Computer Games - Science topic

These articles can provide you with a deeper understanding:

The impact of games on historical education:

Dear Doctor

"In computer and information science, ontology is a technical term denoting an artifact that is designed for a purpose, which is to enable the modeling of knowledge about some domain, real or imagined.

The term had been adopted by early Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers, who recognized the applicability of the work from mathematical logic and argued that AI researchers could create new ontologies as computational models that enable certain kinds of automated reasoning . In the 1980's the AI community came to use the term ontology to refer to both a theory of a modeled world (e.g., a Naïve Physics [5]) and a component of knowledge systems. Some researchers, drawing inspiration from philosophical ontologies, viewed computational ontology as a kind of applied philosophy."

Hi Dr. Hernández,

Thank you for the kind words! Your area of expertise are impressive. I would also love to learn and extend my focus to serious game for learning in the near future. Looking forward to see opportunities for collaboration!

Hello Kathleen, there is a journal called education 3.0 and here one can find information about your research topic.

Agree with Jaba Tkemaladze

Uses in games beyond NPCs

Georgios N. Yannakakis suggests that academic AI developments may play roles in-game AI beyond the traditional paradigm of AI controlling NPC behavior. He highlights four other potential application areas:

Rather than a procedural generation, some researchers have used generative adversarial networks (GANs) to create new content. In 2018 researchers at Cornwall University trained a GAN on a thousand human-created levels for DOOM (1993); following training, the neural net prototype was able to design new playable levels on its own. Similarly, researchers at the University of California prototyped a GAN to generate levels for Super Mario. In 2020 Nvidia displayed a GAN-created clone of Pac-Man; the GAN learned how to recreate the game by watching 50,000 (mostly bot-generated) playthroughs.

innovating in the railway sector using gaming … van den Hoogen, J. (2019). The Gaming of Systemic Innovations: innovating in the railway sector using gaming simulation (Doctoral dissertation, Delft University of Technology).

Sven Pastoors , Lilian Mboya, Deogenes P. Silva Junior Thank you very much for your answers. I am glad that this idea was appreciated. Thanks to your activity, we are able to create a pool of available resources, which is part of a larger project, and then use it when working with seniors. We hope that this will bring the expected results in terms of mood improvement, socialization and cognitive training.

...Nowadays, students are significantly influenced by the digital era and are constantly handling digital information. As a result, they form their personalities in the light of flexible communities, pursue to be directly connected, require prompt responses and social interaction and prefer learning based on experiences. Undoubtedly, modern students are not fully keen on and attracted by conventional education methods and thus they are seeking for more interesting, fun, motivating and engaging learning experiences.... The increasing popularity of digital games has led to their being broadly utilized and applied. In education, digital games are mostly applied in the form of serious games which focus more on primary purposes. Serious games offer motivating and engaging experiences, interactive learning environments and collaborative learning activities. Hence, they are considered as a proper educational tool which enhances learning procedures and satisfies and fulfills students’ needs and requirements. The pedagogical approach of utilizing digital educational games is called digital game-based learning and can be described as the “coming together” of interactive entertainment and serious learning through digital games. Game-based learning is the act of designing interactive learning activities that can gradually convey concepts and guide students towards an end goal. Furthermore, it promotes a student-centered learning environment in which students’ wellbeing and soft skills are cultivated in a dynamic, enjoyable and playful way... Anastasiadis, T., Lampropoulos, G., & Siakas, K. (2018). Digital Game-based Learning and Serious Games in Education. International Journal of Advances in Scientific Research and Engineering, 4(12), 139-144.

Yes you can detect stress, anxiety and depression by using those parameters. Here is a paper on detecting stress by machine learning techniques using ECG.

As a chess player I can only comment that a value of each piece can be different denpending on the location of the piece and many other aspects (e.g. threats to opposite pieces, especially opposite king, if the piece is a passed, advanced pawn etc). A knight on a1 square has a smaller value than his colleague on. let's say, d4. I'm not a coder of chess engines but I can imagine that the value of each piece should change dynamically after each move and any engine should take it into account.

Borrowing from Jancheski:

...According many scientific investigations computer games had significant educational value and could be extremely useful if they become part of the school curriculum. There are various computer games that create context in which students can develop important skills. The use of computer games in educational contexts encourages active, critical, autonomous and participated learning processes, engaging students in active forms of acquiring knowledge and skills. The main purpose of computer games in not only entertainment; they can combine the playful factor with pedagogical advantages, promoting changes in terms of cognitive, behavioral and psychomotor skills in its users...

