Video Game Design Method for Novice

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.

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.

This book covers the design and creation of video games using the Java programming language, with the LibGDX software library. By reading Beginning Java Game Development with LibGDX, you will learn how to design video game programs and how to build them in Java. You will be able to create your own 2D games, using various hardware for input (keyboard/mouse, gamepad controllers, or touchscreen), and create executable versions of your games. The LibGDX library facilitates the game development process by providing pre-built functionality for common tasks. It is a free, open source library that includes full cross-platform compatibility, so programs written using this library can be compiled to run on desktop computers (Windows/MacOS), web browsers, and smartphones/tablets (both Android and iOS). Beginning Java Game Development with LibGDX teaches by example with many game case study projects that you will build throughout the book. This ensures that you will see all of the APIs that are encountered in the book in action and learn to incorporate them into your own projects. The book also focuses on teaching core Java programming concepts and applying them to game development.

This dissertation explores the potential of a virtual reality serious game to help people understand the complexity of a nature-based attraction, and leverage this to cultivate a connectedness to the ecosystem, working towards increasing pro-environmental behaviour. Specifically, this research examines what design considerations are necessary in working towards these goals. To this end, the opportunities in the tourism space for serious games and virtual reality were investigated through a site visit and subsequent pilot application. The opportunities were used to create a set of objectives for a virtual reality serious game artefact. Through several iterations the artefact was developed and modified, and was used to analyse the design considerations relevant to building a videogame around a nature-based tourism attraction. Further to this, design considerations around influencing a player’s connectedness to the attraction were investigated. Iterations One and Two were developed as part of Associate Professor Alexandra Coghlan’s project on VR games and reef conservation through tourism. The final iteration formed part of this dissertation. Utilising a Design Science methodology, the artefact was developed through a series of iterative activities. The Design, Play, Experience (DPE) Framework, a serious game specific extension of the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) Framework, is used to guide the development and evaluation process. While design considerations for creating serious games exists in literature, theory has neglected those specific to nature-based attractions and those around creating a connection between real-world attractions and players. Through the iterative process, a virtual reality serious game is created around the Great Barrier Reef, the chosen nature-based tourism attraction context for the work. Involvement in the project during the Pilot, Iteration One and Iteration Two was as a paid employee for Associate Professor Alexandra Coghlan. Through the first two iterations of design science, the work identifies a series of design considerations for creating virtual reality serious games about nature-based tourism attractions for visitors. From a gameplay perspective, designers can look to engage players with non-typical elements of the attraction, while using both completely player-controlled and completely simulated events and actions from the attraction to show the attraction’s complexity. Towards teaching visitors about the attraction, designers shouldn’t focus on accuracy but interpretation when representing the environment and allow the player to conduct detrimental activities so they can see the consequences of those actions. Designers can utilize virtual reality to showcase unique perspectives, both from a literal vantage point in the attraction, and to help embody the player as the attraction. Finally, designers can create a visual language that separates the videogame components and the simulated real-world components to ensure visitors know how to interpret various elements. Through the final iteration of design science, the work identifies several more design considerations pertaining specifically to creating a sense of connectedness between the visitor and the tourism attraction. Designers should highlight knowledge about the attraction that pertains to its struggles or threats not necessarily to for visitors to remember, but to create emotional moments. Designers should find ways to evoke different emotions from a typical visit to the attraction or find ways to evoke similar emotions towards different elements of the attraction. Designers can consider the emotional journey the visitor goes on while playing the videogame and make clear connections to the real-world attraction through various stages of their journey. Designers can highlight actions that mimic pro-environmental behaviour in the videogame to help visitors continue those actions in the real-world. The findings seek to better enable videogame creators and designers to create systems around complex ecosystems, towards encouraging pro-environmental behaviour in players. The significance of this dissertation is that it gives videogame designers new lenses to look at their designs through, to better capture the complexity of an ecosystem into a simplified, interactive and educational videogame, while ensuring their videogame brings people closer emotionally to the attraction.

A Conception of an Instrument Supporting the Design of Educational Video Games for Cultural Heritage

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.

