According to the Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey (ACS), women make up 48% of the total workforce of the United States, compared to 24% of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) based workforce. The United States Department of Commerce (2011b) reports that STEM occupations are projected to grow by 17% from 2008 to 2018, nearly twice as much as non-STEM occupations (9.8%). Even as more women pursue higher education degrees and are steadily increasing their numbers in the workforce, the number of women in STEM occupations has stayed at 24%. Furthermore, based on all the women who graduate with a STEM degree, 26% go on to work in a STEM occupation, compared to 40% of men. (2011a).
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Popularity: 2% [?]

Bellow is a quick presentation which demonstrates the various features of Chat Mapper for creating non-linear dialog in games through the use of a simple branching user interface and basic LUA scripting. I will be experimenting with Chat Mapper and integrating it with Unity3d Game Engine using iSpeech and iDirect in the very near future, so stay tuned!

Popularity: 2% [?]

I am currently taking on the dual task of researching “game feel” for a Game Modding class at NYU’s Game Center, and teaching myself Unity3d. As part of my course work, we have been asked to read “Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation”.

In this book, the author talks about 3 specific areas that effect the “feel” of a game. He describes feel as being, “Real-time control of virtual objects in a simulated space, with interactions emphasized by polish”.

Real-Time Control
This is comprised of a interactivity between at least tow participants. Each participant actively communicates with each other though a combination of input and output feedback. Bellow, Swink describes this process as it pertains to computer games and their participants.

The user has some intent, which is expressed to the computer in the form of the user’s input. The computer reconciles this input with its own internal model and outputs the results. The user then perceives the changes, thinks about how they compare to the original intent, and formulates a new action, which is expressed to the computer through another input.

Simulated Spaces
These are are comprised of physical interaction that take place in a virtual space. Through the use of level design, collision detection, and physics, the game designer is able to give meaning to the games movement. The surrounding visuals offer a frame of reference for the player to get the impression of speed. “Using the avatar as a channel for expression and perception, we experience game worlds at the tactile, physical level of the world around us.”

Polish
Polish is comprised of all this tiny details that “artificially enhance” a players interaction without changing any of the games core functionality. Examples of these could be dust particles on ground, sound effects, camera shakes. These effects, add the games overall appeal and allow for the game to seem more “real”.
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Popularity: 3% [?]

Introduction

Virtual Worlds

A virtual world is described as “a computer- generated display that allows or compels the user (or users) to have a sense of being present in an environment other than the one they are actually in, and to interact with that environment” (Schroeder, 1996, pg. 25). This allows for the ‘user’ to experience a immersive sense of ‘being there’ (Taylor, 2002) and having ability to interact with each other as well as with computer-controlled non-player characters (NPCs) by assuming different personae, better known as their ‘avatar’.

Avatars

An avatar is a self-imposed representation of a participant interacting within a virtual environment, and is far more then an object manipulated by a participant. It is a method in which users could embody themselves into these virtual environments (Taylor, 2002). As T.L Taylor (2002) points out, avatars are

“… the material out of which relationships and interactions are embodied: much as in offline life with its corporeal bodies, digital bodies are used in a variety of ways – to greet, to play, to signal group affiliation, to convey opinions or feelings, and to create closeness.”

This graphical representation combined with actions, communicational and social affordances brought about through a virtual world, help in developing a sense of being ‘there’ from the player (Taylor, 2002). This immersion results in avatar behaviors that mimic the social constructs of ‘real life’. An example of this is shown by how participants feel a sense of ‘personal space’ from within a virtual environment. Similar to ‘real life’, physical proximity between avatars can be used to signal friendship and aggression towards another player (Taylor, 2002).

In this paper, we will discuss how we could influence emotional engagement in children by understanding their needs, developmental abilities and experiential goals, while increasing their sense of presence in the system. These influences could then be used as a guideline for both aesthetic and mechanical design choices that may have an impact on a child’s virtual world experience.

Growth of Children Participating in Virtual Worlds

Computers have become much more accessible for children around the world, with 71% of households in developing countries owning a computer and 65.6% having internet access (International Telecommunications Union, 2010). With the increase of working households, many parents use media as “a chance to get their chores done, quiet their kids down, or just have some ‘me’ time, knowing that their kids are ‘safe’ — not playing outside, and less likely to be making trouble around the house” (Rideout & Hamel, 2006, p. 32). As a result, the popularity of virtual world registered accounts has dramatically increased for this demographic. KZero reports (2011) that the 6-10 year old demographic has grown from 77 million, to 272 million in only 2 years.

Before being able to successfully design a virtual world for this audience it is important to understand the developmental and social differences amongst the group, when compared to adults. Bellow is a brief overview of relevant literature depicting aspects of developmental and social milestones that could influence the methods in which children interacts with virtual worlds.
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Popularity: 10% [?]

Description
If you are introducing new content to students with low-prior knowledge, and the subject matter is comprised of complex vocabulary (ie. introductory science courses), you may want to provide them with advance material coupled with assessment prior to class time. Asides from the motivational aspects of assessments (Connor-Greene, 2000), the results could help in guiding your in-class discussion, and identifying any misconceptions which could be quickly rectified.

Advance material could range from a variety of mediums, such as videos, multimedia, simulations and printed material. Since the students have low-prior knowledge, you should design the learning material with consideration for cognitive load (Sweller, 1994) and the various multimedia learning design principles presented by Richard Mayer (2005) should be taken into consideration.

