Game Design Tactics for Teaching Technical Communication in Online Courses

As in any professional field, aspiring video game artists, designers, and developers must acquire the necessary skills and knowledge for a successful career. Higher education institutions offer varying video game Bachelor’s degree programs to meet the diverse needs of the industry. Our objective in this study was to explore these curricula to gain insight into and understanding of the contemporary video game higher education landscape. 
 
 We explored 113 Bachelor’s degree curricula in Europe that had publicly available information in English about their courses. We classified the courses within each curriculum using ten devised classifiers based on the IGDA Curriculum Framework 2008 but modified them to suit our interests. The content of the classified curricula was then used to create curriculum profiles – data vectors that characterize a curriculum based on its contents. These profiles allowed for hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis (PCA) to identify and investigate the three common types of video game curricula: video game art, interdisciplinary video game design, and video game technology/programming.
 
 Our results indicate that art and programming curricula are highly specialized, with clear distinctions in yielding Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees. Curricula focused on interdisciplinary video game design do not have such clear distinctions in the degree titles and content specialization. They are more varied in their profiles and tend to bridge the gap between art and programming curricula, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of game design as a profession.
 
 Compared to results from previous studies, we found that contemporary curricula place a greater emphasis on graduation projects, internships, and soft skills. Our findings provide an overview of the current state of higher education in video games, which may prove helpful for those working with or interested in these curricula.

In this article we study the problem of training intelligent agents using Reinforcement Learning for the purpose of game development. Unlike systems built to replace human players and to achieve super-human performance, our agents aim to produce meaningful interactions with the player, and at the same time demonstrate behavioral traits as desired by game designers. We show how to combine distinct behavioral policies to obtain a meaningful “fusion” policy which comprises all these behaviors. To this end, we propose four different policy fusion methods for combining pre-trained policies. We further demonstrate how these methods can be used in combination with Inverse Reinforcement Learning in order to create intelligent agents with specific behavioral styles as chosen by game designers, without having to define many and possibly poorly-designed reward functions. Experiments on two different environments indicate that entropy-weighted policy fusion significantly outperforms all others. We provide several practical examples and use-cases for how these methods are indeed useful for video game production and designers.

At the present time, the use of video games goes beyond mere amusement or entertainment due to its potential for developing capacities, dexterity and skills. Thus, video games have extended to environments like that of education, serving as didactic resources within dynamics that respond to the interests and necessities of the 21 st century student. In this study, we approach the design of video games in initial teacher training. In this respect, we aim to collect the student’s views regarding the learning process of the different tools used for designing video games within a framework of collaborative learning. The investigation is approached through a quantitative methodology applying a 28-item questionnaire on the learning experience of designing video games. We used a sample of 200 second-year students majoring in Childhood Education during the 2013/2014 academic course. The results obtained show that the students value in a positive way the collaborative learning methodology for mastering the video games designing tools.

A deep dive into practical game design through playful philosophy and philosophical play. What are video games made of? And what can that tell us about what they mean? In The Stuff Games Are Made Of,experimental game maker Pippin Barr explores the materials of video game design. Taking the reader on a deep dive into eight case studies of his own games, Barr illuminates the complex nature of video games and video game design, and the possibilities both offer for exploring ideas big and small. Through a variety of engaging and approachable examples, Barr shows how every single aspect of a game—whether it is code, graphics, interface, or even time itself—can be designed with and related to the player experience. Barr's experimental approach, with its emphasis on highly specific elements of games, will leave readers armed with intriguing design philosophy, conceptual rigor, and diverse insights into the inner life of video games. Upon finishing this book, readers will be ready to think deeply about the nature of games, to dive into expressive and experimental game design themselves, or simply to play with a new and expanded mindset.