What age are the kids and that is key in the method you use and how you could scaffold them, it also depends on the platform(game) you would be using, does it have scaffolding in-built into the teaching. If it does there should be a teacher dashboard where you could see where the students are struggling as it an individual level you would have to asses your effectiveness, if your using generic games on an ipad with no formal scaffolding in the game, its the totally different method but it would depend on the age and the kind of game, many math games are barely teaching anything other than drilling students with a point carrot system.

Depends on the Narrative. Superman is Superman - to remove any of his skill set would betray the narrative, Superman cannot level up as he was ALWAYS Superman. The opposing side of this would be Batman - whose skill set comes from knowledge and gadgets - which are features of learning. If the narrative of the game is one which is exploring a growth narrative - then changing power sets and leveling allows for this. Otherwise, it is a distraction.

Hello Herbert,

Have you seen these; I'm not sure whether they quite fit into what you need:

Peadon, E., Rhys-Jones, B., Bower, C., & Elliott, E. J. (2009). Systematic review of interventions for children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. BMC pediatrics, 9(1), 35.

The above references:

Coles, C. D., Strickland, D. C., Padgett, L., & Bellmoff, L. (2007). Games that ‘‘work’’: Using computer games to teach alcohol-affected children about fire and street safety. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 28, 518-530.

This is the RG link but not full text:

This is also by three of the above authors:

Padgett, L. S., Strickland, D., & Coles, C. D. (2005). Case study: using a virtual reality computer game to teach fire safety skills to children diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. Journal of pediatric psychology, 31(1), 65-70.

Very best wishes with your research,

Mary

In this age, we must first train ourselves to organize time.

Children follow the behavior of parents.

When we build a culture of friendship and respect between us and our children, it will be easy to organize life, education, time and the Internet

Then we may also ask ourselves if our own (non-fictional) societies were not partially built upon animal behaviors as well. In ancient societies sigils and totems were often symbolizing a certain type of animal behavior that was deemed as virtuous by the societies/families that used them. But it is interesting to observe the virtues/values represented in societies that chose non-living or at least non-animal objects as their sacred symbols. What behaviors are inspired by such things as mountains or trees ? Our societies often personified/deified those objects. There is a projection of the human on the object, but there is also an observational inspiration that is drawn from the object. This exchange process gives us good insights on fictional societies building, imagining the "behavior" of the natural environment of a society can maybe help us to imagine and shape a culture that may spring from that imaginary environment. It is probably a longer process than drawing direct inspiration from human societies, but may lead to things that feel just as plausible, while being fresh and uncommon.

Great question Doctor waiting for answer.

I believe computer games had already changed the educational process in a way we can't measure because it's already so much disseminated.

To design a computer game intentionally for an educational purpose I believe has to be something done by a multidisciplinary team since a teacher would be focused on the educational part and might disregard fun part a bit.

There is a new book describing the use of artificial intelligence in general and machine learning in particular for playing games. This is a very large research field, so it is best to study this book (online copy available): http://gameaibook.org

My game research methods collected edition might have something useful (free download available http://repository.cmu.edu/etcpress/32/), e.g., Ashley Brown's chapter.

Digra digital library (www.digra.org/dl) has quite a few pieces about MMORPGs.

Many thanks for three very interesting answers so far, though none of them a direct answer to my question!

I shall respond shortly. 

By way of further explanation for my question, I'm interested in the relationships between reality (wassat?), belief and imaginative story telling (which we humans seem to do obsessively). When Homer created The Iliad (or patched it together, or.whatever...) did his hearers fully believe in the existence of Zeus, Ares, Athene and the rest? They certainly went to a lot of effort to build temples to them. Or was it more a social requirement that it was unwise to ignore. (Alas, poor Socrates.).  

NB I approach these issues from a technical software engineering AI perspective.

Jim D

A starting point

My advice would be "Game Theory "by D. Fudenberg and J. Tirole (MIT Press).

However, to start with the subject I suggest Thinking Strategically by A. Dixit and B. Nalebuff (Norton) or "A primer in game theory" by R. Gibbons (Prentice Hall)

 Maybe you could set a control group of professionals actually doing the work in real life (or a reasonable facsimile), also recored by ECG and use that baseline to differentiate them from the game users.

No, but, as far as I know, the use of computer games in skills training is an interesting and helpful learning method, e.g. in simulation processes and training of persons with disabilities.