Pre-class assessments allow you to get a baseline for a student’s understanding of the content prior to class time. Similar to the pre-class material, assessment could take a variety of forms, such a multiple choice questions, matching activities and essays. You should select your assessment type based on it’s affordance towards the content and any logistical obstacle, such as time

Theoretical Background
Low-prior knowledge students are presented with a challenge when faced with complex vocabulary for subject matters. Furthermore, many of the terms in these subjects, such as math and science, consist of low-frequency words that do not appear outside of the context of the subject. This lack of exposure makes it difficult to “internalize word meanings and develop word ownership” (Harmon, 2005 pg. 263).

According to schema theory (Driscoll, 2005), prior knowledge plays a crucial role in effecting what a learner will take away when new knowledge is introduced. Looking through a constructivist lens, Bruner (1977) suggests that learning experience should not only “take us somewhere”, but it should allow the learner to build future knowledge easier. He saw learning as a “continual broadening and deepening of knowledge in-terms of basic and general ideas” (Bruner, 1997 pg. 17). In the context of an introductory classroom, allowing low-prior knowledge student access to key concepts and vocabulary prior to a lecture could enable them to create the foundation for interrelationships and elaborations on their schemata to occur during class. Through the meaningful use and repetition of vocabulary, which should occur in both the pre-class material and the in-class lecture or activity, the student would have the opportunity to practice with the content, eventually leading to automaticity (Palmeri, 1999).

Assessment of pre-class material serves multiple purposes. According to student self-reports, when in a course with predictable testing intervals, students are prone to procrastinate, and wait till the last minute (Connor-Greene, 2000). This could be interpreted as students being more motivated by test dates then by their everyday learning tasks. Integrating assessments in the pre-class material allows for a level of assurance that students will be prepared to actively engage in class discussions.

Assessments also give the instructor a glimpse at the student grasp of the concept. Either objective multiple choice questions or subjective essays could be created to emphasize the understanding of broad principles of the subject matter (Bruner, 1977). Understanding where student stands on content knowledge, allows an instructor to identify any issues, and make any actively make adjustments for class-time discussion.

Limitation
A limitation of pre-training is that an instructor would need the ability to assess how well the content was learned by the student, and if there are any misconceptions that need to be addressed during class time. There have been various approaches to incorporating assessments in the beginning of classes (Kilonsky, 2001; Conner-Greene, 2000), but the logistical issues make it difficult to accomplish due to time constraints. Instead, digitally embedding the assessments into the multimedia learning material, and making those results accessible to the instructor, makes for a more seamless experience for both instructor and student (Guertin, 2007).
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Bellow is a quick 2 minute video that offers a few tips for creating better presentations. Hope it’s helpful.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Based on Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games

One of the most difficult tasks that most novice game designers are faced with is patience. The excitement of developing a game, and the eagerness to make a great product sometimes backfires when the creative process is overlooked. This also results in more serious issues down the road, when user research uncovers problems in the game’s core mechanics that are difficult to solve once they have gone deep into production. Many of these issues could have been resolved by creating a prototype of the interaction, and use that as a testing environment to experiment with a game’s fundamental mechanics.

Why is a prototype important?

A written explanation of how a game works, such as a design document, works well in may aspects. However, creating a tangible working model of your idea takes away some of the abstraction in the document. A prototype’s role is to help you iron out your ideas, and test what work and what doesn’t.
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Popularity: 12% [?]

based on Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience (Ch. 9 )

Feature Design: Listening to Metacritics

Metacritics is a site that rates games and has been used as an industry standard benchmark by many development studios.This type of data helps to run relational analysis to find elements that either help or hinder success for games. It is important to note that this analysis technique should be pursued with caution and should only be used as a guideline not a standard. Taking these scores and analysis too literal could cause your design to lose some of it’s novelty and uniqueness and not being undifferentiated from the the competition, which is the point of the analysis.

Some examples of positive similarities are

1. Large in scope with 20+ hours of content
2. Lots of player choice activities
3. Highly replayable
4. Advance audio/visuals
5. Responsive

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Popularity: 12% [?]

based on Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience (Ch. 8 )

These notes are from an interview of Dr. Eric Shaffer, CEO of Human Factors International, by Noah Shaffer, and can be found in Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience.

In this interview Dr. Eric Shaffer speak on how flexibility is important to game designers to craft things like story lines and challenge, however there needs to be a level of standardization when it comes to usability. He states, “players shouldn’t have to get creative in trying to figure out which button the designer decided to put the FIRE button in this level of the game…” (Isbister, 2008, Chapter 8, para. 2).

According to Dr. Eric Shaffer, the main area that require some sort of standard is the shell of the game. The shell includes all user interface elements like menus, head up display (HUD), and the controller. A nicely designed shell should disappear into the background. By disappearing he means that the player could feel so confident that he knows where to find the relevant information in the HUD, that less cognitive attention needs to be spent on it when it is not applicable to their current interaction.
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Popularity: 10% [?]

based on Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience (Ch. 7)

Expert evaluations, unlike heuristic evaluation require an experience evaluator. Typically these evaluations are administered by a group of 2-3 evaluators, who bring their individual points of view into the evaluation to uncover the as many user experience issues as possible. Issues could range from user interface problems, game play issues, or specific area concerning the platform (ex. mobile phones).

Evaluations, like quality assurance, should be tightly integrated into an iterative development process. This process should be started as early as possible via design document or paper prototyping. These techniques could expose some obvious issues regarding the over all game mechanics, and user interface that could be handled before any code is written.
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Popularity: 12% [?]