Dice and board games

Provides several alternative mathematical games. Features of the game Beetle; Mechanics of the game Ludo; Description of the game Horse Race.

A Software Platform for Educational Board Games

Educational games such as quizzes, quests, puzzles, mazes and logical problems may be modeled as multimedia board games. In the scope of the ADOPTA project1 being under development at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics at Sofia University, a formal model for presentation of such educational board games was invented and elaborated. Educational games can be modeled as special board mini-games, with a board of any form and any types of positions. Over defined positions, figures (objects) with certain properties are placed and, next, there are to be defined formal rules for manipulation of these figures and resulted effects. The model has been found to be general enough in order to allow description and execution control of more complex logical problems to be solved by several actions delivered to/by the player according some formal rules and context conditions and, in general, of any learning activities and their workflow. It is used as a base for creation of a software platform providing facilities for easy construction of multimedia board games and their execution. The platform consists of game designer (i.e., a game authoring tool) and game run-time controller communicating each other through game repository. There are created and modeled many examples of educational board games appropriate for didactic purposes, self evaluations, etc., which are supposed to be designed easily by authors with no IT skills and experience. By means of game metadata descriptions, these games are going be included into narrative storyboards and, next, delivered to learners with appropriate profile according their learning style, preferences, etc. Moreover, usage of artificial intelligence agents is planned as well – once as playing virtual opponents of the player or, otherwise, being virtual advisers of the gamer helping him/her in finding the right problem solution within given domain such as discovering a treasure using a location map, finding best tour in a virtual museum, guessing an unknown word in a hangman game, and many others.

Playing with the history of Middle-Earth: board games, transmedia storytelling, and The Lord of the Rings

Contemporary cases of transmedia storytelling have thrown many conventional understandings of ‘adaptation’ into disarray. The resurgence of tabletop game culture has thus far played a significant role in this, though scholars have largely neglected the subject, particularly in terms of how transmedia relationships reconfigure the meaning(s) shaped by and through games by players. This paper addresses this phenomenon through a close analysis of two board games based on The Lord of the Rings, in which the (re)construction of the story-world of the source text(s) impacts strongly on ‘conventional’ modes of narrative and identification. Governed by the adoption of various mechanics and innovative uses of the ‘competitive-cooperative’ spectrum, such transformations frequently have significant implications for how narrative meanings might be generated through play.

Almirante: Evaluating the board game: Board game, startup, discounted cash flow, venture capital method, real options

This thesis evaluates a start-up company (Jogos Almirante Lda) whose single asset is a board game named Almirante. It aims to conclude whether it makes sense to create a company or just earn copyrights. The thesis analyzes the board game’s market, as part of the general toy’s market, from which some data exists: European countries as well as the USA. In this work it is analyzed the several ways to finance a start-up company and then present an overview of the valuation of the Jogos Almirante based on three different methods: Discounted Cash Flow, Venture Capital Method and Real Options.

Get to know your local games shop

Provides information on the mathematical potential of commercial board games. Mastermind; Snakes and Ladders; Ludo.

The use of software Mapavox for teaching graphics and games to blind and low vision students: a development through practices

Current policies on education to visually impaired point for a growing trend of including students with special educational needs in regular schools. However, most often this inclusion is not accompanied by an appropriate professional trained or infrastructure, which has been presented as a big problem for regular school teachers who have students with visual impairments in their classroom. Based on this situation, the Group of Extension in Tactile Cartography from UNESP - University of the State of São Paulo - Campus de Rio Claro - SP - Brazil has been developing educational material of geography and cartography to blind students at a special school. Among the materials developed in this study highlight the development of graphics and board games provided with sound capabilities through MAPAVOX, software developed in partnership with UFRJ - Federal University from Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brazil. Through this software, sound capabilities can be inserted into built materials, giving them a multi-sensory character. In most cases the necessary conditions for building specific materials to students with visual impairments is expensive and beyond the reach of features from a regular school, so the survey sought to use easy access and low cost materials like Cork, leaf aluminum, material for fixing and others. The development of these materials was supported by preparation in laboratory and its subsequent test through practices involving blind students. The methodology used on the survey is based on qualitative research and non comparative analysis of the results. In other words, the material is built based on the special students perception and reality construction, not being mere adaptations of visual materials, but a construction focused on the reality of the visually impaired. The results proved were quite successful as the materials prepared were effective on mediating the learning process of students with disabilities. Geographical and cartographic concepts were seized by the students through the technology used, associated with the use of materials that took into account in its building process the perception of the students.

Theory games

This paper examines the remarkable and unexplored correspondence between games (and board games in particular) and what is commonly understood as theory in the social sciences. It argues that games exhibit many if not most of the attributes of theory, but that theory is missing some of the features of games. As such, game provide a way of rethinking what we mean by theory and theorizing. Specifically, games and their relationship with the ‘real’ world, provide a way of thinking about theory and theorizing that is consistent with recent calls to frame social inquiry around the concept of phrónēsis.