Regards

Dear all,

The design of the game controller has an important impact on the possible control dimensionality (CD) that the game designer can implement. Mustaquim and Nyström (2014) study how CD is an important parameter connected to familiarity and difficulty in games. Limperos et al. (2011) found that less advanced controller tends to increase game enjoyment and this was supported by Mustaquim and Nyström. Thus, a very complex game controller that allows a very high control dimensionality might not be the best solution when designing games depending on the game genre, some games only use a few of the possible buttons to limit the control dimensionality. In the background section, information about the history of game controllers can be found. Although this paper is investigating the Xbox 360 controller perhaps something from this paper could be useful for your study of PC controllers.

One thing that I find interesting is how people could have different natural mapping that the designed game control should conform to, and now most games do allow to some degree customization of the game controller.

Best regard,

Tobias

Limperos, A.M., Schmierbach, M.G., Kegerise, A.D., and Dardis, F.E. 2011. Gaming Across Different Consoles: Exploring the Influence of Control Scheme on Game-Player Enjoyment. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. 14(6). 345-350.

Mustaquim, M. and Nyström, T. (2014). Video Game Control Dimensionality Analysis. In Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Interactive Entertainment (IE2014), Blackmore, K., Nesbitt, K. and Smith, S.P. (eds.). ACM, New York.

Hi Ricardo, a PhD student of mine is doing her dissertation on Free2play. Do you want to send me your email address then I can create a contact to Lies van Roessel. Best Mathias  mathias.fuchs at btconnect.com  

You can see it in this way:

You have three distinguishable containers s1,...,s3 and 3 distinguishable numbers to put in them, being the order important inside every container.

So your different options can be identified with the number of ways we can order the 3 numbers on a line, with 2 indistinguishable markers added to tag where one container finishes and the following one starts.

For example, your option s1={1},s2={2,3},s3={} is identified with the string 1|23| (the number one in the first container, the numbers 2,3 in the second one, the third one empty), while your option s1={}, s2={}, s3={3,1,2} is identified with the string ||312.

So, the number of options you have is the same as all the possible orderings of 3 distinguishable numbers and 2 indistinguishable markers, or (3+2)!/2! = 5!/2! = 60.

In the general case you will have n numbers and m-1 markers, and hence you will have (n+m-1)!/(m-1)! options.

Dear Rui,

There is a nice simulation of tsunami in SL. You can see the vodeo following the link below:

I am not game analytical but i like warcraft. When i was child that warcraft is good strategy game. It is related to next and previous game of warcraft.Name has a typical of character avatar.

If you are interested to game engines I can suggest Game Engine Architecture (1st link) that offers a complete overview of all the aspects required to develop a game engine. For more information you can see the table of contents (2nd link).

This is Java language oriented

Me too, paper is send to AI conference so we will soon see :)

Best

Ivan

Hi Seth,

In my experience the biggest problem with normal-form games in experiments is that subjects get confused about their own and the payoffs of others.

I have used a split screen in the past, where you have a table for your payoffs and for the payoff on one side and the payoffs for your opponent on the other side. This helps to make sure that people don't get confused about the matrix notation. This seems to work reasonably well. Using structural estimation methods we only have found a very small fraction of subjects behaving randomly  (like a so-called level 0 type in hierarchical models of bounded rationality). 

Another option is to use different colours for the payoffs of the player and the opponent. One could also divide the cells in the matrix (as done in many first-year textbooks) in two triangles with a diagonal line. Then all payoffs above the diagonal are the payoffs of one person and below the diagonal those of the other. Additional shading further helps.

Control questions are also helpful. (Like: What is your opponents payoff, if you play X and she plays Z) You can then program popup windows for people who get it wrong and as again until they get it right.

I hope this helps

look into the Unreal Engine... https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4

Hi Jérôme!

I think that research on action or "dynamic" games for people with motor disabilities is very interesting, specially if it tries to avoid the usage of additional expensive hardware.

In fact my research group and I are working on the development of GNomon, a framework that enables the creation of dynamic and engaging one-switch video games for children with severe motor disabilities. The framework supports the selection of multiple elements, which can freely move around the screen, with just a single switch. It is based on a custom implementation of the NOMON interaction modality. I attach the work-in-progress on GNomon and our ongoing research.

Have a nice day and good luck!

The issue is really in your case Dr. Lew. Is that you have three major questions rolled up into one.

Issue 1: Is the Turing test reverent in games?

Issue 2: Is a Turing test a necessary requirement for an immersible game?

Issue 3: Can we generate a similar player experience with Human actors instead of machines and is this process now more tractable due to increases in speed of the network?

Take a look at these:

There are a lot of papers on this topic.  Look up Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment and Procedural Content Generation on Google Scholar and you'll find a ton.  This is a very active area of games research so lots going on!

