This report describes my degree project. For my degree project I made a demo for a game idea that I've developed, and implemented for use with Xbox 360. The idea was about converting the feeling and gameplay of old 2D side-scrolling platform games into 3D, viewed from a first-person perspective. The Xbox 360 version of the demo was also submitted for the game competition Swedish Game Awards. In the report, I explain this idea more extensive, what software I used to implement it, and how I implemented it. Finally, at the end I clarify the results and discuss fulfilled tasks and future improvements.

This essay is a narrative analyze of the computer game Halo. The purpose of the essay is to see what function the narrative elements have in a computer game of the action genre. The analyze is done with a neo-formalistic approach according to the theory of David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. The choice of game was based on it's positive reviews mentioning the story. The essay tries to give a picture of research in the field and researchers views on narratives and computer games.

Rapporten handlar om programmet Game Maker som prototypverktyg, och vänder sig till personer och företag som skulle kunna vara intresserade av detta. Syftet med arbetet var att skapa ett spel i Game Maker, "Ittle Dew", samt skriva om Game Makers egenskaper och egenheter. Spelet färdigställdes i tid, och rapporten tar även upp en mängd designfrågor som dök upp under skapandet av detta. Med hjälp av två brev från personer med erfarenhet av Game Maker som prototypverktyg och för skapandet av färdiga spel, och diskussion av dessa brev, hävdar jag till sist att programmet väl duger för prototyper, så länge användaren känner till de begränsningar som rapporten tar upp..

The game industry is growing by every year but for some reason the research surrounding it hasn't caught up with its rapid expansion. This study aims at expanding the knowledge surrounding one of those areas, player motivations. An empirical model has been used to identify which interaction has the highest impact on player motivation in story-driven roleplaying-games. By conducting semi-structured interviews with eight different game developers using the GameFlow model to explore the use of interactions to sustain the motivation of the player a new criteria has been identified. This additional criteria was: Alive, and it was shown to have a high impact on motivation in story-driven roleplaying-games.

Game balance can be considerd complex - there are many factors that play a role in the perception of balance. This thesis examines complexity, game theory and intution in an effort to disconver more about the perception of balance. The findings are that tactical and strategical choices that are presented for a player need to be interesting, not to complex and not to obvious. The importance lies in the estimation of the result that the player does when making a choice..

Todays board game manuals have many shortcomings. One of them is that they are not always adapted to the game's target audience.Adapting the language and shape of a game manual for the the target group children, can save time for both parents and teachers, and give the children a chance to conquer the game by themselves. In addition, playing board games can lead to children developing other important properties such as problem solving and independence.This study found that the game manuals inconsistency, tone and the way they adress the reader makes it difficult for children to grasp the content. Many game manuals do not speak directly to the reader, and often describes gameplay in a passive way, which has been shown by this study.This study has resulted in 12 guidelines for writing game manuals for children. In addition, they have been tested with a sample study.

Immersion is a construct that measures how deeply engrossed a user is with any mediated situation. In the field of game design, immersion is a significant aspect of what makes a game enticing, and as such it is of pivotal importance to create and maintain it to keep the player's mind off the real world while inside the confines of a game framework. According to the GameFlow theory, it is one of seven key tenets of evaluating and implementing a successful game design. Yet, certain multiplayer online games are designed in a fashion that in some cases seem to break immersion, where the player is frequently put out of action, sometimes for minutes on end. In this study, using online questionnaires, we discover that players, despite claims otherwise, seem to be in several ways affected negatively by this breaking of immersion.

Immersion is a construct that measures how deeply engrossed a user is with any mediated situation. In the field of game design, immersion is a significant aspect of what makes a game enticing, and as such it is of pivotal importance to create and maintain it to keep the player's mind off the real world while inside the confines of a game framework. According to the GameFlow theory, it is one of seven key tenets of evaluating and implementing a successful game design. Yet, certain multiplayer online games are designed in a fashion that in some cases seem to break immersion, where the player is frequently put out of action, sometimes for minutes on end. In this study, using online questionnaires, we discover that players, despite claims otherwise, seem to be in several ways affected negatively by this breaking of immersion.

