In this study I have investigated how role playing may change young students´ attitudes and behavior. According to the Swedish National Agency for Education´s governing document, Läroplanen för de frivilliga skolformerna, 1994, the principals at Swedish schools are required to inform students about the risks connected with alcohol and traffic. Scientists bring to our attention the need for emotional information to change attitudes and behaviors. The Historical Wine- and Sprits Museum in Stockholm has arranged a role play that gives emotional information to school students in order to affect their attitudes towards drunk driving. My study is a qualitative examination of this role play.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate and discuss the current state of game research and its potential usage in didactic situations. The essay is divided in two parts. Part one consists of an attempt to comment preceding contemporary game research and address possible myths that have been established. Part two aims to discuss games narrative capacity and function in education using the theories and terms laid down by Wolfgang Iser and Gérard Genette.Contemporary game research tends to focus on classic retro games, trying to form theories for a general understanding of the media. This is a useful method as long as the purpose of the study is to define how game mechanics and layout are formed.

Studier kring spel har under de senaste tio år fått stort genomslag i den akademiska världen. Datorspels påverkan på människans kognitiva förmågor har visat sig vara signifikant, även om övriga effekter av datorspel ännu diskuteras av forskare. Studier kring spel har gjorts, främst inom Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) genren, men även några First Person Shooter- spel (FPS) även om fokus då varit professionella spelare. Undersökningens fokus var att studera hur samarbete uppstår i spel då icke professionella datorspelare spelar spel, men även studera vilken roll samarbete har i publika spel. Olika datainsamlingsmetoder användes för att stärka eventuella resultat.

This study examines the cultural place and status of video and computer games in the Swedish public library. Using works on popular culture and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this study employs quantitative methods, as well as textual analysis, to analyze the results of an online questionnaire with 19 questions focusing on selection criteria, shelf placement, perceived competence, as well as reasoning for having or not having these games in the library. 286 out of the 440 libraries contacted is participating in the study, and the libraries consist exclusively of public libraries in Sweden that are found in the database of the Royal Library.The results of this study show that a larger number of libraries than previously indicated have started to provide electronic games to their patrons. At the same time, patterns in the data and comments suggests that these games in many cases still do not enjoy the same level of cultural recognition as other media. Indicative of this is the way most libraries seem to focus on the medium being exclusively for their young patrons, with seem-ingly very little in the way of investment for adults.

In 2011, I and fellow student at Gotland University created a multimedia game. To fit the time constraints a ?vertical slice? was created. This means a small sample of the game is taken which allows the user to understand how the game works, and at the same time, get a visual demonstration of how the game is designed. The goal of the project was to create a narrative for stadium games in which the backstory is told as players interact with their surroundings.

The purpose of this study is to find out how four preschool teachers view children?s free playing and its impact on their learning. My main questions are:How do the teachers view the children?s free playing?In what ways does the children?s free playing affect their learning, according to the teachers?This essay is based on a qualitative study in which I have interviewed four female preschool teachers of different ages. I highlight various theories of children?s playing and learning in preschool, by theorists such as Vygotsky, Lillemyr, Knutsdotter Olofsson, Lindqvist, among others.

This study examines the cultural place and status of video and computer games in the Swedish public library. Using works on popular culture and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this study employs quantitative methods, as well as textual analysis, to analyze the results of an online questionnaire with 19 questions focusing on selection criteria, shelf placement, perceived competence, as well as reasoning for having or not having these games in the library. 286 out of the 440 libraries contacted is participating in the study, and the libraries consist exclusively of public libraries in Sweden that are found in the database of the Royal Library.The results of this study show that a larger number of libraries than previously indicated have started to provide electronic games to their patrons. At the same time, patterns in the data and comments suggests that these games in many cases still do not enjoy the same level of cultural recognition as other media. Indicative of this is the way most libraries seem to focus on the medium being exclusively for their young patrons, with seem-ingly very little in the way of investment for adults.

For many people, a good game is synonymous with good graphics. One thing that is often forgotten, is that the graphics only makes up one part of the games. An aspect of the games that is far to often forgotten, is the game?s content and ability to tell stories. Through analyses of the games of the Zelda series, the development of content and storytelling aspects of computer- and video games, since the later half of the 1980:s and up till today, are examined..

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..

The aim of this study was to investigate whether teachers are involved in children´s play, what their perspectives are on the importance of play and what conditions teachers have to stimulate children in their playing. In this study, I?ve been able to verify that play has a great value for children?s learning development. My method have been interviewing four teachers at a kindergarten in order to examine educators? perspective on the importance of play.The results of my investigation showed that teachers believe that play and role- play have a major impact on children's learning.

This essay is about the use of narrative in video games, and the discussion surrounding it. For years ludologists (game researchers) and narratologists (narrativity researchers) have been arguing about how to analyze narrativity in games. While ludologists have chosen to see games as a product by itself, and therefore something to be analyzed separately, narratologists instead see games as a narrative medium alongside film, theater and books. This essay starts by taking a look at the arguments from both sides, and then introduces three questions regarding narrative in games, and how this phenomenon has changed over the past 13 years. To answer these questions, five case studies are carried out, analyzing games with the help of a new framework built on narrative theory.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine librarians attitudes and values when it comes to the question if a new media, video games, should be introduced at the library or not. Video games are here seen as media primarily for youths. In our study we also wanted to study the discussions of quality and purchase, when computer games were introduced at the library. In order to answer our questions we conducted nine interviews with librarians working with children and youths, in eight libraries. By analysing their statements, using Maj Klassons theory where she defines the librarians role in three different strategies, we could demonstrate how the librarians reason when it comes to video and computer games, youths, quality and purchase.

This qualitative study examines how users of boardgamegeek.com chooses which analogue game to buy. The purpose of the study is to find out which factors constitutes the choice of games and how the information of these factors reach the consumer. The investigation is executed by users of boardgamegeek.com explaining their latest game purchase in a questionnaire survey online. The results show that many of the respondents research the games they are interrested in beforehand and based on this information make their choice. Despite of this we can see that many game developers and distributors does not make this information available for the consumers, but leaves this task to the public..

This Masters thesis concerns computer games in Swedish public libraries. We have investigated the opinions of public librarians concerning what they think about computer games, and to what extent they believe it should be a part of the public library. The method we have chosen is qualitative interviews. The theory we have used is a pedagogical literature strategy, which we have reformulated so that it fits our investigation. The results show that the interviewed public librarians think that the library should offer computer games for children and youths to use at the library, and that they should offer computer games for lending, to all the library users.

This thesis was developed as an assignment from Ludosity Interactive where the goal was to develop a copy of the Xbox Live Indie Games-marketplace from the Xbox 360. Ludosity Interactive had a necessity to easily test a game's attractiveness to potential customers using testing people from outside the company in a simulated Xbox Live Indie Games test environment; excluding this developed system there is no other way to do such an analysis without actually releasing the game on the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace and then analyze the resulting sales from the product.The finished system had to be similar to the original system to the degree that a user could see past the interface itself and use the system just as he/she would have used the real marketplace. It also had to be easy to change and add games to the system so that Ludosity Interactive easily could show the games and the data that they deemed interesting for their tests. The final product was developed using C#, XNA and XML together with an Agileinspired development method in combination with Pivotal Tracker. This report describes how this product was developed..