DOCSLIB.ORG

I Want to Be a Game Maker.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
I Want to Be a Game Maker.Pdf I want to be a Game Maker Experiences of digital game making with eleven year olds Leonard Busuttil A thesis submitted to the University of Sheffield for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education October 2014 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the students and teachers who volunteered to take part in this research and allowed me to share their enthusiasm towards digital games and digital game making. Thanks goes to the school who hosted this research and made the venue available after school hours throughout the workshop. Thank you to my supervisor Dr Julia Davies for her wisdom, kindness and patience throughout this research project. She managed to keep a precise balance between readily offering her advice yet prompting me to think critically and independently. Thanks to academics from the School of Education led by Professor Cathy Nutbrown for organising discussion sessions where we could present and discuss works in progress versions of our work. Thanks to fellow students for their support and friendship throughout the study weekends. The discussions that ensued helped me focus more on my research. Thank you to my family Marilyn, Martina and Louisa for the inspiration and motivation to go through this journey and for being so patient with me when study had to come first. i Abstract The purpose of this study was to empower a mixed group of eleven year old students with the skills to program digital games and then research the stages of development they go through whilst designing and authoring a game. This study also strived to identify the benefits children gained from a gaming literacy perspective. This research used a qualitative case study approach. The analysis of this study was based on multiple data sources: statistics collected from the web portal used during the workshop; informal conversations with the children and teachers helping out with the workshop; participant observation and analysis of the games created. Through the participation in this workshop the children were introduced to the Scratch programming language. The structure of the gaming workshop was influenced by pedagogic approaches to teach creatively for creativity and to introduce programming through a full system approach (Selby 2011). The stages that children go through whilst creating a digital game are similar to a number of phases discussed in previous research (Robertson 2011, Resnick, Maloney et al. 2009). However the stages of development outlined in this research highlight the importance of the social aspect in game development. Group testing not only has an effect on the game being tested but also acts as a source of cross fertilisation of ideas between the students testing the game and the students developing the game. The game making experience provided the students with a possibility to enact their systematic thinking when designing their games as a system made up of interrelated subsystems. Prior gaming experience contributed to the way the games were designed and allowed the students to engage with game making using a playful attitude. The students were competitive yet cooperative whilst making their games. All the games were complete and demonstrated that the children were savvy about multimodality. They created games that were well balanced from the difficulty point of view and that provided the game players with instructions on how to play as well as implemented appropriate feedback mechanisms. ii Contents Contents ...................................................................................................................... iii Table of Figures ........................................................................................................ xiii Table of Tables ........................................................................................................... xv Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Digital Games and Education............................................................................ 4 1.1.1 Serious Games ........................................................................................... 5 1.1.2 Commercial off the shelf games ................................................................ 6 1.1.3 Making games ............................................................................................ 6 1.1.3.1. Digital Game development to enhance creativity .............................. 7 1.1.3.2. Switching from reading to writing games .......................................... 8 1.1.3.3. Improving engagement and motivation .............................................. 9 1.1.3.4. Problem Solving ............................................................................... 10 1.1.3.5. Teaching a subject by building an educational game ....................... 10 An overview of this project ............................................................................. 11 1.2.1 My entry into research ............................................................................. 12 A guiding learning theory ............................................................................... 13 1.3.1 Constructivist Epistemology .................................................................... 14 1.3.2 Social Learning ........................................................................................ 14 1.3.3 Exploratory learning ................................................................................ 15 1.3.4 Constructionism ....................................................................................... 15 1.3.5 Learning in a world of constant change ................................................... 16 1.3.5.1. Homo Sapiens ................................................................................... 17 1.3.5.2. Homo Faber ...................................................................................... 18 1.3.5.3. Homo Ludens ................................................................................... 18 iii 1.3.6 Designing the workshop .......................................................................... 19 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 19 2. Literature Review ............................................................................................... 21 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 22 2.1.1 Gaming amongst the Maltese children .................................................... 24 2.1.2 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 26 Play .................................................................................................................. 26 2.2.1 The diversity of play ................................................................................ 28 2.2.2 Looking at play from different angles ..................................................... 30 2.2.3 The importance of play for education – play as progress ........................ 30 2.2.4 Defining traits of digital games ............................................................... 32 2.2.5 Building capital about and through games .............................................. 