Electromyography (EMG) is a technique that measures muscle activity, whichmeans detecting the electrical signals that travel through the muscle in connectionwith muscle contraction. This project deals with how EMG can be used tocontrol a computer game.The project is centered around the game 'EMG Track Game' which has beenconstructed as part of this work. 'EMG Track Game' is controlled by twoelectrodes fastened on the player. These are attached to two selected musclesand control the motion in one direction each, one up and the other one down.The game is constructed in the purpose of being used in several elds of application.Among these are as entertainment, training equipment and a tool inresearch related to EMG and muscles.To highlight a possible application a study concerning muscle control has beenconducted. It answers the question of whether players score better with theirdominant arm in comparison with their non-dominant one.

Abstrakt Under vårt kandidatarbete arbetade vi under 20 veckor med att utveckla ett webbaserat spel riktat mot Facebook. Vi använde Agile/Scrum som projektmetod för vårt arbete och förändrade metoden och utvecklade verkyg för att effektivisera den för vårt syfte. Vi kom fram till att det är svårt att göra ett socialt spel och att det viktigaste i produktionen är att se till att det finns en tydlig koppling mellan spelarnas interaktion med varandra och den grundläggande spelmekaniken. Vi tappade fokus under utvecklingen och lärde oss den hårda vägen vikten av att planera realistiskt och börja ifrån grunden när man utvecklar ett spel. Spelet vi skapade använder sig av slumpässigt genererad terräng, är skrivet i JavaScript och utspelar sig i en viktoriansk miljö. Nyckelord: Facebook, spelutveckling, webbutveckling, internet, sociala spel Abstract During our bachelor thesis we worked for 20 weeks with the development of a web-based game for Facebook. We used Agile/Scrum as our project planning method, changed the method to make it more effective for our purpose and developed tools for the method. We came to the conclusion that it's hard to make a social game and that the most important thing in the production is to make sure that there's a clear connection between the players' interaction with each other and the foundations of the game mechanics. We lost focus during the development and learned the hard way the value of planning realistically and to start from the core when developing a game. The game we created uses a random generated terrain, is written in JavaScript and takes place in a Victorian environment. Keywords: Facebook, game development, web development, internet, social games.

Dice is one of Sweden's largest game manufacturers. They have produced a game series called ?Battlefield?, which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, releasing it gradually over the years. In order to create a game some form of work structure is required. In this essay we discover what the Dice work process looks like today and how it has changed over the years.Game development is progressing and market changes require game developers to constantly adapt to the current situation.

The diegetic game world places high demands on how it is designed. It is common that game developers wants to create a deeper player immersion and some developers believe to achieve this by integrating HUD elements into the game world. To find out how digital games can rely on the design of the game world, we performed user studies on beginners who have very limited experience of playing digital games. By observing the beginners, we could discern the visual aspects in the diegesis that helps players understand the game rules and objectives because the beginners won`t make their choices based on previous gaming experiences. If players encounter a variety of difficulties to understand the rules of a game, then it will less likely be a successful game.

This paper explains the basis for impartial games and the classicgame Nim. Nim is complicated by a modular Muller twist and thesolution for this game is described by a simple theorem. The modularMuller twist means that at the end of each move the player selects a kand the number of sticks the next player leaves in the pile, where thedraw is made, must be congruent with k modulo m. The number m isfixed throughout the game..

The goal of this work has been to create a flexible strategic group-based artificial intelligence for the Arrowhead Game Studios-game Magicka, by implementing, using and examining different AI-techniques that's used in many commercial games in more or less extent. C# is the programming language that has been used in the development, and the implementation has been made as flexible as possible to make further development and extending AI-rules etc. easier..

To explore greatly varied opinion between player and reviewer, in relation to new products in ongoing digital game series, an analytic perspective is suggested, that takes the entire game series into account, instead of analyzing games (who are part of a series) as individual productions. This is explored further by introducing a model to support this perspective, based on the game theories by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, as well as Gordon Calleja. This model and chosen perspective is applied against three separate cases to see whether or not it can give insight into the approach of players (of continuing game series) and the differing opinions of players and reviewers..