/library/oar/handle/123456789/27308 2025-12-28T05:17:06Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/47142 Title: Searching for sentient design tools for game development Authors: Liapis, Antonios Abstract: Over the last twenty years, computer games have grown from a niche market targeting young adults to an important player in the global economy, engaging millions of people from different cultural backgrounds. As both the number and the size of computer games continue to rise, game companies handle increasing demand by expanding their cadre, compressing development cycles and reusing code or assets. To limit development time and reduce the cost of content creation, commercial game engines and procedural content generation are popular shortcuts. Content creation tools are means to either generate a large volume of game content or to reduce designer effort by automating the mechanizable aspects of content creation, such as feasibility checking. However elaborate the type of content such tools can create, they remain subservient to their human developers/creators (who have tightly designed all their generative algorithms) and to their human users (who must take all design decisions), respectively. This thesis argues that computers can be creative partners to human designers rather than mere slaves; game design tools can be aware of designer intentions, preferences and routines, and can accommodate them or even subvert them. This thesis presents Sentient Sketchbook, a tool for designing game level abstractions of different game genres, which assists the level designer as it automatically tests maps for playability constraints, evaluates and displays the map's gameplay properties and creates alternatives to the user's current design in order to speed up the creation process and inspire the user to think outside the box. Several AI techniques are implemented, and others invented, for the purposes of creating meaningful suggestions for Sentient Sketchbook as well as for adapting these suggestions to the user's own preferences. While the thesis focuses on the design, performance, and human use of Sentient Sketchbook, the same algorithms and concepts can be applied to different mixed-initiative tools, a subset of which has been implemented and is presented in this thesis. Description: PH.D. 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/29726 Title: AI in computer games : generating interesting interactive opponents by the use of evolutionary computation Abstract: Which features of a computer game contribute to the player’s enjoyment of it? How can we automatically generate interesting and satisfying playing experiences for a given game? These are the two key questions addressed in this dissertation. Player satisfaction in computer games depends on a variety of factors; here the focus is on the contribution of the behaviour and strategy of game opponents in predator/prey games. A quantitative metric of the ‘interestingness’ of opponent behaviours is defined based on qualitative considerations of what is enjoyable in such games, and a mathematical formulation grounded in observable data is derived. Using this metric, neural-network opponent controllers are evolved for dynamic game environments where limited inter-agent communication is used to drive spatial coordination of opponent teams. Given the complexity of the predator task, cooperative team behaviours are investigated. Initial candidates are generated using off-line learning procedures operating on minimal neural controllers with the aim of maximising opponent performance. These example controllers are then adapted using on-line (i.e. during play) learning techniques to yield opponents that provide games of high interest. The on-line learning methodology is evaluated using two dissimilar predator/prey games with a number of different computer player strategies. It exhibits generality across the two game test-beds and robustness to changes of player, initial opponent controller selected, and complexity of the game field. The interest metric is also evaluated by comparison with human judgement of game satisfaction in an experimental survey. A statistically significant number of players were asked to rank game experiences with a test-bed game using perceived interestingness and their ranking was compared with that of the proposed interest metric. The results show that the interest metric is consistent with human judgement of game satisfaction. Finally, the generality, limitations and potential of the proposed methodology and techniques are discussed, and other factors affecting the player’s satisfaction, such as the player’s own strategy, are briefly considered. Future directions building on the work described herein are presented and discussed. 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/27354 Title: Digital games as designed experience : reframing the concept of immersion Abstract: Games are a complex social phenomenon which seem to elude holistic categorisation. Attempts at formulating stable, universal definitions of games seem to always fall short of the mark, leaving important aspects of particular games unaccounted for. Yet these omissions can often be as instructive as the ground covered by attempts at definition, reminding us of the multiple perspectives that are relevant to understanding the role of games in social reality. This thesis will take as its object of study the player experience of graphically represented digital games. It will focus specifically on various forms of engagement with digital games, ranging from general motivations and attractions to a detailed analysis of moment by moment involvement in game-play. An important component of game involvement is the shortening of the subjective distance between player and game environment, often yielding a sensation of inhabiting the space represented on screen. This phenomenon is known by the terms “presence” and “immersion”. The latter is the more commonly used term in popular and academic discussions of game engagement, but its widespread use has diminished its analytical value. The term presence is similarly affected, with the main figures in the field of presence theory often using the term with divergent or even conflicting applications. This thesis will therefore examine the application of these two terms and propose an alternative conceptualization of the phenomenon they are being used to describe, which will be represented by the term “incorporation” and a model of game-play which I am naming The Digital Game Experience Model. The performance of a game occurs in two, often simultaneous, domains: the player‟s subjective or noetic dimension, and the visible practice of playing. Rather than viewing digital games as a set of formal rules, the thesis emphasizes their status as powerful forms of aesthetically designed experience that go beyond assumptions of games as bounded domains defined by a specified set of rules. In this conception of games “the virtual” is viewed as being a constituent part of “the real”, challenging the commonly held assumption that the two stand in opposition to each other. The centrality of human subjectivity in the game process lies at the very heart of the challenges game theorists face in the process of their analysis, which The Digital Game Experience Model is intended to advance. Description: FOREIGN THESIS; PH.D. 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z