36 2.2.6 Gaming Literacy ...................................................................................... 37 2.2.6.1. Systems ............................................................................................. 38 2.2.6.2. Play ................................................................................................... 40 2.2.6.3. Design ............................................................................................... 42 2.2.7 It’s not just about the game ...................................................................... 43 2.2.8 A model for working with digital games in the classroom ...................... 46 2.2.8.1. Games as Action ............................................................................... 47 2.2.8.2. Games as Text .................................................................................. 48 2.2.8.3. The model applied to game making ................................................. 48 2.2.9 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 49 Don’t be bored – Make something .................................................................. 49 2.3.1 Creativity ................................................................................................. 52 2.3.1.1. Drivers for creativity in Education ................................................... 53 2.3.2 Defining creativity ................................................................................... 54 iv 2.3.2.1. Big C and Little c views of creativity ............................................... 55 2.3.2.2. Adopting a definition of creativity ................................................... 56 2.3.3 Teaching for creativity ............................................................................. 58 2.3.3.1. The role of the teacher ...................................................................... 59 2.3.3.2. Fostering possibility thinking ........................................................... 61 2.3.4 The creative process................................................................................. 62 2.3.5 Creative process in game development
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Shiva's Waterfront Temples
    Shiva’s Waterfront Temples: Reimagining the Sacred Architecture of India’s Deccan Region Subhashini Kaligotla Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2015 © 2015 Subhashini Kaligotla All rights reserved ABSTRACT Shiva’s Waterfront Temples: Reimagining the Sacred Architecture of India’s Deccan Region Subhashini Kaligotla This dissertation examines Deccan India’s earliest surviving stone constructions, which were founded during the 6th through the 8th centuries and are known for their unparalleled formal eclecticism. Whereas past scholarship explains their heterogeneous formal character as an organic outcome of the Deccan’s “borderland” location between north India and south India, my study challenges the very conceptualization of the Deccan temple within a binary taxonomy that recognizes only northern and southern temple types. Rejecting the passivity implied by the borderland metaphor, I emphasize the role of human agents—particularly architects and makers—in establishing a dialectic between the north Indian and the south Indian architectural systems in the Deccan’s built worlds and built spaces. Secondly, by adopting the Deccan temple cluster as an analytical category in its own right, the present work contributes to the still developing field of landscape studies of the premodern Deccan. I read traditional art-historical evidence—the built environment, sculpture, and stone and copperplate inscriptions—alongside discursive treatments of landscape cultures and phenomenological and experiential perspectives. As a result, I am able to present hitherto unexamined aspects of the cluster’s spatial arrangement: the interrelationships between structures and the ways those relationships influence ritual and processional movements, as well as the symbolic, locative, and organizing role played by water bodies.
    [Show full text]
  • K-12 Workforce Development in Transportation Engineering at FIU (2012- Task Order # 005)
    K-12 Workforce Development in Transportation Engineering at FIU (2012- Task Order # 005) 2016 Final Report K-12 Workforce Development in Transportation Engineering at FIU (2012- Task Order # 005) Berrin Tansel, Ph.D., P.E., Florida International University August 2016 1 K-12 Workforce Development in Transportation Engineering at FIU (2012- Task Order # 005) This page is intentionally left blank. i K-12 Workforce Development in Transportation Engineering at FIU (2012- Task Order # 005) U.S. DOT DISCLAIMER The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts, and the accuracy of the information presented herein. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s University Transportation Centers Program, in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SPONSORSHIP This work was sponsored by a grant from the Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development and Education Center (STRIDE) at the University of Florida. The STRIDE Center is funded through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s University Transportation Centers Program. ii K-12 Workforce Development in Transportation Engineering at FIU (2012- Task Order # 005) TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................................... v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • CONJECTURE GAMES PRESENTS: Conjectural Roleplaying Gamemaster
    CONJECTURE GAMES PRESENTS: CRGE conjectural roleplaying gamemaster emulator By Zach Best Artwork by Matthew Vasey The Helldragon (order #6976544) “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” – George S. Patton Dedicated to Katie. Who shares every step with me. Written by Zach Best Artwork by Matthew Vasey Published by Conjecture Games (www.conjecturegames.com) Special Thanks to Alex Yari, Francis Flammang, David Dankel, Nicky Tsouklais, Matthew Mooney, Aaron Zeitler, Kenny Norris, Jimmy Williams, and Deathworks for playtesting, editing, and general commenting. Very Special Thanks to Chris Stieha for being the first and most thorough playtester an indie game designer could ever ask for. All text is © Zach Best (2014). All artwork is © Matthew Vasey (2014) and used with permission for this work. The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. 2 The Helldragon (order #6976544) Table of Contents What is CRGE? pg. 4 Loom of Fate – Binary GM Emulator, pg. 6 The Surge Count, pg. 8 Unexpectedly Explanations, pg. 10 Loom of Fate Examples, pg. 11 Loom of Fate Tutorial, pg. 13 Conjured Threads – Story Indexing Game Engine, pg. 14 Stage of the Scene, pg. 16 CRGE Scene Setup, pg. 18 Bookkeeping, pg. 18 Storyspinning – Frameworks for CRGE, pg. 20 Vignette Framework, pg. 21 Vignette Framework Tutorial, pg. 23 Tapestry –Multiplayer CRGE Module, pg. 24 Appendix I (Tables), pg. 27 Appendix II (Vignette Framework Tutorial Example), pg. 28 3 The Helldragon (order #6976544) What is CRGE? Conjecture The Conjectural Roleplaying Gamemaster “Is the door locked?” This is a very simple Emulator (“CRGE”) is a supplement for any pen question applicable to many RPG adventures.
