Game Design - Science topic

Based on my research and published work titled 'IVAL: Immersive Virtual Anatomy Laboratory for enhancing medical education based on virtual reality and serious games, design, implementation, and evaluation,' I firmly believe that the use of virtual reality has a positive effect on people, particularly in the context of education and training.

Our study involved developing and evaluating the effectiveness of IVAL, an Immersive Virtual Anatomy Laboratory that leverages VR and serious games to enhance the learning experience for medical students studying anatomy. The results were highly promising, with participants reporting high levels of satisfaction, success, and learning outcomes.

Through IVAL, students were able to immerse themselves in a 3D representation of the skeletal system, providing a deeper spatial understanding and retention of anatomical concepts. The immersive and interactive nature of VR technology created an engaging learning environment that surpassed traditional methods like studying cadavers or 2D diagrams.

Moreover, our findings suggest that VR simulations can potentially supplement or even replace the need for cadavers in anatomy education, addressing ethical concerns and resource constraints faced by many institutions.

I encourage you to read our paper (link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376621926_IVAL_Immersive_Virtual_Anatomy_Laboratory_for_enhancing_medical_education_based_on_virtual_reality_and_serious_games_design_implementation_and_evaluation) to gain a comprehensive understanding of the design, implementation, and evaluation of IVAL, as well as the positive implications of incorporating VR technologies in medical education.

This paper is part of this investigation.

Mohammad Ali Mousavi AR and VR have brought about a transformation in the globe, particularly in the gaming industry. These technologies aid in the creation of a realistic image, as well as sound and other sensations, in order to provide an imaginative setting that stimulates a gamer's physical presence in the environment.

Dear academician, i recommend tinkercad simulator for measurement system. It is a cloud access platform

...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.

Hi, Thorkild Hanghøj

There is an interesting experiment among Iranian students using game-based learning: "Game-Based Tasks for Foreign Language Instruction: Perspectives on Young Learners' Vocabulary Acquisition" authored by Masoumeh Mehregan, which could provide you some valuable insights.

Please find the file attached.

If you have three groups and a pre post design, you should consider either using a two way ANOVA (split plot design) with one repeated measures and on independent factor. Another possibility would be an ANCOVA, where you could use the pre measures as covariable, the post measures as dependent and the groups as independent variable. This approach would have the advantage that the pre and post measures do not have to be on the same scale.

You can create your own characters with Adobe Character Generator, then import them in Mixamo.com to add animations, export them in FBX and finally import to Unity

Hello Samaa,

I've previous experience creating apps for autism. I'm interested to know about your research. Please send me a private message.

Hello!

Maybe some of these papers can help you out?

Wish you all the best!

Michelle

I have a preprint in this journal. My article was about a Gamified System in Learning Deaf Persons

https://ubi-learn.com/journal

Also for more good reputation journals you can read this discussion, it contains many sources

Good luck

Samaa

Szymon, in addition to those mentioned by Walt Scacchi, some articles were discussed in our recent course, a Human Factors Research Seminar (IE656) at Purdue.  5 of the top 8 cited papers reviewed that semester were related to gamification and may be of interest.  They can be seen by following the link in RG project shown below.  https://www.researchgate.net/project/IE656-Research-Seminar-HelII Walt Scacchi Walt Scacchi

@Felipe Please find attachment to see the formulas.

I believe that it is especially challenging to design meaningful and theoretically-informed treatment- and control-conditions when evaluating educational games. Instead of comparing a game-based treatment condition vs. a non-game-based "conventional" control condition (which can be a rather fuzzy comparison), it often makes more sense to compare different design-variants of the same game. I recommend to read the following article, explaining different approaches:

Mayer, R. E. (2011). Multimedia learning and games. In S. Tobias & J. D.

Fletcher (Eds.), Computer games and instruction (pp. 281–305). Char-

lotte, NC: Information Age.

I would say this: introducing a task into a game has the very high potential to spoil the play; introducing play into an activity has the very high potential to spoil the task. Achieving harmonious (even synergistic) balance between task and play is the goal... it is not easily done, and will probably look different for every learning objective and game genre.

I personally consider practical challenges like budget, staff, etc. to be secondary to this overarching concern about the player experience. Even a tiny, inexpensive, individually developed game might strike a supremely successful balance; even well-funded, highly professionalized teams can miss the mark entirely.

Thank you Patrick

Thank you, this is very useful!

Not exactly what you're looking for, but board games like Mysterium, And Then We Held Hands, or Codenames all have an element of players trying to "read" other players and understand what they meant by their actions - and those are just the cooperative ones. Plenty of competitive games with bluffing/BS-ing mechanics too, including Poker, Bluff/Liar's Dice, and social-deduction/hidden-role games (Mafia/Werewolf et al).

These were all developed purely as entertainment games and not as research projects, and I'm unaware of any research that's been done on how people play them, but it seems like an area ripe for research if that's the direction you're going.

