Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Computer adventure games'

This work undertakes a systematic study of various elements from differing fields which apply to the construction of computer-aided instructional systems. Drawing upon these works, the potential for instruction in computer adventure games is recognised, and previous work in the area analysed with respect to the theoretical findings. Based both on this theory and the germane advice of practicing game designers, a methodology for the design of educational computer adventure games is laid out in detail. The method described is then used to construct a sample game with basic programming skills as the pedagogical content, and this sample game is tested and the results examined. An informed approach to the design of computer-assisted instruction must begin with an understanding of how people acquire and store new information or skills. Cognitive psychology provides a number of conflicting models of the human information processing system, but these differing theories have a common basis which can be exploited in an attempt to make material more accessible. Instructional design describes a methodology for the analysis of pedagogical goals and demonstrates methods of learning support which can and should be incorporated into the new setting. In this field also is a judgement of different media, including computers, and their ability to provide the necessary elements of learning. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the medium the limits of what is possible within it can be catered to, and its failings augmented with supplemental materials. Both educational psychology and instructional design indicate benefits to learning from a correctly motivated learner, and the theory of engagement is therefore also scrutinised for elements helpful to the educational designer. The convergence of the knowledge gleaned from these various fields leads to one possible match to the desired criteria for computer-mediated instruction; the computerised fantasy adventure game. This being the case, other work in the field is examined for relevance, and it is found that a detailed methodology for the construction of such games does not exist. Existing material is combined with the aforementioned theoretical work and a survey of what is known about practical game design to create such a framework. It is proposed that through its use the systematic inclusion of educational content in an engaging environment will be facilitated. The hypothesis is examined, and an action research approach found to be called for. As such, the proposed methodology is used to create a sample game, and the process of its design used to inform the proposed methodology. The final form is described in detail, and the process of its application to the sample game elucidated. A prototype of the game is used with a number of test subjects to evaluate the game?s level of success at both engagement and the imparting of content material.

This thesis investigates the level of difficulty of puzzles in the adventure games and the implications thereof. The thesis contains an in-depth background, and a brief history about the genre. It brings up the main problem of the genre and looks into both the cause and effect that follows. To support this process, an analysis has been made of design documents and a survey was issued on the subject of adventure game puzzles.

In this paper, I survey past and present tools available to text adventure game authors, and then describe a new product: the Text Adventure Design Assistant (TA DA!), a visual programming system for creating text adventure games. My system consists of two parts: an abstract framework which defines an archetypical game, and a user interface which allows for the construction of games in a visual manner by manipulating the elements of the abstract game to produce a concrete design. The two most popular contemporary programming languages for creating text adventure games, TADS and Inform, are compared and contrasted, and my abstract framework is adapted to both of these languages. The traditional pencil-and-paper design process used by adventure game authors is studied and its application to the development of TA DA! is described. Finally, the implications of TA DA! and similar advances in visual programming are discussed and I predict future trends in the design of both adventure games and other application domains based on this work.

This study was conducted to see what cognitive and social skills and strategies were employed by pairs of students as they used a computer adventure game. The games used in the study were "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" (Broderbund) and "Dinosaur Discovery" (Jacaranda) One male and one female pair of year five students were assigned to each game. Grounded Theory was selected as the methodology as it enabled categorization of the skills and strategies to emerge from the data without locking the researcher into previously identified categories. It was found in this study, and supported in other research, that what occurs between the students during a session with the computer depends on the nature of the task, the students involved, the type and amount of training provided and the classroom conditions under which the activity is conducted. The implications from the study are: that under most circumstances it is desireable for students to work in pairs with a computer to enable interaction to occur, students may require some training in the cognitive skills necessary for the software being used, training students to work cooperatively before placing them in groups is important; and integrating the computer into the classroom environment may encourage the use of other desired skills and strategies.

The purpose of this report is to analyze what went wrong with the adventure game project called Fairytale, I started together with 4 of my fellow university students at Gotland University, spring 2007. My ambition with this report is to enlighten problems in game design that arose during the game development process in order to prevent others from making the same mistakes. The problems are analyzed according to game design patterns defined by Björk, S. and Holopainen, J. (2005). Patterns in Game Design. Boston, Massachusetts. Jenifer Niles. The game was exhibited to the public at Gotland Game Awards 2007, Leipzig Game Developers Conference 2007, Tekniska Museet 2007, Almedalsveckan 2008 and Gotland Game Awards 2008. The results of the report show that redesigning already finished game features means a lot of troubles in relation to its dependency on other game elements. The key abilities of the main character were vaguely defined since the beginning of the project which caused problems with earlier designed levels whenever a new item was introduced. The terrain of the prior levels didn’t match the abilities of the new items, which forced changes to be made. The biggest mistake with this project was that finished game elements never were considered final. My role in the project was the solo game programmer and co-designer. I shared the designing tasks together with Annika Fogelgren who also was the producer of our team. Albertina Sparrhult, Emma Johansson and Marie Viberg were our core graphic artists. Together, we created the Fairytale game.