Hi,

Can't say much about research on that are but there are some amazing tools for building exploitable 3D environments. Here are the big ones (some free but with conditions):

1) Unity3D http://unity3d.com/ 

2) Unreal engine https://www.unrealengine.com/

3) Cry-engine http://cryengine.com/

4) Torque 3D http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d

Also you may want to try the free and open-source 3D modelling software and game-engine blender: http://www.blender.org/

Of all of the above I've only used Blender and Unity 3D. Both can take quite some time to learn and develop with (thought Unity is easier from my point of view).

Just a last suggestion. Since maybe you just want a 3D exercise without many visual effects or complexity you could do the easier approach. Check the this link for a kind of FPS in less than 300 lines of code: http://www.playfuljs.com/a-first-person-engine-in-265-lines/

There are many more and you may want to try especially if you decide to use an engine library instead of a a full software solution for development. Examples are:

1) JmonkeyEngine http://jmonkeyengine.org/ (Java)

2) Panda3D https://www.panda3d.org/ (Python)

Some of these engines (such as Unity 3D) come already with an FPS example so you can use it to modify it for what you need. I think it's worth the time exploring a bit the documentation it exists before jumping to a single solution.

Nick Yee is a reference

We have done research suggesting that should work.  In some of our studies we have had strangers play cooperatively or competitively in video games and find increases in tit-for-tat or cooperative behavior.  In the most relevant study to your concerns (Velez, Mahood, Ewoldsen & Moyer-Guse, 2013), we found that cooperative game play increased cooperation even when outgroups were playing together.  In these studies we were using violent games because of the ongoing debate the effects of playing violent games.  But John Velez recently extended this work in his dissertation using sports games (a street basketball video game) and found similar effects.  

Dear Alexander,

No, I stopped using it because Windows 8 is disgusting for me. (I have "Houdini" under this operating system).

Ana, you might take a look at the INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SERIOUS GAMES

http://journal.seriousgamessociety.org/index.php?journal=IJSG

as well as at the activities and publications of the EU-funded GaLA network of Excellence on serious games

http://www.galanoe.eu/

incl. the upcoming GaLA conference (http://www.galaconf.org/).

Hello Dr. Smith, our team has been involved in applying games to neurorehab for the last 10 years. I think using games as a teaching tool shows quite a bit of promise as described by Dr. Fernández-Manjón above with increased retention rates and compliance. I do think however games as treatment may be a bit more complicated. Although Jane McGonigal is a great ambassador for the cause, and an incredible motivational speaker, we do have to be a bit careful here. Some of her statements I think are more marketing than science. the "ground breaking" East Carolina study that outperforms pharmaceuticals never compared one with the other. Stating superiority over pharmaceutical approaches to treat anxiety or depression in a study where 96 of 134 healthy subjects played casual games and were compared to a control group reading online articles is a far stretch to say the least. I think if you are developing new approaches, you have to very careful what you are looking to do and understand the limitations of these games. I definitely think games have a place in health but I would urge everyone to see them more objectively and focus on generating more evidence based approaches for game use.

Jan

Stefan - I was just about to answer this and recommend Jonathan's work. You beat me to it :-)

What helped me a lot was: Leonard A. Anetta: The "I's" Have It: A Framework for Serious Educational Game Design, in: Review of General Psychology 2010, Vol. 14, No. 2, 105–112. The paper is concerned with very basic issues of serious game design and with the pedagogic strategies you may implement therein to advance learning. If need be, I can also provide the PDF, just ask.

Thank you so much Ahmad and Mohammad for your sharing with my question. I also thought like you and now I'm studying about that. I'd like to test that games can change my students attitudes or not. Your answers give me open my mind about students in elementary school and give me a good idea to be careful about the bad side or disadvantage of games using in education.

There are, I imagine, many ways gamification may be used in higher education. From the perspective that we manage learning environments, there can be some classes which benefit from certain types of gamification. We have a class where students spend most of their time constructing, testing, and redesigning open source 3D printers. The work they do is chunked into tasks with a lot of tasks to choose from. Lee Sheldon's XP system based on Warcraft has proven ideal for assessment.

Professor Lee Sheldon, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, found that class participation, attendance, and grades improved when he switched from a percentage style grading system - where a student begins the semester with 100 percent and loses points from there - to one styled like a role playing game (RPG) where a student begins at level one with 0 experience points (XP) and earns cumulative XP throughout the semester in order to “level-up” their grade. Like many modern multiplayer games, our class included achievements with small rewards for notable achievements and incremental progress, as well as missions; previously defined or student-proposed projects worth agreed-upon set amounts of XP. You may find an early account here, http://www.scribd.com/doc/81328515/Self-Replicating-Open-Source-Rapid-Prototyping-In-the-Engineering-Classroom