Towards Communicative, Collaborative and Constructive Multi-Player Games


Manninen Tony
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

This paper provides a description and applicable models of the concept of interaction in the context of multi-player games. The description is not restricted to the level of current implementations. More concrete takeaway consists of the conceptual interaction model and the hierarchical interaction model, which can be used as basic guidelines for richer interaction design. Furthermore, the empirical part describes several cases providing deeper insight into the area of combining games and academic research.

 

Understanding Empathy in Children through 3D Character Design


Chan Kah Easterly Douglas Thomassen Aukje
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Health, particularly diet and everyday nutrition, as the ultimate causal factor in life is an important aspect of every child’s education. Meanwhile, computer generated (CG) 3- dimensional (3-D) graphics is a medium often used by entertainment and advertising. Educational intervention to help children make appropriate dietary choices can be designed by employing similar methods used by entertainment and advertising, such as 3-D characters aimed at children. The question that this research asked is: can creating an empathic bond between 3-D characters and children communicate a healthy nutrition message effectively? This thesis is based on qualitative research founded on the constructionist theory that focuses on exploring the perspective of children via focus groups. Educational designs based on familiar computer-generated graphics will help equip children to deal with nutritional and dietary choices, ultimately initiating behavioural change as their relationship with food matures earlier. Empathy on the children’s and adult’s sides of the healthy nutrition conversation is important to establish this relationship in children’s nutritional decisions. The main challenge for nutrition education is not in shortterm diversions, but long-term changes in behavioural responses in media literacy. A constructionist approach of helping children work through advertising by improving their media vocabulary would be a more sustainable approach to enhancing their ability to decode advertising rhetoric and in turn forming their own informed opinion and responses. Industry referenced educational content intent on healthy lifestyles can balance the prevalent advertising messages leading to a more balanced overall media that children are exposed to.

 

How Videogames Express Ideas


Weise Matthew
2003 DiGRA '03 - Proceedings of the 2003 DiGRA International Conference: Level Up

What are the exact aspects of the videogame medium, the precise features or combinations of features that lend themselves to expressing ideas and meaning? To chart this out, I begin with an American legal case that serves as a foundation for the basic issues involved and then move on to show how this relates to some of the broader attitudes the world of videogame discourse. Based on this, I break down the expressive strategies of videogames into three aspects—non-playable sequences, rule-based systems, and the relationship between the two—which I then illustrate with examples proving that videogames can indeed be an expressive medium.

 

Women and Productivity [Abstracts]


Wirman Hanna Chess Shira Albrechtslund Anne-Mette Enevold Jessica
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

The following abstracts: Playing, Dashing, and Working: Simulated Productive Play in the Dash games Shira Chess Gender Stories: Identity Construction in an Online Gaming Community Anne-Mette Albrechtslund: Playing Productive: Pragmatic Uses of Gaming Jessica Enevold The Silent Work of The Sims 2 Bedroom(s) Hanna Wirman