This paper shows how college students without prior experience in video game design can create an interesting video game. Video game creation is a task that requires weeks if not months of dedication and perseverance to complete. However, with Alice, a group of three sophomore students who never designed a game can create a full-fledged video game from given specifications. Alice is 3D graphics interactive animation software, which is well-tried and proven to be an enjoyable learning environment. At the start of this project, students are given guidelines that describe expected outcomes. With minimum supervision, in three days, a working program that matches the guidelines is accomplished. In additional two days, students enhance the quality with better graphics design and music. With this experience, 3D graphics interactive animation software, like Alice, is demonstrated to be a useful teaching tool in education for academic courses of game development and design. This paper not just discusses how the video game was created, but also speaks of the difficulties the team overcomes easily with Alice.

The growing capabilities of large language models (LLMs) have inspired recent efforts to integrate LLM-generated dialogue into video games. However, evaluation remains a major challenge: how do we assess the player experience in a commercial game augmented with LLM-generated dialogue? To explore this question, we introduce a dynamic evaluation framework for the dialogue management systems that govern the task-oriented dialogue often found in roleplaying video games. We first extract dialogue from the widely-acclaimed role-playing game *Disco Elysium: The Final Cut*, which contains 1.1M words of dialogue spread across a complex graph of utterances where node reachability depends on game state (e.g., whether a certain item is held). Using this dataset, we have GPT-4 perform *dialogue infilling* to generate grounded utterances based on game state represented via code. In a statistically robust study of 28 players recruited from the r/DiscoyElysium subreddit, the LLM outputs are evaluated against the game designers' writing via both preference judgments and free-form feedback using a web interface that recreates the game's core conversation functionality. Overall, the game designers' prose is significantly preferred to GPT-4 generations, with participants citing reasons such as improved logical flow and grounding with the game state. To spur more principled future research in this area, we release our web interface and tools to enable researchers to build upon our work. https://pl.aiwright.dev

The teaching of 3D digital game design requires the development of students’ meta-skills, from story creativity to 3D model construction, and even the visualization process in design thinking. The characteristics a good game designer should possess have been identified as including redesign things, creativity thinking and the ability to visualize ideas from imagination. Therefore, 3D visualization is a key skill in this context. To help students fully focus on game design rather than on complicated 3D modeling or animation skills, this study developed an authoring package that is integrated with Google 3D Warehouse, SketchUp, and a web-based 3D multi-user platform: 3D Cyber Worlds. The proposed game design authoring package was used with 53 college students for one semester, while a total of 108 students were involved in the overall study. The results indicate that the package achieved its aim of in assisting students in the game design process, including that of 3D modeling, and is feasible for future development using advance web technologies. Examples of the students’ game design projects and feedback on the use of this authoring package are also presented and discussed.

In the context of rapid advancements in digital media technology, college art education faces unprecedented opportunities and challenges. This paper explores the application of digital media technology in art education, analyzes the innovative practices in college art education, and proposes strategic considerations for future development. Through the application of technologies such as digital painting, digital imaging and video art, interactive media, and game design, combined with curriculum reform, teaching method innovation, and teacher capacity building, this paper provides theoretical support and practical guidance for the innovation and development of college art education.

Video games are playable journeys that occur through time. A major portion of this journey is experienced through the visuals. These visuals are commonly referred to as “graphics ”, a term appropriated from computer programming and coding. Such a term is used differently amongst artists and art historians, which results in a conflicting vocabulary to communicate the visual creation process of a world in a video game. Furthermore, academic research revolving around visual art in game studies is often an overlooked topic. This leaves game artists with insufficient means to fully express the weight of the visual creation process within video games. In light of such an oversight, this research will examine the game artist’s process of creating visual game worlds using an amalgamation of three topics, visual composition, visual perception and game design. It corresponds to the close relationship of the artist, game designer and player when it comes to the creation of a cohesive, consistent and convincing visual game world. Guiding this research is a framework consisting of Rudolf Arnheim’s perceptual theories on art and visual compositions, and concepts from notable game theorists, including Mark J. P. Wolf and Jesper Juul. In addition to this framework, a basic world structure combining space, visual entities, time, temporality, forces and motion, is introduced as a fundamental skeleton of a game world. With this skeleton, a set of preconceived standards including video game genres, themes, time periods and visual styles are used to analyse existing visual game world examples. The point of this analysis is to find prominent factors reflecting the visual methods utilised by artists to portray game worlds. It leads into a hypothetical example of how the game artist can use these theories, concepts and standards to create and arrange objects in a simulated environment to convey an overall narrative that enhances the story within the game world. This example is not a definitive model for the entire creation process. Instead, it is a demonstration that reflects the research topics (visual composition, visual perception and game design) within a game world environment. Beyond this research, further development on the discussion of the visual creation process within a game world is needed to refine approaches that are accessible and substantial for game artists.

