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.

The process of producing a video game is one that goes through a number of phasesduring the span of the entire production. One of these phases is the concept design phase,which is part of the pre-production. This phase is an important aspect of the productionas it is where all the different parts and ideas concerning the game are brought togetherto define what the game is going to be. Though a clearly important part of the videogame production surprisingly little research have been done on the subject of conceptdesign. This thesis presents what place concept design has in the overall game productionand how the design process is handled.

The Squares Family is a game developed as a learning aid in mathematics. With its graphical representation of the decimal system, the four basic arithmetic operations and positive and negative numbers together with a learning agent as pedagogical approach, the game?s primary purpose is to motivate students in their learning of mathematics. Although the game is strictly based on mathematical rules it attempts to encourage students to play and work with math without experiencing it as mathematics as this is initially not obvious. The game being internationally tested on normal performing students, this project introduced the game to six Swedish students who experience low motivation for and/or difficulties in mathematics.

In this thesis I will propose and test a pipeline for creating in-game animations using motion capture technology, with the aim to export to a 3D game engine, such as UDK or similar. Even though there are already established pipelines for creating in-game animations in the game industry, they are not of public knowledge and dissemination of information is hindered by the severe NDA (non-disclosure agreements) imposed on the studios and artists. I will therefore use my experience with game production and as a student, to research and propose an optimal pipeline for developing in-game animation that may be used by other students, researchers and independent game developers. The methodology used to test the pipeline will be a case study based on the student project Synergy, which I am developing with other third year students also attending the Game design Education at Gotland University..

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.

?Games children play? is a study about the importance of playing with a focus on a group of disabled children. I have made some observations by participating in these children?s play at an accommodation. My interest arouse when I worked as holiday substitute at an accommodation for disabled children.The purpose with the study is to carry out participation observations and look for signs and events that show the importance of children?s play.

The gaming market is growing and the number of people, men and women, who play computer games, is also increasing every day. In addition, computer games are also interactive media which leads to the fact that product placement in computer games attracts and is used more frequently by marketers. It is therefore important for marketers and game developers to understand how product placement in computer games affects players' attention and attitude towards the brand or product that is product placed. We therefore examine how product placement in computer games affects players' recall of and attitude towards the brand. The aim is to help companies and game developers to see the effect of product placement in computer games on players and thus product place more efficiently.

This is the report on a study made to find a correlation between the Johari window and the games that the possessor of given Johari window enjoys to play. A Johari window is a graph that shows an individual?s ability to receive and give feedback. One obvious correlation was found between individuals enjoying role playing games and their possessing Johari windows showing a good ability to give feedback. The reasoning behind this is that the ability to give feedback is based on the capability to express oneself to the external environment, and that one would need to be comfortable with expressing oneself to an external environment in order to enjoy interacting with the narrative that takes place within the role playing genre..

Fantasy War Game är en spelmotor gjort i PHP med inslag av Java. Själva striden är uppbyggd med objektorienterad programmeringsmetodik. Spelet är ett textbaserat rollspel i high fantasy-miljö. Sidan är ett interaktivt konfliktspel där spelarna kan utveckla sitt gäng, slåss mot monster eller andra spelare..

This study aims to research how upper secondary pupils interact while playing online games, how the English language is used within each game and what attitudes these pupils have towards language in school and online gaming respectively. Online gaming sessions have been recorded to analyze the methods of interaction by which people communicate with each other while playing online games. Furthermore, the text-based communication occuring in online gaming is analyzed on a lexical level to find words not defined in legitimate English dictionaries. Interviews with students have been conducted to understand the attitudes held by students towards language in school and online games..

A game designer has to consider several aspects when he or she is designing a game. One of those aspects is the perceived freedom in the game by the player. There exist several methods to facilitate this perceived freedom in the design phase of the game. This thesis presents, in a qualitative methodology, a number of these methods a game designer might utilize to give the player a heightened sense of freedom for an improved gaming experience. Included herein are such elements as indirect control, linearity, storytelling and level design..

This thesis deals with the problems you face as a new game developer for the mobile platform Android when developing a 3D game and presents solutions to these problems. It also explores which optimizations should be made to increase performance and how well suited for game development the Android platform is. A simple 3D game for version 2.2 of Android was developed to examine this. The conclusion was that a good game structure for Android separates logic and rendering by running these separately in different threads. Solutions to rendering and updating of game logic were presented and optimizations were implemented for performance, although fewer optimizations were needed than was anticipated.

The goal with this project was to achieve real-time synchronized video playback over the Internet, or in other words, that multiple clients play the same part of a video at the same time.The result shows how it is possible to build such a protocol, that gives a user experience that the video is synchronized between computers when playing a locally stored file, stream or video delivered using progressive download. This was achieved by designing, then role playing to find weaknesses, and at last implementing the protocols to see how they work in practice. By using such a protocol, it is possible to navigate and discuss around a video in for example a telephone conference, and be sure that everybody is looking on the same picture..

This essay covers computer gaming as seen from a perspective of gender theory. The main purpose of the essay is to examine women?s relationship to computer games, and more specifically women?s attitudes to the games they play. The theoretical basis for this essay is sprung from a hermeneutic perspective. The empirical basis for analysis consists of two in depth interviews and game analysis of the two computer games Counter Strike and Final Fantasy XI.

Computer games is a growing market with over millions of players that are playing and/or enjoying the play of games on a daily basis. The nerdy gamers that once were, are now becoming professional athletes in the virtual world called eSport. We have identified a lack of studies in this area which implies that there is little data of what it is. In this paper we have focused on the phenomena that is eSport and more closely on the game series Starcraft made by Blizzard Entertainment. Our focus lies in the game series Starcraft and eSport organisations mainly outside South Korea.