    [Show full text]
  • January 2021
    he Talon Gripping News Volume III Issue II Onteora High School Boiceville, NY 12412 January 2021 Ulster transportation assistance to he Kingston Common Coun‐ those under treatment. he Risk cil and Ulster County Legisla‐ County News Mitigation Team will receive ture approved the agreement, funding to expand and reach but the Kingston School Board other parts of Ulster County. did not due to concerns about By Sophia Roberts the length of time the commu‐ Lastly, the budget emphasises nity "would be shouldering the 2021 Budget Outline: creating workforce housing and burden of taxes not paid on the investing in new infrastructure, full value of the Kingstonian," In early December, Ulster including a nearly $3 million according to board member County Executive Pat Ryan and upgrade to the Maltby Hollow Robin Jacbowitz. Many feel as Ulster legislators prepared for Bridge in Olive. though it would be too great a 2021 by creating and adopting disadvantage to the Kingston the 2021 budget. he main fo‐ Essential services such as the school district if those living in cuses of the budget are mental ones above will be expanded luxury housing do not have to health, public health, education, without raising property taxes pay their full share of school infrastructure, economic devel‐ (for the ninth consecutive year) taxes. opment, social services, and a or proposing layoffs, and the Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Green New Deal for Ulster overall budget is a 2.6% de‐ he developers of the Kingston‐ County. he new initiatives pro‐ crease in spending from the ian responded to the Board vote Following negotiation of the tax one of the project's largest sup‐ posed in the 2021 budget can be 2020 budget.
    [Show full text]
  • Law in the Virtual World: Should the Surreal World of Online Communities Be Brought Back to Earth by Real World Laws
    Volume 16 Issue 1 Article 5 2009 Law in the Virtual World: Should the Surreal World of Online Communities be Brought Back to Earth by Real World Laws David Assalone Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/mslj Part of the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, and the Internet Law Commons Recommended Citation David Assalone, Law in the Virtual World: Should the Surreal World of Online Communities be Brought Back to Earth by Real World Laws, 16 Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports L.J. 163 (2009). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/mslj/vol16/iss1/5 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal by an authorized editor of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository. Assalone: Law in the Virtual World: Should the Surreal World of Online Comm Comments LAW IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD: SHOULD THE SURREAL WORLD OF ONLINE COMMUNITIES BE BROUGHT BACK TO EARTH BY REAL WORLD LAWS?' I. INTRODUCTION In 2003, the world of online interaction changed forever with the advent of the online community of Second Life. 2 Prior to Sec- ond Life and other massive multiplayer online role-playing games ("MMORPGs"), online communications were primarily restricted to e-mail, instant messenger and chat rooms. 3 Though thousands of Internet users could, among other things, engage in online sales of goods at websites such as Amazon.com, no system gave users the ability to personally interact with one another.4 With game de- signer Linden Lab's introduction of Second Life, however, users now have an Internet platform through which they can truly com- municate on a face-to-face basis.5 The online virtual world of Sec- 1.
