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Investigating Meaning in Videogames
UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Investigating Procedural Expression and Interpretation in Videogames Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1mn3x85g Author Treanor, Mike Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SANTA CRUZ INVESTIGATING PROCEDURAL EXPRESSION AND INTERPRETATION IN VIDEOGAMES A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in COMPUTER SCIENCE by Mike Treanor June 2013 The Dissertation of Mike Treanor is approved: Professor Michael Mateas, Chair Professor Noah Wardrip-Fruin Professor Ian Bogost Rod Humble (CEO Linden Lab) Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Table of Contents List of Figures ........................................................................................................... vii Abstract…….. ............................................................................................................. x Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Procedural Rhetoric ...................................................................................... 4 Critical Technical Practice ............................................................................ 7 Research -
Journal of Games Is Here to Ask Himself, "What Design-Focused Pre- Hideo Kojima Need an Editor?" Inferiors
WE’RE PROB NVENING ABLY ALL A G AND CO BOUT V ONFERRIN IDEO GA BOUT C MES ALSO A JournalThe IDLE THUMBS of Games Ultraboost Ad Est’d. 2004 TOUCHING THE INDUSTRY IN A PROVOCATIVE PLACE FUN FACTOR Sessions of Interest Former developers Game Developers Confer We read the program. sue 3D Realms Did you? Probably not. Read this instead. Computer game entreprenuers claim by Steve Gaynor and Chris Remo Duke Nukem copyright Countdown to Tears (A history of tears?) infringement Evolving Game Design: Today and Tomorrow, Eastern and Western Game Design by Chris Remo Two founders of long-defunct Goichi Suda a.k.a. SUDA51 Fumito Ueda British computer game developer Notable Industry Figure Skewered in Print Crumpetsoft Disk Systems have Emil Pagliarulo Mark MacDonald sued 3D Realms, claiming the lat- ter's hit game series Duke Nukem Wednesday, 10:30am - 11:30am infringes copyright of Crumpetsoft's Room 132, North Hall vintage game character, The Duke of industry session deemed completely unnewswor- Newcolmbe. Overview: What are the most impor- The character's first adventure, tant recent trends in modern game Yuan-Hao Chiang The Duke of Newcolmbe Finds Himself design? Where are games headed in the thy, insightful next few years? Drawing on their own in a Bit of a Spot, was the Walton-on- experiences as leading names in game the-Naze-based studio's thirty-sev- design, the panel will discuss their an- enth game title. Released in 1986 for swers to these questions, and how they the Amstrad CPC 6128, it features see them affecting the industry both in Japan and the West. -
Art Worlds for Art Games Edited
Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association Vol 7(11): 41-60 http://loading.gamestudies.ca An Art World for Artgames Felan Parker York University [email protected] Abstract Drawing together the insights of game studies, aesthetics, and the sociology of art, this article examines the legitimation of ‘artgames’ as a category of indie games with particularly high cultural and artistic status. Passage (PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, 2007) serves as a case study, demonstrating how a diverse range of factors and processes, including a conducive ‘opportunity space’, changes in independent game production, distribution, and reception, and the emergence of a critical discourse, collectively produce an assemblage or ‘art world’ (Baumann, 2007a; 2007b) that constitutes artgames as legitimate art. Author Keywords Artgames; legitimation; art world; indie games; critical discourse; authorship; Passage; Rohrer Introduction The seemingly meteoric rise to widespread recognition of ‘indie’ digital games in recent years is the product of a much longer process made up of many diverse elements. It is generally accepted as a given that indie games now play an important role in the industry and culture of digital games, but just over a decade ago there was no such category in popular discourse – independent game production went by other names (freeware, shareware, amateur, bedroom) and took place in insular, autonomous communities of practice focused on particular game-creation tools or genres, with their own distribution networks, audiences, and systems of evaluation, only occasionally connected with a larger marketplace. Even five years ago, the idea of indie games was still burgeoning and becoming stable, and it is the historical moment around 2007 that I will address in this article. -
On Videogames: Representing Narrative in an Interactive Medium