Girls and women play video games in equal number to boys, yet they continue to be under-represented in the video game industry. The goal of this chapter is to examine initiatives that encourage gender equality in video game design. This chapter argues that the process of becoming a video game designer may have the potential to shift girls' notions of identity. Drawing on research on girls and video game design, as well as analyses of informal programs that teach girls video game design, this chapter emphasizes the intersection of design and identity. This chapter offers directions and recommendations for future research, including the need for expanded understandings of the cultural and democratic benefits of video game design for girls.

Girls and women play video games in equal number to boys, yet they continue to be under-represented in the video game industry. The goal of this chapter is to examine initiatives that encourage gender equality in video game design. This chapter argues that the process of becoming a video game designer may have the potential to shift girls' notions of identity. Drawing on research on girls and video game design, as well as analyses of informal programs that teach girls video game design, this chapter emphasizes the intersection of design and identity. This chapter offers directions and recommendations for future research, including the need for expanded understandings of the cultural and democratic benefits of video game design for girls.

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.

This article describes an interdisciplinary, partially online honors course entitled Video Game Theory and Design. The article reviews the literature surrounding video games and technical communication and then outlines the learning objectives for the course. The authors describe individual and team-produced assignments and suggest game design techniques for motivating students. We explain how we assess different projects, including oral game pitches and the complex technical Game Design Documents that are students’ final deliverables. Finally, we discuss how game design techniques provide new perspectives on writing and generate new possibilities for technical communication assignments. We close by proposing three tactics that are useful for teaching technical communication students in hybrid and fully online courses: (a) nonlinear association for creative thinking; (b) team-based assignments for writing and editing using game-based tools; and (c) iterative prototyping and playtesting for multimodal production. Each tactic is contextualized using examples drawn from the field.

Computer and video games are a channel of evolution and productivity that is most consumed keeping the notice of scholars through a variety of disciplines. In general, computers and video games were ignored by educators. When educators considered the games, they noticed the social consequences of gambling, ignoring the remarkable educational potential of the game. This article looks at the history of educational research games and argues that the perceptive potential of games has been ignored by educators. Current developments in the game, including interactive stories, authoring tools, and digital world collaboration, suggest powerful new opportunities for educational media. Video games are an important part of improving education through its ability to force players to present realistic simulations of real-life situations. The beginning of the proper use of gaming technologies for education and training and there is no need for scientific and engineering methods to create games not only as a more realistic simulation of the physical world but to provide experience Effective learning. This document illustrates building up to date Integration of educational principles and game design into a dialogue between them and defining games that can be integrated based on design, entertainment, and educational features. The work follows a drawing tray that forms part of the framing definition and after selecting categories of design templates, before focusing on user interaction modes, from a pedagogical point of view, given its relevance to end users

Increasingly, the movements of players’ physical bodies are being used as a method of controlling and playing video games. This trend is evidenced by the recent development of interpersonal touch-based games; multiplayer games which players control by physically touching their partners. Although a small number of interpersonal touch-based games have recently been designed, the best practices for creating video games based on this unconventional interaction technique remain poorly explored and understood. In this paper, we provide an overview of interpersonal touch interaction in video games and present a set of design heuristics for the effective use of interpersonal touch interaction in video games. We then use these heuristics to analyze three current interpersonal touch-based games in order to show how these heuristics reflect on the current state of the art. Finally, we present our vision for the future of this interaction modality in video games.KeywordsGamesinterpersonaltouchinterfacedesignheuristics

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.

PurposeThe paper aims to present a methodology for analyzing the pedagogical content of video games and to present the findings of one such analysis.Design/methodology/approachThe pedagogical analysis presented here consists of three parts – an introduction to the new media of video games, a method for analyzing video games, and lastly, the results of analyzing the pedagogical content of the video game Portal.FindingsThe analysis uncovered significant pedagogical content and useful methodologies used in the design of the video game Portal.Practical implicationsThe pedagogies and design methods used in the game Portal can help librarians engage and educate students of the gaming generation in information literacy tasks.Originality/valueThis paper provides a model for pedagogical analysis of the video game medium and practical techniques taken from an excellent representative of that medium.

Video Games and the Future of Learning