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

Tom Calvert

Time and Space in Digital Game Storytelling

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

John Barnden

Affect and Metaphor Sensing in Virtual Drama

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 &#xD6;rtqvist

Mats Liljedahl

Immersion and Gameplay Experience: A Contingency Framework

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

Soraia Raupp Musse

Automatic Real-Time Generation of Floor Plans Based on Squarified Treemaps Algorithm

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

Qingqing Dong

Motion in Augmented Reality Games: An Engine for Creating Plausible Physical Interactions in Augmented Reality Games

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

Kamran Sedig

Visualizing Decision Trees in Games to Support Children's Analytic Reasoning: Any Negative Effects on Gameplay?

Military training instructors increasingly often employ computer games to train soldiers in all sorts of skills and tactics. One of the difficulties instructors face when using games as a training tool is the creation of suitable content, including scenarios, entities, and corresponding terrain models. Terrain plays a key role in many military training games, as for example, in our case game Tactical Air Defense. However, current manual terrain editors are both too complex and too time-consuming to be useful for instructors; automatic terrain generation methods show a lot of potential, but still lack user control and intuitive editing capabilities. We present a novel way for instructors to model terrain for their training games: instead of constructing a terrain model using complex modeling tools, instructors can declare the required properties of their terrain using an advanced sketching interface. Our framework integrates terrain generation methods and manages dependencies between terrain features in order to automatically create a complete 3D terrain model that matches the sketch. With our framework, instructors can easily design a large variety of terrain models that meet their training requirements.

Ruben M. Smelik

Tim Tutenel

Klaas Jan de Kraker

Rafael Bidarra

Declarative Terrain Modeling for Military Training Games

With games continuously and rapidly evolving to become more complex and sophisticated in their
nature and implementation. There is a fundamental need to sustain and deliver a similarly advanced, realistic, and engaging experience for the player. The implementation of &#x0201C;emergence&#x0201D;  within games as providing an effective means to sustain this engagement in conjunction with some form of action recognition mechanism for its support. More recently, games  have made much of the &#x0201C;adaptive&#x0201D; mechanisms that tailor the player experience during the game, but much of this appears to be implemented by merely making the game harder according to the success of the player. Some go further than this by incorporating adaptive AI that change agent tactics to suit the player&#39;s style of play. Whilst these are clearly advances in the approach to providing a player-centric experience to engage the player, the basis and transferability of these approaches is open to question. Here we propose a limited flavour of &#x0201C;emergence&#x0201D; which can be used to support an adaptive game mechanism and so present players with different gameplay experiences based on their actions within the game.

S. Kazmi

I. J. Palmer

Action Recognition for Support of Adaptive Gameplay: A Case Study of a First Person Shooter

About this journal

International Journal of Computer Games Technology publishes original research and review articles on both the research and development aspects of games technology covering the whole range of entertainment computing and interactive digital media.

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International Journal of Computer Games Technology maintains an Editorial Board of practicing researchers from around the world, to ensure manuscripts are handled by editors who are experts in the field of study.

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International Journal of Computer Games Technology - Table of contents 2010

International Journal of Computer Games Technology | Hindawi

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International Journal of Computer Games Technology publishes original research and review articles on both the research and development aspects of games technology covering the whole range of entertainment computing and interactive digital media.

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International Journal of Computer Games Technology

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International Journal of Computer Games Technology