September, 2015 On Videogames: Representing Narrative in an Interactive Medium. 'This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy' Dawn Catherine Hazel Stobbart, Ba (Hons) MA Dawn Stobbart 1 Plagiarism Statement This project was written by me and in my own words, except for quotations from published and unpublished sources which are clearly indicated and acknowledged as such. I am conscious that the incorporation of material from other works or a paraphrase of such material without acknowledgement will be treated as plagiarism, subject to the custom and usage of the subject, according to the University Regulations on Conduct of Examinations. (Name) Dawn Catherine Stobbart (Signature) Dawn Stobbart 2 This thesis is formatted using the Chicago referencing system. Where possible I have collected screenshots from videogames as part of my primary playing experience, and all images should be attributed to the game designers and publishers. Dawn Stobbart 3 Acknowledgements There are a number of people who have been instrumental in the production of this thesis, and without whom I would not have made it to the end. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Kamilla Elliott, for her continuous and unwavering support of my Ph.D study and related research, for her patience, motivation, and commitment. Her guidance helped me throughout all the time I have been researching and writing of this thesis. When I have faltered, she has been steadfast in my ability. I could not have imagined a better advisor and mentor. I would not be working in English if it were not for the support of my Secondary school teacher Mrs Lishman, who gave me a love of the written word. -
These Are the Slides for My IGDA San Francisco Talk
Note to the reader: These are the slides for my IGDA San Francisco talk. The format was Pecha Kucha – chit-chatting/ranting over 20 images that auto-advance every 20 seconds. What I said during the session and what’s in the speaker notes might not match 100%. 1 I’m Matthias Worch, a lead designer at LucasArts, working on an awesome new project with Clint Hocking and Kent Hudson. I’ve been a professional game developer since 1998, working in various capacities during my time in the industry. But I’ve always been a level designer at heart – something I can trace back all the way to the 3D Construction Kit. 2 After that I moved on to Doom and Quake levels. And I vividly remember sitting in my room – this must have been 1995 or so – working on my Doom levels, and trying to explain to my dad what it was that I was doing there and why I wasn’t getting ready for college instead. I didn’t have a satisfactory answer for him back then. What exactly does a level designer do? 3 Our industry has the same problem. Ed Byrne did a talk on this topic at our GDC level designer workshop this year, which he called “Unscaping The Goat.” Because level design is where the game comes together, the discipline is often blamed for all sorts of unrelated development problems. So… if level designers can’t even express what they do, how do we expect the rest of the development team to work with and accommodate us? 4 So I’ve been looking for analogies, and the one I’ve been using a lot recently is that of the game as a series of paintings. -
Music, Time and Technology in Bioshock Infinite 52 the Player May Get a Feeling That This Is Something She Does Frequently
The Music of Tomorrow, Yesterday! Music, Time and Technology in BioShock Infinite ANDRA IVĂNESCU, Anglia Ruskin University ABSTRACT Filmmakers such as Kenneth Anger, David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino have taken full advantage of the disconcerting effect that pop music can have on an audience. Recently, video games have followed their example, with franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Fallout and BioShock using appropriated music as an almost integral part of their stories and player experiences. BioShock Infinite takes it one step further, weaving popular music of the past and pop music of the present into a compelling tale of time travel, multiverses, and free will. The third installment in the BioShock series has as its setting the floating city of Columbia. Decidedly steampunk, this vision of 1912 makes considerable use of popular music of the past alongside a small number of anachronistic covers of more modern pop music (largely from the 1980s) at crucial moments in the narrative. Music becomes an integral part of Columbia but also an integral part of the player experience. Although the soundscape matches the rest of the environment, the anachronistic covers seem to be directed at the player, the only one who would recognise them as out of place. The player is the time traveller here, even more so than the character they are playing, making BioShock Infinite one of the most literal representations of time travel and the tourist experience which video games can represent. KEYWORDS Video game music, film music, intertextuality, time travel. Introduction For every choice there is an echo. With each act we change the world […] If the world were reborn in your image, Would it be paradise or perdition? (BioShock 2 launch trailer, 2010) Elizabeth hugs a postcard of the Eiffel Tower. -
Agency Reconsidered
