Japanese Video Game Localization : A Case Study of Sony's Sairen Series

This thesis is a comparative case study in Japanese video game localization for the video games Sairen, Sairen 2 and Sairen Nyûtoransurêshon, and English-language localized versions of the same games as published in Scandinavia and Australia/New Zealand. All games are developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and published exclusively for Playstation2 and Playstation3 consoles. The fictional world of the Sairen games draws much influence from Japanese history, as well as from popular and contemporary culture, and in doing so caters mainly to a Japanese audience. For localization, i.e. the adaptation of a product to make it accessible to users outside the original market it was intended for in the first place, this is a challenging issue. Video games are media of entertainment, and therefore localization practice must preserve the games’ effects on the players’ emotions. Further, video games are digital products that are comprised of a multitude of distinct elements, some of which are part of the game world, while others regulate the connection between the player as part of the real world and the game as digital medium. As a result, video game localization is also a practice that has to cope with the technical restrictions that are inherent to the medium. The main theory used throughout the thesis is Anthony Pym’s framework for localization studies that considers the user of the localized product as a defining part of the localization process. This concept presupposes that localization is an adaptation that is performed to make a product better suited for use during a specific reception situation. Pym also addresses the factor that certain products may resist distribution into certain reception situations because of their content, and that certain aspects of localization aim to reduce this resistance through significant alterations of the original product. While Pym developed his ideas with mainly regular software in mind, they can also be adapted well to study video games from a localization angle. Since modern video games are highly complex entities that often switch between interactive and non-interactive modes, Pym’s ideas are adapted throughout the thesis to suit the particular elements being studied. Instances analyzed in this thesis include menu screens, video clips, in-game action and websites. The main research questions focus on how the games’ rules influence localization, and how the games’ fictional domain influences localization. Because there are so many peculiarities inherent to the medium of the video game, other theories are introduced as well to complement the research at hand. These include Lawrence Venuti’s discussions of foreiginizing and domesticating translation methods for literary translation, and Jesper Juul’s definition of games. Additionally, knowledge gathered from interviews with video game localization professionals in Japan during September and October 2009 is also utilized for this study. Apart from answering the aforementioned research questions, one of this thesis’ aims is to enrich the still rather small field of game localization studies, and the study of Japanese video games in particular, one of Japan’s most successful cultural exports.

Hybrid game strategies for MO problems in aerospace design

Game strategies have been developed in past decades and used in the field of economics, engineering, computer science and biology due to their efficiency in solving design optimisation problems. In addition, research on Multi-Objective (MO) and Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO) has focused on developing robust and efficient optimisation method to produce quality solutions with less computational time. In this paper, a new optimisation method Hybrid Game Strategy for MO problems is introduced and compared to CMA-ES based optimisation approach. Numerical results obtained from both optimisation methods are compared in terms of computational expense and model quality. The benefits of using Game-strategies are demonstrated.

Learning Optimal Discriminant Functions through a Cooperative Game of Automata

The problem of learning correct decision rules to minimize the probability of misclassification is a long-standing problem of supervised learning in pattern recognition. The problem of learning such optimal discriminant functions is considered for the class of problems where the statistical properties of the pattern classes are completely unknown. The problem is posed as a game with common payoff played by a team of mutually cooperating learning automata. This essentially results in a probabilistic search through the space of classifiers. The approach is inherently capable of learning discriminant functions that are nonlinear in their parameters also. A learning algorithm is presented for the team and convergence is established. It is proved that the team can obtain the optimal classifier to an arbitrary approximation. Simulation results with a few examples are presented where the team learns the optimal classifier.

Indicators of wellbeing in recreational video game players

Video game play is a popular entertainment choice, yet we have a limited understanding of the potential wellbeing benefits associated with recreational play. An online survey (final sample, n = 297) addresses this by investigating how the player experience related to wellbeing. The impact of amount of play, game genre, mode of play (social or solitary play) and the psychological experience of play (flow and need satisfaction) on a multi-dimensional measure of wellbeing (emotional, psychological and social) was examined via hierarchical regression. Age, gender, the play of casual games compared to shooters, and in-game experiences of flow, autonomy and relatedness were associated with increases in dimensions of wellbeing.

