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..

In game development, performance is everything and the Playstation 3 provides a unique platform for utilizing parallelization of code to achieve extremely high performance. In this master?s thesis the issue of animation with smooth skinning is migrated from being a GPU process to becoming a parallelized and 358% faster process. This method is incorporated in an existing commercial game engine and integrated in a currently in development title for the Playstation 3. An in-depth study covers parallel processors, the CELL processor, used in the Playstation 3, and how contemporary industry leading game developers are utilizing the same unique architecture to increase their own games? performance..

The aim was to evaluate and suggest improvements for the prototype TIVOLI (sign-learning via computer-based playful interaction). The game purposed to give children who need signing as augmentative and alternative communication enhanced signing skills. Three children in need of signs played TIVOLI at home during 4-5 weeks. Data contained parental interviews, Talking Mats interviews, assessment of signing competence before and after the evaluation period and game protocols. One game interaction per child was filmed.

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..

The objective of this thesis is to examine the capital structure of Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Accounting data from Swedish game developers, combined with the result from a survey, is used to examine their financial conditions and capital structure decisions. We find that non-debt tax shield, firm size, growth opportunities and age are, to various extents, the determinants of capital structure in the game industry, while effective tax rate and asset structure have marginal effects. Our study also implicates that most of the existing capital structure theories can explain SMEs leverage decisions to some extent; however, some adaptation is needed to fit these theories into the SME context. Additionally, we find the existence of a financial gap in the game industry which might need efforts from both demand side and supply side to eliminate..

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..

The aim of this studyhas been to capture preschool children's strategies, when they include and exclude each other in play. My aim was also to find out how children choose to integrate into an already existing game. My questions were: What strategies are used by the children at the preschool when they want to exclude or include each other? How to integrate the children when they want to be involved in an ongoing game and how they will be received during the time of play? My theoretical starting points are from Vygotsky's theory of proximal development zone, and Michel Foucault's perspective on power, and also research on the subject.The empirical study was conducted using the observations at two preschools. The children I observed were between four to five years old.The results show that children used different strategies, and when the strategy did not work so the child could switch to another.

AbstractTitle: The game of playing: A media ethnographic study of children playing videogames on a Swedish after school recreation centre. Spelet om spelandet: En medieetnografisk studie av barns dataspelande på en fritidsklubb.Number of pages: 46Author: Peter BrandbergTutor: Amelie HössjerPeriod: Spring term 2008Course: Media and Communication studies DUniversity: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim with this study is to describe how children play video games in an everyday context. In this study this context consists of a Swedish after school recreation centre. By combining three different aspects on the activity this study tries to understand how both the video game and the social and cultural context in which the activity takes place in influences it. This by taking one analyse of the specific game that the children played at the time of the study and how the overall environment is structured into account.

My aim in this case study has been to create a method for creature design to test this method in a production and evaluate the results. To achieve this I studied and analyzed the methods of three concept artists and illustrators named James Gurney, Neville Page and Iain McCaig. From the analysis of these artist´s methods, combined with my own personal experience, a new method was formed. To test this method a creature was designed based on directives given by a game design group in the process of creating a table top role playing game in a fictitious world. These directives where given for the creature´s role and its living conditions.

The game QuantoJump is developed in the programming language Java to be an educational game in quantum physics. By illustrating quantum mechanical laws of electron transitions with shapes and colours, QuantoJump hopes to spark interest and create a more intuitive understanding of quantum physics. The result is a game where the player plays as an electron in the outermost shell of an atom, with the goal of getting to the innermost shell. This while not making forbidden jumps by following the laws of electron transitions dictated by quantum physics. The programming of the game was done in the integrated develpoment environment Eclipse.

We have chosen to focus this paper on the importance of game-components in the MMORPG-game World of Warcraft, in order to discover which of them who are the most important and create the biggest motivation to play the game for the players of World of Warcraft. We made this  investigation because we wanted to find out more about the specific reasons about what people think is especially great with World of Warcraft and makes them want to play it for hour after hour. By doing this we wanted to find out what it is that is so appreciated with this game. But this is a big area and it has therefore been difficult to find a way to satisfy and make those who have answered on our survey to feel that the game-component they enjoy most has been a part of our questions.To solve this problem we did a survey that included 200 persons and two interviews. When both the survey and the interviews had been completed, the result was being compared against each other and together to see if there was any difference between them or if they had any similarity to the attraction and motivation.

This essay analyses the use of history in the video game Assassin's Creed 2. How have the developers used history in their game? The paper also analyses how the game can stimulate, arouse and mobilize the historical consciousness of the player. The essay presents a theoretical analysis of the uses of history and historical consciousness. This analysis is then linked with the results.

This report is about finding the cooperative elements in games and making a boardgame based on them. I tested different computer games and boardgames to try and get the cooperative elements and then I make a boardgame based on what I found.What I found during testing is that to be a fully cooperative game all players on the same team must win or lose together and one player should not be able to finish the game by herself. There are of course some things that can change this for example what kind of players are playing.My best advice is that you should decide that the game is fully cooperative from the beginning and build the game from that..

This final-year project has been performed at Strix production Efterlyst. The task has been to make a page under their homepage, with a game application that?s supposed to be interesting and also have a strong connection to the TV- program. In the first part of the report, the reader will learn about the preparing work that was done before the work with the final game began. It is in these two test versions all the technical problems were tested, to finally be used or thrown away.