Agency Reconsidered Noah Wardrip-Fruin*, Michael Mateas*, Steven Dow†, Serdar Sali* * Expressive Intelligence Studio †Human-Computer Interaction Group Department of Computer Science Department of Computer Science University of California, Santa Cruz Stanford University 1156 High St, MS:SOE3 353 Serra Mall, Gates 390 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA Stanford, CA 94305 USA nwf, michaelm, sali @soe.ucsc.edu [email protected] ABSTRACT when the actions players desire are among those they can The concept of “agency” in games and other playable media take (and vice versa) as supported by an underlying (also referred to as “intention”) has been discussed as a computational model. In particular, this paper’s focus is on player experience and a structural property of works. We agency in relation to the fictional worlds of games, shift focus, considering agency, instead, as a phenomenon interactive drama, and other forms of playable media. involving both player and game, one that occurs when the actions players desire are among those they can take (and While the phenomenon of agency waxes and wanes during vice versa) as supported by an underlying computational gameplay, a design that supports agency is key to many model. This shifts attention away from questions such as successful games and other works of playable media. We whether agency is “free will” (it is not) and toward argue that there are a number of major design issues for questions such as how works evoke the desires agency those who wish to encourage agency, including supporting satisfies, employ -
Video Games Are Where the Detective Story Has Always Belonged: the Progression of Detective Stories Into Video Games
Georgia College Knowledge Box English MA Theses Department of English Spring 5-12-2021 Video Games are Where the Detective Story Has Always Belonged: The Progression of Detective Stories into Video Games Robert Palmour [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://kb.gcsu.edu/english Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Palmour, Robert, "Video Games are Where the Detective Story Has Always Belonged: The Progression of Detective Stories into Video Games" (2021). English MA Theses. 8. https://kb.gcsu.edu/english/8 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at Knowledge Box. It has been accepted for inclusion in English MA Theses by an authorized administrator of Knowledge Box. Video Games are Where the Detective Story Has Always Belonged: The Progression of Detective Stories into Video Games Jackson Palmour Table of Contents: Tutorial Level. An Introduction, History Lesson, and Hopefully a Thesis Statement: pg. 1 Level 1. In The Beginning…: pg. 10 Level 2. The Game is a Foot: pg. 20 Level 3 And time for More Tutorials: pg. 23 Level 4. Let’s All Pretend to be Sherlock Holmes: pg. 31 Level 5. Detective Game on the Nile: pg. 40 Level 6. Try Not To Pull A Punch or The Thrill Will Be Gone: pg. 55 Level 7. Build A Detective: pg. 66 Level 8. The Killer Revealed: pg. 70 1 Tutorial Level. An Introduction, History Lesson, and Hopefully a Thesis Statement: Genre as it is commonly viewed is a difficult concept to deal with in fiction. -
Environmental Foreshadowing
ENVIRONMENTAL FORESHADOWING SAM LUCKHARDT Bachelor Thesis Mr. Sam Luckhardt Environmental Foreshadowing Defining Environmental Foreshadowing as a Narrative Device for Video Games. Berlin, 2020 University of Europe for Applied Sciences, Berlin Abstract 2 Bachelor Thesis Environmental Foreshadowing Author: Mr. Sam Luckhardt Study Course: Game Design Matriculation Number: 14143079 First Examiner: Prof. Csongor Baranyai Second Auditor: Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Guardiola Handed in: Berlin, 03.11.2020 Defending and Grading: Berlin, 28.01.2021 Abstract 3 Abstract The thesis on hand deals with the examination and definition of a new umbrella design term “Environmental Foreshadowing”. My motivation is to dive deeper into narrative game design and innovate open world storytelling through responsive narratives and fusing different literary techniques with environmental storytelling techniques to then demonstrate how to use Environmental Foreshadowing as a device for pacing story and enhancing the interconnection of your world, heightening the player’s immersion. In the process demystifying several classical and modern literary narrative design concepts. Playfulness and player experience are the most important aspects when it comes to making great games. World design for me is a combination of narrative, game, quest, and level design and as such this work aims to add a new design tool to the belt of these aforementioned designers. We will draw inspiration from existing games who make great use of this approach and entwine them with narrative and aesthetic foreshadowing concepts from literature and game design alike. Delivering on player fantasy and the player having agency over the story, thus feeling like it is their story, has the highest priority. Abstract 4 Table of Contents Abstract................................................................................................................................................... -