    [Show full text]
  • 1942 Had, at That Moment, One Important Thing In
    1 "Perhaps somebody somewhere has written about men’s hands. I do not know. But if no one has, then a world of thoughts and dreams has been left unmapped. "The hands are, in reality, the person. Alask the face, and all emotions are hidden. But glove the hands, and they still twitch and reach, still close over the victim or open to set the ivild bird free. If we coidd see their history written on every pair of hands that we observe, we would probably be startled beyond speech. From some, we would draw back in horror; others we would press to our lips and dampen with our tears.” Isidore O’Brien, O. F. M. PUBLISHED B Y THE SENIOR CLASS O F SAINT BONAVENTURE COLLEGE / A N a memorable autumn morning in September of the year nine­ teen hundred and thirty-eight, one hundred and fifty bewildered and confused Freshmen gathered within the venerable walls of Alumni Hall. There they sat in awed silence, listening to a speech of welcome given by a man who prefaced his remarks with the statement that he and the Class of 1942 had, at that moment, one important thing in common— he was as much a Freshman to his task as they were to theirs. That man was Father Aubert Conlon, O. F. M„ who, on that day, as­ sumed for the first time the new and strenuous duties of Dean of Disci­ pline. Now as we view in retrospect the four years, so rich and fruitful in experience, that have passed since that September day, we of the Senior Class are moved strongly to offer some lasting tribute to that priest under whose guidance and direction we have advanced from bewildered Freshmen to even more bewildered Seniors.
    [Show full text]
  • Game Engine Prepares for the Future by Optimizing
    Success Story Intel® Software Partner Program Game Engine Prepares for the Gaming Focus Future by Optimizing for Multi-Core Intel® Processors The Intel® Software Partner Program guides The Game Creators toward the multi-core future for their FPS Creator X10* development environment. The Game Creators, based in Lancashire, United Kingdom, helps independent “DirectX* 10 lets games game developers cut down the time required to make new titles and reduce render hundreds of enemy characters, each with their the complexity of supporting the latest hardware. Intuitive, drag-and-drop own individual behaviors. interfaces automate otherwise-tedious details for the developer. While high- That kind of scenario is quality 3-D games can be created in this fashion without writing a line of incredibly CPU-intensive, code, the FPS Creator X10* product also provides the capability to modify so it’s critical to have very solid multi-threading built game elements by means of a simple scripting language. By building optimized into the engine.” support for the latest PC hardware into the platform, The Game Creators - Lee Bamber, CEO and FPS Creator relieves game developers from difficult tasks like multi-threading, which X10* Lead Engineer, The Game Creators allows them to focus on their games instead of performance details. Challenge: Prepare the FPS Creator* game- Meeting the needs of independent game developers development environment to create titles that take better advantage of FPS Creator X10* provides building blocks for assembling high-quality first-person shooter games without current and future generations of coding. Multi-threading within the platform enables the finished product to make good use of multiple PC hardware.
    [Show full text]
  • Blood Drive Collects Record Amount of Donations
    Volume 43 Issue 2 Student Newspaper Of Shaler Area High School November 2016 Bloodby Ceari Robinson drive and Addeline collects Devlin for others this record was a first amount of donationsfirst, the students register on the time experience. computer and answer questions. Shaler Area High School hosted a blood drive “A lot of people will These questions are for the blood Thursday November 3. The Central Blood Bank vis- hype it up but it is really bank only, just to reassure them that its twice a year giving students and teachers an op- not that bad. I would rec- donor’s blood is safe to use. Next, portunity to give blood which in turn is used to save ommend it because you the students move to the interview lives. save three lives every process. This is where the nurse Shaler Area has been holding blood drives for time so why not?” senior will draw a sample of your blood more than 20 years. This year, 153 people signed up Stephen Borgen said. and test it for iron, take your tem- to donate, which equates to potentially saving 500 Central Blood Bank perature and take your blood pres- lives. even offers scholarships sure. If cleared, a student moves to “I think the blood drive is going great, we are on to students who partici- the cot to donate. This part alone track to collect the most units we have ever gotten”, pate. For every donation, only takes about 10-15 minutes and Natalia Petrulli, the Central Blood Bank Account the school earns points then you get to sit and eat snacks.
