Applications for mobile devices, also known as apps, are today the backbone of a huge market where the company Apple is one of the key players. Apple develops, among other things, handheld electronic devices, which are powered by the operating system iOS. Through iOS, millions of customers get access to Apple?s App Store.During a period of two months, an app in the form of a game has been developed for iOS in the programming language Objective-C. The user of the app is presented intuitive menus and interactive graphical objects that seemingly obey physical laws.

The aim of this thesis is to assess the strategic importance of Central Asia as a whole and interests of great powers in the region in particular within the theoretical framework chosen. The work shows Central Asia as an area of the New Great Game, analogue of the original Great Game which was played out between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia in XIX century. The parallels between the original Great Game and the New Great Game are drawn in order to understand the scope and the true intentions of the players of the latter one. Also, the security issues in the contemporary Central Asia are explored and analyzed to provide with the background for future predictions. Furthermore, the indirect purpose of the thesis is to examine whether the international system has changed from that of two centuries ago by comparing the structure of the international systems at the time of two Games.

In this study we examine how much latency is required in an RTS-game (Real-Time Strategy) before the player quits the game. In the study latency is simulated in the games Age of Mythology and Starcraft: Brood War with the program WANem, and then the testplayers are asked ?Do you want to quit because of latency??. This data is then gathered and compiled into graphs to show the results. These results show that the limit for when players want to quit differs between the two games and that there are two factors that play into this.

Abstract The purpose of this degree project is to examine what impact working with physical objects has on children?s learning process concerning addition. We want to explore what addition strategies can be exercised using the game ?Twice as much?. We have observed children in school year 1.

Abstract   In this thesis, my aim was to investigate how preschool teachers view their involvement in children's free play. In order to answer this, I chose to do semi-structured interviews with four preschool teachers in three different preschools. My interviews has revealed similarities and support for as how history of research looks at the involvement of educationists. Both research and my results stresses the importance of being active in children's free play and to be a supportive teacher, particulary in conflict situations. For those children who have difficulty entering into the free game its the educationists task to co-play and help the children find the game.

Today's technology offers a variety of opportunities to interact with the interactive systems. Human-Computer Interaction in the last decade is the area of research that has contributed the most to this development. But how is this interaction perceived? The user experience is something that is formed by the interaction between human and the computer interactive systems. The objective of this thesis is to investigate how the user experience differs depending on how one interacts with a game.

Purpose: To examine how video-game releases affect the share price, and if video-game reviews have any impact on the share price of gaming corporations. Method: A quantitative deductive research approach is applied with event study methodology used as basis. The investigated companies were the five largest gaming companies listed on the U.S. NASDAQ exchange. A total of 29 video-game launches and 85 reviews where examined.  Theory: The study is based on The Efficient Market Hypothesis, Agent Theory, Public Relations Theory, Nextopia and previous research.Results: The result contains 114 observations in five companies.

People play games now more than ever before. While the digital gaming industry dominates the market, boardgaming has been living in its shadow. Board games offer a physical tangibility and a social experience that can be found in few digital games. How do we create a tool that further builds upon those strengths? The purpose of this study is to examine the possibility of developing a service that consists of an mobile application and board game events to promote social face-to-face interaction. Focus has been on the social face-to-face interaction in the context of a board game session.

AbstractThe purpose of the study was to examine if manual signs used as support to spoken and written language can be a god mnemonic for learning of word-pictures. I performed my study as an experiment in which I made a Memory game with word-pictures. I played the game with the children twice. The first time, we played without manual signs and the second time I used sign as a support. I observed the children and noted the words they learned to read with and without the support of manual signs.

In this study we pose the question if you through finding patterns in implementation of checkpoints can find ways to tailor the experience of the game A Story About My Uncle to hardcore gamers. To find out the answer we had hardcore players playing a modified level from the game A Story About My Uncle that was used as stimulus material for the following focus group interview. The analysis of the gathered material resulted in four patterns that can be used when implementing checkpoints to tailor the experience of the game A Story About My Uncle to hardcore gamers. Elements of checkpoints that our study showed to be important when it comes to how the game is experienced are density, placement and clearness..

Detta arbete har utformats för att besvara frågeställningen: ?Kan Game Approachability Principles (GAP) upptäcka användbarhets-, spelbarhets- och åtkomlighetsproblem i tidiga stadier av utvecklingsprocessen av ett spel??. Teorier om användbarhet, åtkomlighet, spelbarhet, olika utvärderingsmetoder och användartestning samt Game Approachability Principles studerades för att skapa en teoribildning inom området. Två prototyper av ett spel skapades: en hi-fi prototyp och en lo-fi prototyp. Den första representerar det senare stadiet i utvecklingen av ett spel och den andra representerar det tidigare stadiet.

This study examines the in-game encyclopaedia Codex as it appears within the videogame Mass Effect. The purpose of this study is to analyse the Codex with emphasis on how the reading process is affected by the videogame medium. In this regard the study seeks to uncover what characterises the Codex as a fictional encyclopaedia, what it entails and how it interacts with the rest of the game. The theoretical basis of this study is derived from a combination of the writings of Wolfgang Iser concerning the process of reading, Jesper Juul's writings on the relationship between games and narratives, and the concept of intermediality as discussed by Hans Lund and Jørgen Bruhn.      This study is based on a close examination of the PC and Playstation 3 versions of the videogame Mass Effect, created by Bioware, with particular emphasis placed on the Codex. Mass Effect is a science fiction third-person shooter and RPG set in a future where mankind has begun interacting with aliens civilizations and colonising new planets.

This bachelor thesis is an exploratory investigation about the phenomenon 'Gamification', which by some definitions is about implementing game elements into non-game contexts. For example exercise services as Runkeeper and Nike Plus who both are available on android and iOS platforms. This study is mainly about the potential value of gamified systems and services for companies and its users and how such a system or service is developed. The thesis also discusses the development aspect of gamified systems in order to give the reader a more ?in depth? understanding about the phenomenon.

I denna text diskuterar jag produktionen av Hearty Horrors, ett spel programmerat och designat helt i flash. Jag diskuterar svårigheterna för de olika delarna i att skapa ett spel. Tankar och jämförelser mellan onda och goda karaktärer och vad man, som speldesigner, bör och inte bör göra för att få spelare att känna sig manade att spela vidare. In this text I discuss the production of Hearty Horrors, a game programmed and designed completly in flash. I discuss the difficulties of diffrent parts in the making of a game.

I det här arbetet undersöker vi hur retrotrenden påverkat digitala spel. Vi undersöker hur retro blivit en erkänd stil och varför den har blivit det. Vi undersöker dess koppling med nostalgi, hur nostalgi fungerar och varför man kan tänkas vilja använda sig av det när man ska utveckla ett digitalt spel. Retro är inte ett fenomen som är medie exklusivt till digitala spel, vi undersöker hur retro verkar i andra medier och hur medierna blandar retroelement med varandra. Det är inte ovanligt att samtida digitala spel influeras av retrospel eller rent av utvecklas i syfte att bli ett nyproducerat retrospel, detta är något som vi gestaltar i vår produktion av ett digitalt spel.