Narrative Patterns in Farcry3
Name: Daniel Maina Student Number: 0611499F Research Report Narrative Patterns in FarCry3 Page | 1 Contents Intro page 2 Section 1 - Situating Narrative and Games page 5 Section 2 - Shaping Narrative Meaning in Games page 10 Mechanics page 14 Immersion page 15 Agency page 16 Transformation page 18 Section 3 – Models for analysing narrative and gameplay page 21 Section 4 – Narrative devices in Far Cry 3 page 29 Section 5 – Narrative voices in Far Cry 3 page 52 Conclusion page 60 Works cited page 64 Page | 2 Intro It takes one-part anticipation, the blare of the enemy bases klaxon's can incite that emotion within any intruder. Stained with a chill of apprehension, as your life hangs in the balance. Pour a dash of violence, thanks to the rude dispatch of the bases reinforcements. Before you garnish the first responder’s transports with primed grenades. You see, that is the twist in the making of the cocktail - a bullet storm. All that is left is to promptly serve with a side of ultra-violence. Playing games is a cocktail, each a recipe that creates an immersive world unto itself. "(It is) the tension between the safely voyeuristic pleasures of narrative desire and the presence of a 'you' that draws (or forces) you into the story that can be an extra source of pleasure"(Walker, J. 42 2000). It is the thrill of overcoming the hurdles that the game threw at its player, or it could be the platform that grants you an opportunity to gain recognition for your exceptional skill by your peers. -
Watch Dogs®: Legion Heißt Stormzy Und Aiden Pearce
WATCH DOGS®: LEGION HEIßT STORMZY UND AIDEN PEARCE IM WIDERSTAND WILLKOMMEN • Der britische Musiker Stormzy wird Spieler in einer dedizierten In-game Mission um Hilfe bitten • Aiden Pearce wird als Teil des Season Passes sein Comeback in Watch Dogs: Legion erleben Düsseldorf, 10. September 2020 – Ubisoft kündigte während des heutigen Ubisoft Forward- Events aufregende, neue Inhalte für Watch Dogs®: Legion an: Eine exklusive Zusammenarbeit mit dem preisgekrönten, britischen Musiker Stormzy, die Rückkehr eines alten Freundes namens Aiden Pearce, der im Rahmen von Post-Launch-Inhalten spielbar sein wird, und einen neuen Gameplay- Trailer, der die Play-As-Anyone-Erfahrung beleuchtet. Unter der Leitung von Ubisoft Toronto* wird Watch Dogs: Legion am 29. Oktober 2020 auf Xbox One, PlayStation®4, Stadia und für Windows PC, im Epic Games Store und den Ubisoft Store erscheinen. Das Spiel wird auch auf UPLAY+**, dem Abo-Service von Ubisoft, erhältlich sein. Watch Dogs®: Legion wird am 10. November auch auf Xbox Series X | S erscheinen und auf PlayStation®5 sobald die Konsole veröffentlicht ist. Die Spieler werden eine einzigartige Mission spielen, um dem britischen Musiker Stormzy unter die Arme zu greifen. In der Mission Fall on My Enemies wird Stormzy die Spieler darum bitten, ihm dabei zu helfen, die Übertragung seines Liedes “Rainfall" (feat. Tiana Major9), aus dem Album „Heavy is the Head“ im Zentrum Londons zu ermöglichen. Das offizielle Musikvideo zu “Rainfall”, welches heute während Ubisoft Forward uraufgeführt wurde und am 1. Oktober erscheinen soll, wurde vollständig mit der Watch Dogs: Legion-Engine erstellt. "Wir sind begeistert, dass Stormzy ein Teil von Watch Dogs: Legion ist. -
Novel Versus Game: Players Experiencing Assassin's Creed
Jessica de Haan Student ID: 4095448 Supervisor: Frank Brandsma Bachelor: Literatuurwetenschap/Comparative Literature Eindwerkstuk BA Literatuurwetenschap (LI3V14001) Utrecht University Blok 3, 2016 Novel versus Game: Players experiencing Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance ABSTRACT Ludologists claim that gameplay and simulation, which are the reasons why videogames differ from other types of media, should be the focus when analysing videogames, whereas narratologists believe the narrative to be paramount. However, not much research has been done as to how exactly players experience this difference, which is what this thesis seeks to do with the help of Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance. Both were analysed with Herman and Vervaeck’s method for close reading, after which a total of 148 reviews of Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance by 80 players, 39 non-players, and 29 unspecified readers which were categorised as non-players because of players’ tendency to compare the novel with the game. These were taken from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Goodreads.com and examined with guidelines provided by Baarda et al. Major differences found between the game and the novel on narratological level were the changes in focalisation, narration, time and speech representation. When it comes to the reviews, 56% of the players were negative about the novel, whereas 68% of the non-players were positive. Because of this, it was concluded that, rather than the reading of the novel affecting the experience of the game, the playing of the game had affected the reading of the novel instead, though because of the disparity between opinions, no overarching conclusions could be made.