Toward the adaptive generation of bespoke game content

In this chapter, we explore methods for automatically generating game content—and games themselves—adapted to individual players in order to improve their playing experience or achieve a desired effect. This goes beyond notions of mere replayability and involves modeling player needs to maximize their enjoyment, involvement, and interest in the game being played. We identify three main aspects of this process: generation of new content and rule sets, measurement of this content and the player, and adaptation of the game to change player experience. This process forms a feedback loop of constant refinement, as games are continually improved while being played. Framed within this methodology, we present an overview of our recent and ongoing research in this area. This is illustrated by a number of case studies that demonstrate these ideas in action over a variety of game types, including 3D action games, arcade games, platformers, board games, puzzles, and open-world games. We draw together some of the lessons learned from these projects to comment on the difficulties, the benefits, and the potential for personalized gaming via adaptive game design.

Evolutionary game design : automated game design comes of age

The "Humies" awards are an annual competition held in conjunction with the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), in which cash prizes totalling $10,000 are awarded to the most human-competitive results produced by any form of evolutionary computation published in the previous year. This article describes the gold medal-winning entry from the 2012 "Humies" competition, based on the LUDI system for playing, evaluating and creating new board games. LUDI was able to demonstrate human-competitive results in evolving novel board games that have gone on to be commercially published, one of which, Yavalath, has been ranked in the top 2.5% of abstract board games ever invented. Further evidence of human-competitiveness was demonstrated in the evolved games implicitly capturing several principles of good game design, outperforming human designers in at least one case, and going on to inspire a new sub-genre of games.

Leisure activities and obesity in adolescence : a follow-up study among twins

The aims of this dissertation were 1) to investigate associations of weight status of adolescents with leisure activities, and computer and cell phone use, and 2) to investigate environmental and genetic influences on body mass index (BMI) during adolescence. Finnish twins born in 1983–1987 responded to postal questionnaires at the ages of 11-12 (5184 participants), 14 (4643 participants), and 17 years (4168 participants). Information was obtained on weight and height, leisure activities including television viewing, video viewing, computer games, listening to music, board games, musical instrument playing, reading, arts, crafts, socializing, clubs, sports, and outdoor activities, as well as computer and cell phone use. Activity patterns were studied using latent class analysis. The relationship between leisure activities and weight status was investigated using logistic and linear regression. Genetic and environmental effects on BMI were studied using twin modeling. Of individual leisure activities, sports were associated with decreased overweight risk among boys in both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, but among girls only cross-sectionally. Many sedentary leisure activities, such as video viewing (boys/girls), arts (boys), listening to music (boys), crafts (girls), and board games (girls), had positive associations with being overweight. Computer use was associated with a higher prevalence of overweight in cross-sectional analyses. However, musical instrument playing, commonly considered as a sedentary activity, was associated with a decreased overweight risk among boys. Four patterns of leisure activities were found: ‘Active and sociable’, ‘Active but less sociable’, ‘Passive but sociable’, and ‘Passive and solitary’. The prevalence of overweight was generally highest among the ‘Passive and solitary’ adolescents. Overall, leisure activity patterns did not predict overweight risk later in adolescence. An exception were 14-year-old ‘Passive and solitary’ girls who had the greatest risk of becoming overweight by 17 years of age. Heritability of BMI was high (0.58-0.83). Common environmental factors shared by family-members affected the BMI at 11-12 and 14 years but their effect had disappeared by 17 years of age. Additive genetic factors explained 90-96% of the BMI stability across adolescence. Genetic correlations across adolescence were high, which suggests similar genetic effects on BMI throughout adolescence, while unique environmental effects on BMI appeared to vary. These findings suggest that family-based interventions hold promise for obesity prevention into early and middle adolescence, but that later in adolescence obesity prevention should focus on individuals. A useful target could be adolescents' leisure time, and our findings highlight the importance of versatility in leisure activities.

Game-based Learning (Interactive Demo)

What does the lesson “Finding Citations,” the game “Trivial Pursuit,” and the mechanic “Bluffing” all have in common? In this bootcamp brainstorm facilitated by a CUNY professor, attendees are broken up into design teams whose job it is to enhance a traditional lesson with the mechanics of popular board games in only 20 minutes. Whether you have to teach the rules of citation or the rules of interviewing, there is usually a game plan that can help. This game teaches you how to integrate educational games into your classroom, while providing a fun introduction to the principles of game-based learning.

Diversions

The article focuses on the mathematical games developed based on the polyomino shapes created by American mathematician Solomon Golomb. It details the mechanics of the pentomino game created by Golomb. The spatial thinking strategy board games Cathedral and Blokus were also based on the families of shapes and the idea of Golomb's game. Information on how to play the Blokus games is given.