http://www.hindawi.com The latest articles from Hindawi Publishing Corporation © 2013 , Hindawi Publishing Corporation . All rights reserved. Thu, 04 Apr 2013 09:05:49 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2013/851287/ Petri nets are graphical and mathematical tool for modeling, analyzing, and designing discrete event applicable to many systems. They can be applied to game design too, especially to design serous game. This paper describes an alternative approach to the modeling of serious game systems and classification of motivation behavior with Petri nets. To assess the motivation level of player ability, this research aims at Motivation Behavior Game (MBG). MBG improves this motivation concept to monitor how players interact with the game. This modeling employs Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) for optimizing the motivation behavior input classification of the player. MBG may provide information when a player needs help or when he wants a formidable challenge. The game will provide the appropriate tasks according to players’ ability. MBG will help balance the emotions of players, so players do not get bored and frustrated. Players have a high interest to finish the game if the players are emotionally stable. Interest of the players strongly supports the procedural learning in a serious game. Moh. Aries Syufagi, Mochamad Hariadi, and Mauridhi Hery Purnomo Copyright © 2013 Moh. Aries Syufagi et al. All rights reserved. Sun, 17 Mar 2013 16:12:45 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2013/578269/ We present the Brigade renderer: an efficient system that uses the path tracing algorithm to produce images for real-time games. We describe the architecture of the Brigade renderer, and provide implementation details. We describe two games that have been created using Brigade. Jacco Bikker and Jeroen van Schijndel Copyright © 2013 Jacco Bikker and Jeroen van Schijndel. All rights reserved. Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:47:12 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2013/603604/ Dance Dance Revolution is a pioneering exergame which has attracted considerable interest for its potential to promote regular exercise and its associated health benefits. The advent of a range of different consumer body motion tracking video game console peripherals raises the question whether their different technological affordances (i.e., variations in the type and number of body limbs that they can track) influence the user experience while playing dance-based exergames both in terms of the level of physical exertion and the nature of the play experience. To investigate these issues a group of subjects performed a total of six comparable dance routines selected from commercial dance-based exergames (two routines from each game) on three different consoles. The subjects’ level of physical exertion was assessed by measuring oxygen consumption and heart rate. They also reported their perceived level of exertion, difficulty, and enjoyment ratings after completing each dance routine. No differences were found in the physiological measures of exertion between the peripherals/consoles. However, there were significant variations in the difficulty and enjoyment ratings between peripherals. The design implications of these results are discussed including the tension between helping to guide and coordinate player movement versus offering greater movement flexibility. Alasdair G. Thin, Craig Brown, and Paul Meenan Copyright © 2013 Alasdair G. Thin et al. All rights reserved. Mon, 18 Feb 2013 07:22:24 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2013/170914/ The objective of this study is to focus on the automatic generation of game artificial intelligence (AI) controllers for Ms. Pac-Man agent by using artificial neural network (ANN) and multiobjective artificial evolution. The Pareto Archived Evolution Strategy (PAES) is used to generate a Pareto optimal set of ANNs that optimize the conflicting objectives of maximizing Ms. Pac-Man scores (screen-capture mode) and minimizing neural network complexity. This proposed algorithm is called Pareto Archived Evolution Strategy Neural Network or PAESNet. Three different architectures of PAESNet were investigated, namely, PAESNet with fixed number of hidden neurons (PAESNet_F), PAESNet with varied number of hidden neurons (PAESNet_V), and the PAESNet with multiobjective techniques (PAESNet_M). A comparison between the single- versus multiobjective optimization is conducted in both training and testing processes. In general, therefore, it seems that PAESNet_F yielded better results in training phase. But the PAESNet_M successfully reduces the runtime operation and complexity of ANN by minimizing the number of hidden neurons needed in hidden layer and also it provides better generalization capability for controlling the game agent in a nondeterministic and dynamic environment. Tse Guan Tan, Jason Teo, and Kim On Chin Copyright © 2013 Tse Guan Tan et al. All rights reserved. Sun, 30 Dec 2012 15:45:23 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/640725/ The main motivational elements of the social network sites and the social network games will be shown according to studies already existent in the literature, highlighting the elements which motivate the players the most to play social Match 3-type games. Seven games have been analyzed: Diamond Dash, Collapse!Blast, Mystic