Performance ImprovementVolume 39, Issue 7 p. 5-8 Commentary Different names, similar challenges: Whats behind the rumored merger of instructional design and technical communication? Saul Carliner, Saul Carliner is an Assistant Professor of Information Design at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts. His research focuses on information design models, processes, and techniques, as well as the business and management issues faced by information design and development organizations. His other interests include museum exhibit design and training for volunteer managers in community organizations. Also an industry consultant, Saul advises on strategic issues in online learning and publishing and designs complex performance improvement projects. His clients include Bill Communications, Georgia-Pacific, Guidant, IBM, Microsoft, ST Microelectronics, and 3M. He serves on the Online Learning Advisory Board of Medschool.com. Saul is author of An Overview of Online Learning (HRD Press), coeditor of Techniques for Technical Communicators (Allyn & Bacon), and has published more than 60 articles in periodicals such as Performance Improvement, Performance Improvement Quarterly, Technical Communication, and Learning Circuits. He is also a regular speaker at industry conferences, such as TRAINING, Online Learning, and the Society for Technical Communication Annual Conference. Saul is a past president of the Atlanta chapter of the International Society for Performance Improvement and a fellow and past international president of STC. Saul holds a PhD in instructional technology from Georgia State University. He may be reached at scarliner@bentley.edu or http://web.bentley.edU/empl/c/scarliner/index.html.Search for more papers by this author Saul Carliner, Saul Carliner is an Assistant Professor of Information Design at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts. His research focuses on information design models, processes, and techniques, as well as the business and management issues faced by information design and development organizations. His other interests include museum exhibit design and training for volunteer managers in community organizations. Also an industry consultant, Saul advises on strategic issues in online learning and publishing and designs complex performance improvement projects. His clients include Bill Communications, Georgia-Pacific, Guidant, IBM, Microsoft, ST Microelectronics, and 3M. He serves on the Online Learning Advisory Board of Medschool.com. Saul is author of An Overview of Online Learning (HRD Press), coeditor of Techniques for Technical Communicators (Allyn & Bacon), and has published more than 60 articles in periodicals such as Performance Improvement, Performance Improvement Quarterly, Technical Communication, and Learning Circuits. He is also a regular speaker at industry conferences, such as TRAINING, Online Learning, and the Society for Technical Communication Annual Conference. Saul is a past president of the Atlanta chapter of the International Society for Performance Improvement and a fellow and past international president of STC. Saul holds a PhD in instructional technology from Georgia State University. He may be reached at scarliner@bentley.edu or http://web.bentley.edU/empl/c/scarliner/index.html.Search for more papers by this author First published: 08 February 2007 https://doi.org/10.1002/pfi.4140390706Citations: 1 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume39, Issue7August 2000Pages 5-8 RelatedInformation

Flow is a psychological concept that is often used in the design of applications and video games. This concept means that the user will go into a state of unawareness, which scales depending on the level of flow that they are in. In video games, the developer can vary the way that players experience this state or change the group of people that the game is suited for. Players can also change the level of flow by making decisions that will make their gameplay later on either easier or harder. This paper will discuss three factors that determine how and who will be able to enter the flow state in different video games. These factors are general factors, game-decided factors, and player-decided factors. The conclusion after analysis is that these factors embedded in video games cause the player to have optimal experience, or flow state.