    [Show full text]
  • A Sense of Presence: Mediating an American Apocalypse
    religions Article A Sense of Presence: Mediating an American Apocalypse Rachel Wagner Department of Philosophy and Religion, Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA; [email protected] Abstract: Here I build upon Robert Orsi’s work by arguing that we can see presence—and the longing for it—at work beyond the obvious spaces of religious practice. Presence, I propose, is alive and well in mediated apocalypticism, in the intense imagination of the future that preoccupies those who consume its narratives in film, games, and role plays. Presence is a way of bringing worlds beyond into tangible form, of touching them and letting them touch you. It is, in this sense, that Michael Hoelzl and Graham Ward observe the “re-emergence” of religion with a “new visibility” that is much more than “simple re-emergence of something that has been in decline in the past but is now manifesting itself once more.” I propose that the “new awareness of religion” they posit includes the mediated worlds that enchant and empower us via deeply immersive fandoms. Whereas religious institutions today may be suspicious of presence, it lives on in the thick of media fandoms and their material manifestations, especially those forms that make ultimate promises about the world to come. Keywords: apocalypticism; Orsi; enchantment; fandom; video games; pervasive games; cowboy; larp; West 1. Introduction Michael Hoelzl and Graham Ward observe the “re-emergence” of religion today with a “new visibility” that is “far more complex and nuanced than simple re-emergence of something that has been in decline in the past but is now manifesting itself once more” (Hoelzl and Ward 2008, p.
    [Show full text]
  • Sense-Making of Big Data
    Sense-making of Big Data Spring Break 2013 – Visualization recognition and meaning making November 2013 Prepared by: Prepared for: Joe E. Heimlich, Ph.D. Sense-making of Big Data Team Victor Yocco, Ph.D. Sasha Palmquist, Ph.D This project was completed with support from the National Science Foundation(1223698) LifelongLearningGroup.org COSI 333 West Broad Street Columbus, Ohio 43215 Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2 Method ......................................................................................................................................................... 2 Population ................................................................................................................................................. 2 Instrumentation ........................................................................................................................................ 2 Findings ......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Respondents ............................................................................................................................................. 3 Detailed analysis of visual presentations of data by group ...................................................................... 4 Series One Visuals ................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Platf Orm Game First Person Shooter Strategy Game Alternatereality Game
    First person shooter Platform game Alternate reality game Strategy game Platform game Strategy game The platform game (or platformer) is a video game genre Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from sus- skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They empha- pended platforms or over obstacles (jumping puzzles). It must size strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration. or miss jumps. The most common unifying element to these These games sometimes incorporate physical challenges, but games is a jump button; other jump mechanics include swing- such challenges can annoy strategically minded players. They ing from extendable arms, as in Ristar or Bionic Commando, are generally categorized into four sub-types, depending on or bouncing from springboards or trampolines, as in Alpha whether the game is turn-based or real-time, and whether Waves. These mechanics, even in the context of other genres, the game focuses on strategy or tactics. are commonly called platforming, a verbification of platform. Games where jumping is automated completely, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, fall outside of the genre. The platform game (or platformer) is a video game genre characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from sus- pended platforms or over obstacles (jumping puzzles). It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps. The most common unifying element to these games is a jump button; other jump mechanics include swing- ing from extendable arms, as in Ristar or Bionic Commando, or bouncing from springboards or trampolines, as in Alpha Waves.
    [Show full text]
  • Domain Adaptation of Unreal Images for Image Classification
    Master of Science Thesis in Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering, Linköping University, 2019 Domain Adaptation of Unreal Images for Image Classification Johan Thornström Master of Science Thesis in Electrical Engineering Domain Adaptation of Unreal Images for Image Classification: Johan Thornström LiTH-ISY-EX–20/5282–SE Supervisor: Gustav Häger isy, Linköping University David Gustafsson FOI Erik Valldor FOI Examiner: Per-Erik Forssén isy, Linköping University Computer Vision Laboratory Department of Electrical Engineering Linköping University SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden Copyright © 2019 Johan Thornström Abstract Deep learning has been intensively researched in computer vision tasks like im- age classification. Collecting and labeling images that these neural networks are trained on is labor-intensive, which is why alternative methods of collecting im- ages are of interest. Virtual environments allow rendering images and automatic labeling, which could speed up the process of generating training data and re- duce costs. This thesis studies the problem of transfer learning in image classification when the classifier has been trained on rendered images using a game engine and tested on real images. The goal is to render images using a game engine to create a classifier that can separate images depicting people wearing civilian clothing or camouflage. The thesis also studies how domain adaptation techniques using generative adversarial networks could be used to improve the performance of the classifier. Experiments show that it is possible to generate images that can be used for training a classifier capable of separating the two classes. However, the experiments with domain adaptation were unsuccessful. It is instead recom- mended to improve the quality of the rendered images in terms of features used in the target domain to achieve better results.
    [Show full text]