A cooperative game of a pair of learning automata

A cooperative game played in a sequential manner by a pair of learning automata is investigated in this paper. The automata operate in an unknown random environment which gives a common pay-off to the automata. Necessary and sufficient conditions on the functions in the reinforcement scheme are given for absolute monotonicity which enables the expected pay-off to be monotonically increasing in any arbitrary environment. As each participating automaton operates with no information regarding the other partner, the results of the paper are relevant to decentralized control.

Hakoah men's soccer team at a game against Graz Hasair; Vienna Portraits Men

Score 2:1 Hakoah; Names of players with numbers handwritten on verso

Location of Pathogenic Bacteria during Persistent Infections: Insights from an Analysis Using Game Theory

Bacterial persistent infections are responsible for a significant amount of the human morbidity and mortality. Unlike acute bacterial infections, it is very difficult to treat persistent bacterial infections (e.g. tuberculosis). Knowledge about the location of pathogenic bacteria during persistent infection will help to treat such conditions by designing novel drugs which can reach such locations. In this study, events of bacterial persistent infections were analyzed using game theory. A game was defined where the pathogen and the host are the two players with a conflict of interest. Criteria for the establishment of Nash equilibrium were calculated for this game. This theoretical model, which is very simple and heuristic, predicts that during persistent infections pathogenic bacteria stay in both intracellular and extracellular compartments of the host. The result of this study implies that a bacterium should be able to survive in both intracellular and extracellular compartments of the host in order to cause persistent infections. This explains why persistent infections are more often caused by intracellular pathogens like Mycobacterium and Salmonella. Moreover, this prediction is in consistence with the results of previous experimental studies.

Playing the policy game: A review of the barriers and enablers of nutrition policy change

- Objective To progress nutrition policy change and develop more effective advocates, it is useful to consider real-world factors and practical experiences of past advocacy efforts to determine the key barriers and enablers to nutrition policy change. This review aimed to identify and synthesize the enablers and barriers to public policy change within the field of nutrition. - Design Electronic databases were searched systematically for studies examining policymaking in public health nutrition. An interpretive synthesis was undertaken. Setting: International, national, state and local government jurisdictions within high-income, democratic countries. - Results Sixty-three studies were selected for inclusion. Numerous themes were identified explaining the barriers and enablers to policy change, all of which fell under the overarching category, ‘political will’, underpinned by a second major category, ‘public will’. Sub-themes, including pressure from industry; neoliberal ideology; use of emotions and values, and being visible were prevalent in describing links between public will, political will and policy change. - Conclusions The frustration around lack of public policy change in nutrition frequently stems from a belief that policymaking is a rational process in which evidence is used to assess the relative costs and benefits of options. The findings from this review confirm that evidence is only one component of influencing policy change. For policy change to occur there needs to be the political will, and often the public will, for the proposed policy problem and solution. This review presents a suite of enablers which can assist health professionals to influence political and public will in future advocacy efforts.

Cooperative game play with avatars and agents: Differences in brain activity and the experience of play

The current study sought to identify the impact of whether teammates in a cooperative videogame were controlled by other humans (avatars) or by the game (agents). The impact on player experience was explored through both subjective questionnaire measures and brain wave activity measurement (electroencephalography). Play with human teammates was associated with a greater sense of relatedness, but less competence and flow than play with other computer-controlled teammates. In terms of brain activity, play with human teammates was associated with greater activity in the alpha, theta and beta power bands than play with computer-controlled teammates. Overall, the results suggest that play with human teammates involves greater cognitive activity in terms of 'mentalising' than play with computer-controlled teammates. Additionally, the associations between subjective measures of player experience and brain activity are described. Limitations of the current study are identified and key directions for future research are discussed.

Grand Push Auto: A car based exertion game

Grand Push Auto is an exertion game in which players aim to push a full sized car to ever increasing speeds. The re-appropriation of a car as essentially a large weight allows us to create a highly portable and distributable exertion game in which the main game element has a weight of over 1000 kilograms. In this paper we discuss initial experiences with GPA, and present 3 questions for ongoing study which have been identified from our early testing: How might we appropriate existing objects in exertion game design, and does appropriation change how we think about these objects in different contexts, for example environmental awareness? How does this relate to more traditional sled based weight training? How can we create exertion games that allow truly brutal levels of force?