Character design in video games plays a crucial role in shaping players’ emotional engagement and long-term attachment to the characters they control and interact with. Narrative-driven games, in particular, rely heavily on visual aesthetics, personality construction, and moral agency to create emotionally resonant experiences. Life is Strange is selected as a case study due to its strong emphasis on character-centered storytelling, where the main character is developed through complex personal traits, emotional vulnerability, and narrative events that evolve according to players’ moral choices. These elements allow players to experience fluctuating emotional states throughout the gameplay. This study adopts a qualitative research approach to examine how visual character design and narrative structures contribute to the formation of emotional attachment, focusing specifically on teenage players in Indonesia. Data were collected through visual content analysis of the game’s character design and in-depth interviews with players to explore their emotional responses and interpretative experiences. The findings indicate that effective character design not only enhances emotional immersion but also enables players to recognize, express, and reflect upon their own emotions by relating in-game decisions to real-life experiences. Moral decision-making mechanics further strengthen this connection by positioning players as active participants in the character’s emotional journey. The conclusions of this study provide valuable insights for game developers and character designers, particularly in understanding how visual storytelling and narrative coherence can be strategically employed to foster emotional resonance and meaningful player–character relationships in narrative-driven video games.

Schools have learned from video games by gamifying non-game like tasks as a tool to capture and sustain the attention and motivation of students, known as gamification. However, video game design also promotes good learning and not just engagement. This article will share ideas on how to design game-based activities to enhance the potential for students’ metacognitive and strategic thinking skills.

This project focused on creating an interactive educational game prototype designed to strengthen cognitive and attention skills in children exhibiting symptoms of attention deficit, particularly during their critical developmental stagespreschool and early school years. Aware of the essential role these skills play in learning and overall development, the project sought to provide an effective tool that not only entertains but also educates and supports the enhancement of cognitive areas. To achieve this goal, a review of scientific literature related to child cognitive development and educational technologies was conducted. Key cognitive development theories and teaching methods were then identified and selected as the foundation for the game's design framework. These guided the selection of activities, strategies, and challenges to be incorporated into the game, ensuring alignment with the individual needs of the children. The game's design is based on a usability and accessibility approach tailored to children's cognitive and attention capacities. Through a set of engaging activities and challenges, and by leveraging the benefits of gamification, the game aims to maintain a high level of user engagement. To assess the effectiveness of the prototype, pilot tests were conducted with children, evaluating their attention and problem-solving skills. Preliminary results showed that the prototype was effective in improving children's concentration and problem-solving abilities, indicating its potential as a meaningful educational tool to address the causes of attention deficit. Ultimately, this project not only facilitated the development of innovative learning tools for schools but also had a significant impact on the cognitive and attentional development of the children who used them. It offered flexible and enjoyable learning experiences and laid the groundwork for balanced cognitive growth, enabling children to successfully face the challenges of today's world and make the most of modern technology.

MADVR 2018 aims at presenting the most recent works in the area of multimedia analysis in the context of applications for architecture, design and Virtual Reality (VR) games. Nowadays large amounts of visual and textual data have been generated, which are of great interest to architects and video game designers, such as paintings, archival footage, documentaries, movies, reviews or catalogues, and artwork. However in their current form it is difficult to be reused and repurposed for creative industries applications such as game creation, architecture and design. This is currently envisioned by recent research projects (e.g. H2020 V4Design, H2020 Inception, H2020 DigiArt, H2020 REPLICATE, etc.), which focus on developing technologies that allow for automatic content analysis and seamless transformation to assist the creative industries in sharing content and maximize its exploitation. In this context, MADVR has a special interest in image and video analysis, 3d reconstruction, multilingual analysis that can be applied for VR game authoring and design applications.