Ice Blast, Bricks Breaking, Plock, Gem Clix, and Blast!. The results showed that asynchronous time, activities publishing, rewarding system, competition, and social status are the elements which motivate and stimulate the most the players to play. Marcel Toshio Omori and Alan Salvany Felinto Copyright © 2012 Marcel Toshio Omori and Alan Salvany Felinto. All rights reserved. Sat, 29 Dec 2012 13:57:25 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/103710/ This study aims at reviewing the published scientific literature on the topics of a game development-based learning (GDBL) method using game development frameworks (GDFs) with the perspective of (a) summarizing a guideline for using GDBL in a curriculum, (b) identifying relevant features of GDFs, and (c) presenting a synthesis of impact factors with empirical evidence on the educational effectiveness of the GDBL method. After systematically going through the available literature on the topic, 34 relevant articles were selected for the final study. We analyzed the articles from three perspectives: (1) pedagogical context and teaching process, (2) selection of GDFs, and (3) evaluation of the GDBL method. The findings from the 34 articles suggest that GDFs have many potential benefits as an aid to teach computer science, software engineering, art design, and other fields and that such GDFs combined with the motivation from games can improve the students’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors in contrast to the traditional classroom teaching. Furthermore, based on the results of the literature review, we extract a guideline of how to apply the GDBL method in education. The empirical evidence of current findings gives a positive overall picture and can provide a useful reference to educators, practitioners, and researchers in the area of game-based learning. Bian Wu and Alf Inge Wang Copyright © 2012 Bian Wu and Alf Inge Wang. All rights reserved. Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:58:26 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/969785/ Supporting collaborative activities among the online players are one of the major challenges in the area of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG), since they increase the richness of gaming experience and create more engaged communities. To this direction, our study has focused on the provision of services supporting and enhancing the players' in-game community and collaboration activities. We have designed and implemented innovative tools exploiting a game adaptation technology, namely, the In-game Graphical Insertion Technology (IGIT), which permits the addition of web-based applications without any need from the game developers to modify the game at all, nor from the game players to change their game installation. The developed tools follow a design adapted to the MMOG players' needs and are based on the latest advances on Web 2.0 technology. Their provision is performed through the core element of our system, which is the so-called Community Network Game (CNG) Server. One of the important features provided by the implemented system's underlying framework is the utilization of enhanced Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology for the distribution of user-generated live video streams. In this paper, we focus on the architecture of the CNG Server as well as on the design and implementation of the online community and collaboration tools. George Adam, Christos Bouras, Vaggelis Kapoulas, and Andreas Papazois Copyright © 2012 George Adam et al. All rights reserved. Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:30:12 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/494232/ This paper describes an empirical study where the focus was on discovering differences and similarities in students working on development of social applications versus students working on development of games using the same Android development platform. In 2010-2011, students attending the software architecture course at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) could choose between four types of projects. Independently of the chosen type of project, all students had to go through the same phases, produce the same documents based on the same templates, and follow exactly the same process. This study focuses on one of projects—Android project, to see how much the application domain affects the course project independently of the chosen technology. Our results revealed some positive effects for the students doing game development compared to social application development to learn software architecture, like motivated to work with games, a better focus on quality attributes such as modifiability and testability during the development, production of software architectures of higher complexity, and more productive coding working for the project. However, we did not find significant differences in awarded grade between students choosing the two different domains. Bian Wu and Alf Inge Wang Copyright © 2012 Bian Wu and Alf Inge Wang. All rights reserved. Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:37:57 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/929814/ More and more games today try to adjust their gameplay to fit individual players; however, little work has been carried out in the same direction towards game presenter characters. Game commentary should take into account players' personalities along with game progress in order to achieve social player-adapted comment delivery that boosts the overall gameplay, engages the players, and stimulates the audience. In our work, we discuss a framework for implementing artificial game presenter characters that are based on game actions and players' social profiles in order to deliver knowledgeable, socially oriented comments. Moreover, the presented framework supports emotional facial expressions for the presenters, allowing them to convey their emotions and thus be more expressive than the majority of the commentary systems today. We prove our concept by developing a presenter character for multiplayer tabletop board games which we further put under usability evaluation with 9 players. The results showed that game sessions with presenter characters are preferred over the plain version of the game and that the majority of the players enjoy personalized social-oriented comments expressed via multimedia and emotions. Effie Karouzaki and Anthony Savidis Copyright © 2012 Effie Karouzaki and Anthony Savidis. All rights reserved. Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:24:01 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/625476/ Dynamic balancing of game difficulty can help cater for different levels of ability in players. However, performance in some game tasks depends on not only the player's ability but also their desire to take risk. Taking or avoiding risk can offer players its own reward in a game situation. Furthermore, a game designer may want to adjust the mechanics differently for a risky, high ability player, as opposed to a risky, low ability player. In this work, we describe a novel modelling technique known as particle filtering which can be used to model various levels of player ability while also considering the player's risk profile. We demonstrate this technique by developing a game challenge where players are required to make a decision between a number of possible alternatives where only a single alternative is correct. Risky players respond faster but with more likelihood of failure. Cautious players wait longer for more evidence, increasing their likelihood of success, but at the expense of game time. By gathering empirical data for the player's response time and accuracy, we develop particle filter models. These models can then be used in real-time to categorise players into different ability and risk-taking levels. Guy Hawkins, Keith Nesbitt, and Scott Brown Copyright © 2012 Guy Hawkins et al. All rights reserved. Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:01:35 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/724917/ Flow (FCF) theory has received considerable attention in recent decades. In addition to flow, FCF theory proposed three influential factors, that is, boredom, frustration, and apathy. While these factors have received relatively less attention than flow, Internet applications have grown exponentially, warranting a closer reexamination of the applicability of the FCF theory. Thus, this study tested the theory that high/low levels of skill and challenge lead to four channels of flow. The study sample included 253 online gamers who provided valid responses to an online survey. Analytical results support the FCF theory, although a few exceptions were noted. First, skill was insignificantly related to apathy, possibly because low-skill users can realize significant achievements to compensate for their apathy. Moreover, in contrast with the FCF theory, challenge was positively related to boredom, revealing that gamers become bored with difficult yet repetitive challenges. Two important findings suggest new directions for FCF theory. Ching-I Teng and Han-Chung Huang Copyright © 2012 Ching-I Teng and Han-Chung Huang. All rights reserved. Mon, 04 Jun 2012 10:12:10 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/178578/ Cheating in chess can take many forms and has existed almost as long as the game itself. The advent of computers has introduced a new form of cheating into the game. Thanks to the computational power of modern-day computers, a player can use a program to calculate thousands of moves for him or her, and determine the best possible scenario for each move and countermove. These programs are often referred to as “bots,” and can even play the game without any user interaction. In this paper, we describe a methodology aimed at preventing bots from participating in online chess games. The proposed approach is based on the integration of a CAPTCHA protocol into a game scenario, and the subsequent inability of bots to accurately track the game states. This is achieved by rotating the images of the individual chess pieces and adjusting their resolution in an attempt to render them unreadable by a bot. Feedback from users during testing shows that there is minimal impact on their ability to play the game. Players rated the difficulty of reading the pieces on a scale of one to ten, with an average rank of 6.5. However, the average number of moves to adjust to the distorted pieces was only 3.75. This tells us that, although it is difficult to read the pieces at first, it is easy to adjust quickly to the new image. Ryan McDaniel and Roman V. Yampolskiy Copyright © 2012 Ryan McDaniel and Roman V. Yampolskiy. All rights reserved. Tue, 15 May 2012 19:36:04 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/596953/ Example-based mesh deformation techniques