The recent promotion and adoption of digital game-based learning (DGBL) in primary and secondary education presents compelling opportunities as well as challenges for early childhood educators who seek to critically, equitably and holistically support the learning and play of today's so-called digital natives.   However, with most DGBL initiatives focused on the increasingly standardized ‘accountability’ models found in educational institutions, also in the meantime, in the absence of a common critical and theoretical foundation for DGBL, propose a conceptual framework that challenges what regard to be the institutionally nullified dimensions of autonomy, play, affinity and space that are essential to DGBL.   Contend that these dimensions are ideally situated within the inclusive and play-based curriculum early childhood learning environments, and that the early years constitute a critically significant, yet overlooked, location for more holistic and inclusive thinking on DGBL.

Attached herein.

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  

Hi, Helen. At the Games For Change Fesitival in New York last week, there was more overlap between film and games than I'd seen before, ever. You might have a look at some of the videos from the event, as they are released, or ask some of the speakers what they know of.

While there, I saw a screening of  http://www.thankyouforplayingfilm.com/ a (beautifully made and compelling) documentary, based on the game "That Dragon, Cancer". The game itself is very much like a documentary film in its own right, in terms of its interactivity. (As a professional game developer, I'm not at all interested in the distinctions between "games" and "other interactive stuff'". Indeed, it's usually unhelpful to focus over this, even if it's good academic fun to do so.)

The filmmakers, with whom I chatted, are lovely folk. Ask them! (Via the website.)

I am still doing a lot of consultancy in this area. If you need some help, send an email to toni@ivergard.com (i am doing work in Scandinavia, SEA incl. Singapore and eg Thailand), I will keep the fee low as this is a very important health issue! Toni Ivergard (Docent at KTH in Sthlm)

Hi Juan,

This is truly a challenge! Children and young adults are very different target groups. Educational games already have the challenge to be appealing for a very broad usergroup. I think asymmetric games could be a solution. Having different roles for different user groups. I am not aware of any work on this for educational games but there is a lot of work on parameterizable games (attached paper) as well as different types of gamers (link to gamasutra). Maybe you can be successful combining both concepts. The idea is that players can customize the game to their play style with some parameters. You can either ask players or make a self adapting game. I hope this was helpful. If not do not hesitate to ask ;-).

Cheers,

 Markus

On creating content for video games, you might take a look at this recent survey: A Survey on Procedural Modeling for Virtual Worlds (at CGForum). 

Specifically regarding dungeon generation: Procedural Generation of Dungeons (at IEEE TCIAIG)

You might as well take a look at the PCG Book in the make: http://pcgbook.com/

For evolutionary and search-based methods, J Togelius is indeed the best starting point.

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, Emilia:

You can find some data in I. L. Finkel (ed.), 'Ancient Board Games in Perspective: Papers from the 1990 British Museum colloquium with additional contributions', London (British Museum Press), 2008.

Some other references of interest (especially on its archaeological context) are on the website of the British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/t/the_royal_game_of_ur.aspx

I hope this can help you.

Regards

Part of my doctoral reseach on NPCs and PCs are presented as game design patterns: Lankoski, 2010, Character-driven game design. https://www.taik.fi/kirjakauppa/images/4463b7dc09f925da01eaf73cbc72eed9.pdf

Patterns are in Appendix 2 (pages 61-74). More detailed analyses are presented on pages 116-155 & 162-181.

Staffan Björk has been extending some of these patterns in Gameplay design patterns 2.0 wiki http://gdp2.tii.se/index.php/Main_Page

Hi, in fact I have a question. What do you mean by "Finite State Machines" ? This term is usually used to describe the less powerful in the hierarchy of virtual machines, since they have a finite number of states. They are usually used to analyze language, or syntax (compilers)...Agent-based models usually do not match with the kind of object FSMs are applied on. May be there is a certain convergence with cellular automata which have been widely used in ecology and social sciences (see for instance NetLogo software which use a grid for space). But the formers have been advantageously replaced by simulators mixing analytic and stochastic components discrete in time but continuous in space, so that the number of states of agents is not known and undefined (except if you decide it).

Hi,

I like Dominic's answer.

Personally I'm not sure.

But by way of comparison (with film, say) - here's an excerpt from a recent email by Craig Batty at RMIT (if it helps):

------------------

"...a special scriptwriting issue of the Australian writing journal, TEXT.

What's special about this, well, special issue is that it predominantly features scripts as creative practice research works. Here in Australia creative practice 'as research' is valued by our equivalent of the REF - what is called ERA - and so all creative works (writing, films, art, design, fashion, etc.) with a supporting 2000-character research statement and evidence of peer review (or equivalence) can be counted for research returns. TEXT, which is an A-ranked journal, has always sought to publish creative works where possible (a bit like the New Writing journal)"

------------------ (end of excerpt by C Batty)

Not sure if this helps (re: a GDD) or not...?

Best

JT

Has anyone viewed John Hunter's TedTalk on his world peace game?

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.

Unity's own beginner level tutorials are rather good: http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules

I have been using following when giving intro to Unity: http://petrilankoski.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/introduction-to-unity/