produce natural and realistic shapes by learning the space of deformations from examples. However, skeleton-based methods cannot manipulate a global mesh structure naturally, whereas the mesh-based approaches based on a translational control do not allow the user to edit a local mesh structure intuitively. This paper presents an example-driven mesh editing framework that achieves both global and local pose manipulations. The proposed system is built with a surface deformation method based on a two-step linear optimization technique and achieves direct manipulations of a model surface using translational and rotational controls. With the translational control, the user can create a model in natural poses easily. The rotational control can adjust the local pose intuitively by bending and twisting. We encode example deformations with a rotation-invariant mesh representation which handles large rotations in examples. To incorporate example deformations, we infer a pose from the handle translations/rotations and perform pose space interpolation, thereby avoiding involved nonlinear optimization. With the two-step linear approach combined with the proposed multiresolution deformation method, we can edit models at interactive rates without losing important deformation effects such as muscle bulging. Yusuke Yoshiyasu and Nobutoshi Yamazaki Copyright © 2012 Yusuke Yoshiyasu and Nobutoshi Yamazaki. All rights reserved. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:01:23 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/612535/ An audiovisual interface equipped with a projector, an inclina-tion sensor, and a distance sensor for zoom control has been developed that enables a user to selectively view and listen to specific performers in a video-taped group performance. Dubbed Concert Viewing Headphones, it has both image and sound processing functions. The image processing extracts the portion of the image indicated by the user and projects it free of distortion on the front and side walls. The sound processing creates imaginary microphones for those performers without one so that the user can hear the sound from any performer. Testing using images and sounds captured using a fisheye-lens camera and 37 lavalier microphones showed that sound locali-zation was fastest when an inverse square function was used for the sound mixing and that the zoom function was useful for locating the desired sound performance. Kazuya Atsuta, Masatoshi Hamanaka, and SeungHee Lee Copyright © 2011 Kazuya Atsuta et al. All rights reserved. Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:33:44 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/706893/ With the rapid growth of digital photography, sharing of photos with friends and family has become very popular. When people share their photos, they usually organize them into albums according to events or places. To tell the story of some important events in one’s life, it is desirable to have an efficient summarization tool which can help people to receive a quick overview of an album containing large number of photos. In this paper, we present and analyze an approach for photo album summarization through a novel social game “Epitome” as a Facebook application. This social game can collect research data, and, at the same time, it provides a collage or a cover photo of the user’s photo album, while the user enjoys playing the game. The proof of concept of the proposed method is demonstrated through a set of experiments on several photo albums. As a benchmark comparison to this game, we perform automatic visual analysis considering several state-of-the-art features. We also evaluate the usability of the game by making use of a questionnaire on several subjects who played the “Epitome” game. Furthermore, we address privacy issues concerning shared photos in Facebook applications. Peter Vajda, Ivan Ivanov, Jong-Seok Lee, and Touradj Ebrahimi Copyright © 2011 Peter Vajda et al. All rights reserved. Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:11:37 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/819746/ Generating routes for entities in virtual environments, such as simulated vehicles or synthetic human characters, is a long-standing problem, and route planning algorithms have been developed and studied for some time. Existing route planning algorithms, including the widely used A* algorithm, are generally intended to achieve optimality in some metric, such as minimum length or minimum time. Comparatively little attention has been given to route realism, defined as the similarity of the algorithm-generated route to the route followed by real humans in the same terrain with the same constraints and goals. Commercial game engines have seen increasing use as a context for research. To study route realism in a game engine, two developments were needed: a quantitative metric for measuring route realism and a game engine able to capture route data needed to compute the realism metric. Enhancements for recording route data for both synthetic characters and human players were implemented within the Unreal Tournament 2004 game engine. A methodology for assessing the realism of routes and other behaviors using a quantitative metric was developed. The enhanced Unreal Tournament 2004 game engine and the realism assessment methodology were tested by capturing data required to calculate a metric of route realism. Gregg T. Hanold and Mikel D. Petty Copyright © 2011 Gregg T. Hanold and Mikel D. Petty. All rights reserved. Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:20:36 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/282345/ A main reason to play computer games is the pleasure of being immersed in a mediated world. Spatial presence and flow are considered key concepts to explain such immersive experiences. However, little attention has been paid to the connection between the two concepts. Thus, we empirically examined the relationship between presence and flow in the context of a computer role-playing game (𝑁=70), a racing game (𝑁=120), and a jump and run game (𝑁=72). In all three studies, factor analysis revealed that presence and flow are distinct constructs, which do hardly share common variance. We conclude that presence refers to the sensation of being there in the mediated world, whereas flow rather refers to the sensation of being involved in the gaming action. Further analyses showed that flow and presence depend on motivation and immersive tendency. In addition, flow and presence enhanced performance as well as enjoyment. David Weibel and Bartholomäus Wissmath Copyright © 2011 David Weibel and Bartholomäus Wissmath. All rights reserved. Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:02:48 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/857371/ The process of producing new creative videos by editing, combining, and organizing pre-existing material (e.g., video shots) is a popular phenomenon in the current web scenario. Known as remix or video remix, the produced video may have new and different meanings with respect to the source material. Unfortunately, when managing audiovisual objects, the technological aspect can be a burden for many creative users. Motivated by the large success of the gaming market, we propose a novel game and an architecture to make the remix process a pleasant and stimulating gaming experience. MovieRemix allows people to act like a movie director, but instead of dealing with cast and cameras, the player has to create a remixed video starting from a given screenplay and from video shots retrieved from the provided catalog. MovieRemix is not a simple video editing tool nor is a simple game: it is a challenging environment that stimulates creativity. To temp to play the game, players can access different levels of screenplay (original, outline, derived) and can also challenge other players. Computational and storage issues are kept at the server side, whereas the client device just needs to have the capability of playing streaming videos. Nicola Dusi, Maria Federico, and Marco Furini Copyright © 2011 Nicola Dusi et al. All rights reserved. Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:36:45 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/164949/ We propose a technique to enhance emotional expressiveness in games and animations. Artists have used colors and painting techniques to convey emotions in their paintings for many years. Moreover, researchers have found that colors and line properties affect users' emotions. We propose using painterly rendering for character sequences in games and animations with a knowledge-based approach. This technique is especially useful for parametric facial sequences. We introduce two parametric authoring tools for animation and painterly rendering and a method to integrate them into a knowledge-based painterly rendering system. Furthermore, we present the results of a preliminary study on using this technique for facial expressions in still images. The results of the study show the effect of different color palettes on the intensity perceived for an emotion by users. The proposed technique can provide the animator with a depiction tool to enhance the emotional content of a character sequence in games and animations. Hasti Seifi, Steve DiPaola, and Ali Arya Copyright © 2011 Hasti Seifi et al. All rights reserved. Mon, 04 Jul 2011 08:51:48 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/920873/ This paper describes a case study of how a game project using the XNA Game Studio from Microsoft was implemented in a software architecture course. In this project, university students have to construct and design a type of software architecture, evaluate the architecture, implement an application based on the architecture, and test this implementation. In previous years, the domain of the software architecture project has been a robot controller for navigating a maze. Robot controller was chosen as the domain for the project, as there exist several papers and descriptions on reference architectures for managing mobile robots. This paper describes the changes we had to make to introduce an XNA game development project to the software architecture course, and our experiences from running a software architecture project focusing on game development and XNA. The experiences described in this paper are based on feedback from the course staff, the project reports of the students, and a mandatory course evaluation. The evaluation shows among other things that the majority of the students preferred the game project to the robot project, that XNA was considered to be suitable platform for a software architecture project, that the students found it useful to learn XNA and C#, and that some students were carried away when developing the game in the software architecture project. Alf Inge Wang and Bian Wu Copyright © 2011 Alf Inge Wang and Bian Wu. All rights reserved. Sun, 03 Jul 2011 09:07:59 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/834026/ The underlying goal of a competing agent in a discrete real-time strategy (RTS) game is to defeat an adversary. Strategic agents or participants must define an a priori plan to maneuver their resources in order to destroy the adversary and the adversary's resources as well as secure physical regions of the environment. This a priori plan can be generated by leveraging collected historical knowledge about the environment. This knowledge is then employed in the generation of a classification model for real-time decision-making in the RTS domain. The best way to generate a classification model for a complex problem domain depends on the characteristics of the solution space. An experimental method to determine solution space (search landscape) characteristics is through analysis of historical algorithm performance for solving the specific problem. We select a deterministic search technique and a stochastic search method for a priori classification model generation. These approaches are designed, implemented, and tested for a specific complex RTS game, Bos Wars. Their performance allows us to draw various conclusions about applying a competing agent in complex search landscapes associated with RTS games. Kurt Weissgerber, Gary B. Lamont, Brett J. Borghetti, and Gilbert L. Peterson Copyright © 2011 Kurt Weissgerber et al. All rights reserved. Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:40:41 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/570210/ Computer gaming habits have a tendency to evolve with technology, the best being ones that immerse both our imagination and intellect. Here, we describe a new game platform, an Augmented Reality Rubik's cube. The cube acts simultaneously as both the controller and the game board. Gameplay is controlled by the cube, and game assets are rendered on top of it. Shuffling and tilting operations on the cube are mapped to game interaction. We discuss the game design decisions involved in developing a game for this platform, as well as the technological challenges in implementing it. Ultimately, we describe two games and discuss the conclusions of an informal user study based on those games. Oriel Bergig, Eyal Soreq, Nate Hagbi, Kirill Pevzner, Nati Levi, Shoham Blau, Yulia Smelansky, and Jihad El-Sana Copyright © 2011 Oriel Bergig et al. All rights reserved. Sun, 22 May 2011 11:21:44 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/107160/ This paper proposes a novel agent personality representation model used to provide interagent adaptation in modern games, coined as the Tactical Agent Personality (TAP). The TAP represents the tactical footprints of a game agent using a weighted network of actions. Directly using the action probabilities to model an agent's personality, removes the time and effort required by experts to craft the model as well as eliminates the performance dependency on expert knowledge. The effectiveness, versatility, generality, scalability, and robustness claims of the TAP architecture and its variations are applied and evaluated across a variety of game scenarios, namely, First-person shooters (FPSs), real-time strategy (RTS) games, and role-playing games (RPG), where they are shown to exhibit plausible adaptive behavior. Chek Tien Tan and Ho-lun Cheng Copyright © 2011 Chek Tien Tan and Ho-lun Cheng. All rights reserved. Sun, 27 Mar 2011 15:01:29 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2011/495437/ As new and more powerful mobile devices arrive, such as smartphones, tablets and PDAs, so do new ways of interaction emerge for the users and developers to explore. These devices allow for the creation of never-before-seen applications, using the broad range of inputs and sensors these devices integrate (such as accelerometers, light sensors, electronic compasses, GPS sensor among others), that allow for more ubiquous and personalized experiences. This paper explores issues that arise during the development and design phases of such games, as well as posible solutions for them. Finally we present, a framework for the development of location-based games that is sensible to these issues. This framework was created and tested thanks to a proof-of-concept location-based game (Geo-Wars). João Tiago Pinheiro Neto Jacob and António Fernando Coelho Copyright © 2011 João Tiago Pinheiro Neto Jacob and António Fernando Coelho. All rights reserved. Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:13:58 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2010/897217/ The design and representation of time and space are important in any narrative form. Not surprisingly there is an extensive literature on specific considerations of space or time in game design. However, there is less attention to more systematic analyses that examine both of these key factors—including their dynamic interrelationship within game storytelling. This paper adapts critical frameworks of narrative space and narrative time drawn from other media and demonstrates their application in the understanding of game narratives. In order to do this we incorporate fundamental concepts from the field of game studies to build a game-specific framework for analyzing the design of narrative time and narrative space. The paper applies this framework against a case analysis in order to demonstrate its operation and utility. This process grounds the understanding of game narrative space and narrative time in broader traditions of narrative discourse and analysis. Huaxin Wei, Jim Bizzocchi, and Tom Calvert Copyright © 2010 Huaxin Wei et al. All rights reserved. Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:15:34 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2010/512563/ We report our developments on metaphor and affect sensing for several metaphorical language phenomena including affects as external entities metaphor, food metaphor, animal metaphor, size metaphor, and anger metaphor. The metaphor and affect sensing component has been embedded in a conversational intelligent agent interacting with human users under loose scenarios. Evaluation for the detection of several metaphorical language phenomena and affect is provided. Our paper contributes to the journal themes on believable virtual characters in real-time narrative environment, narrative in digital games and storytelling and educational gaming with social software. Li Zhang and John Barnden Copyright © 2010 Li Zhang and John Barnden. All rights reserved. Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:35:07 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2010/613931/ The nature of the relationship between immersion and gameplay experience is investigated, focusing primarily on the literature related to flow. In particular, this paper proposes that immersion and gameplay experience are conceptually different, but empirically positively related through mechanisms related to flow. Furthermore, this study examines gamers' characteristics to determine the influence between immersion and gameplay experiences. The study involves 48 observations in one game setting. Regression analyses including tests for moderation and simple slope analysis are used to reveal gamers' age, experience, and understanding of the game, which moderate the relationship between immersion and gameplay experience. The results suggest that immersion is more positive for gameplay experience when the gamer lacks experience and understanding of the game as well as when the gamer is relatively older. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed at length in the paper. Daniel Örtqvist and Mats Liljedahl Copyright © 2010 Daniel Örtqvist and Mats Liljedahl. All rights reserved. Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:29:12 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2010/624817/ A novel approach to generate house floor plans with semantic information is presented. The basis of this model is the squarified treemaps algorithm. Previously, this algorithm has been used to create graphical representations based on hierarchical information, such as, directory structures and organization structures. Adapted to floor plans generation, this model allows the creation of internal house structures with information about their features and functionalities. The main contributions are related to the robustness, flexibility, and simplicity of the proposed approach to create floor plans in real-time. Results show that different and realistic floor plans can be created by adjusting a few parameters. Fernando Marson and Soraia Raupp Musse Copyright © 2010 Fernando Marson and Soraia Raupp Musse. All rights reserved. Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:03:34 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2010/979235/ The next generation of Augmented Reality (AR) games will require real and virtual objects to coexist in motion in immersive game environments. This will require the illusion that real and virtual objects interact physically together in a plausible way. The Motion in Augmented Reality Games (MARG) engine described in this paper has been developed to allow these kinds of game environments. The paper describes the design and implementation of the MARG engine and presents two proof-of-concept AR games that have been developed using it. Evaluations of these games have been performed and are presented to show that the MARG engine takes an important step in developing the next generation of motion-rich AR games. Brian Mac Namee, David Beaney, and Qingqing Dong Copyright © 2010 Brian Mac Namee et al. All rights reserved. Tue, 06 Jul 2010 12:03:08 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2010/578784/ The popularity and usage of digital games has increased in recent years, bringing further attention to their design. Some digital games require a significant use of higher order thought processes, such as problem solving and reflective and analytical thinking. Through the use of appropriate and interactive representations, these thought processes could be supported. A visualization of the game's internal structure is an example of this. However, it is unknown whether including these extra representations will have a negative effect on gameplay. To investigate this issue, a digital maze-like game was designed with its underlying structure represented as a decision tree. A qualitative, exploratory study with children was performed to examine whether the tree supported their thought processes and what effects, if any, the tree had on gameplay. This paper reports the findings of this research and discusses the implications for the design of games in general. Robert Haworth, Sousan Sheida Tagh Bostani, and Kamran Sedig Copyright © 2010 Robert Haworth et al. All rights reserved.