The thesis deals with the historical development of computer adventure games in the Czech Republic. It focuses on the period that started in 1994 with the production of the first commercial PC game Tajemství Oslího ostrova (The Secret of Donkey Island), and ended in 1998. It also touches an earlier period and factors that influenced the production of the adventure genre in the nineties. Researched titles belong to the genre of 2D point-and-click adventure. The paper brings the analysis of the games according to the theories of game studies, context of their production, information about their producers and analysis of the feedback in the press that focused on computer games. The thesis tries to identify the common features of the first commercial PC games thanks to which the games became very popular in the nineties and also describes the obstacles that the first producers had to overcome in the post socialistic country. At nearly twenty titles the paper tries to reveal the new elements that showed in the historical development of the adventure games and also to describe the differences among monitored titles. The sources of information for the thesis were both the literature, which dealt with computer games, and the interviews with the developers, game designers and distributors who focused on the...

The work deals with the relationship between game mechanics and user experience. Identifies the basic gameplay mechanics and elements that have the most important influence on the quality of user experience. Research is realized on the example of a specific game using the concept of game design patterns. Part of the work deals with the introduction of this concept. Furthermore, the work deals with the general theories of games, models of classification and history of computer games. Part of the work is a description of the author's practical experience in creating games as a school project.

The diploma thesis is focused on the creation and use of chemical computer game (adventure) in chemistry teaching, specifically in practice of metals. The aim of this game is to motivate, activate and develop crosscurricular relationships among students of the second grade of elementary schools and lower grades of multi-year grammar school. Adventure brings players to the city of Jihlava, where they learn about the history and monuments of this city.

This diploma thesis is concerned on the creation and use of computer game (adventure). It´s purpose is usability in repeating the teaching of nonmetal chemistry. The game is designed especially for pupils of elementary schools. The adventure takes place in Prachatice. Pupils learn history of the renaissance town during the playing of didactic game. The game contributes to the activation of teaching and the development of interdisciplinary relations.

This diploma thesis is focused on the creation and usage of a computer game (adventure) for chemistry of natural compounds. The game was developed especially for students of the second grade of elementary and lower grades of grammar school. The aim of this adventure game is to motivate and activate during chemistry lessons. This adventure game is embedded to picturesque town Pelhřimov and its surroundings.

碩士
淡江大學
教育科技學系碩士班
100
With the advances in technology, computers are widely used to support instruction and learning. Many studies showed that game-based learning had highly positive impact on learning outcomes and learning attitudes. Therefore, computer games are invented not only for entertainment but also for educational purpose. Computer games, especially adventure games, provide learners a challenging environment as well as motivate learners to accomplish the tasks. The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ learning achievement, motivation and attitudes by implementing computer adventure games into “English for Educational Technology” course. Participants were 66 junior students studying in the Department of Educational Technology at Tamkang University. The researcher implemented the English achievement pre- and post-tests as well as the Learning motivation pre- and post-scales to gather the needed data. Additionally, an attitude survey was given to the students at the end of the study. To examine the difference of learning achievement and motivation, paired-samples t-tests were used. Also, the researcher analyzed the feedback collected from the students to explore their game-based learning attitudes. The findings of this study are as follows. Students made significant improvement on achievement from pretest to posttest. This result indicated that computer adventure games were significantly helpful for students to learn English for Educational Technology. As for motivation, significant differences were found on the motivational scale and five subscales, namely “extrinsic goal orientation”, “task value”, “self-efficacy for learning”, “expectancy for success”, and “test anxiety”. It showed that computer adventure games had positive influence on student motivation. In terms of attitudes, 95% of students held positive attitudes toward adventure game-based learning. 100% of students (the entire class) pointed out that they will be interested in learning with computer adventure games in the future.

碩士
臺南師範學院
國民教育研究所
90
The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of computer adventure game instruction on the creativity ability, problem solving ability and achievement motives of the fifth grade students in elementary school. In the initial stage of the research, the researcher sifted fitter computer adventure games such as 「Legend of Kyrandia」 and 「Escape from Monkey Island」as the research software, and then the researcher choose three kinds of tests:「Williams Creative Test」（including: Williams Creative Thinking Ability Measurement and Williams Creative Attitude Measurement）、「Problem Solving Test」and「Achievement Motives Scale」as the research instruments. The study adopted a quasi-experimental method with pretest-posttest nonequivalent-control-group design, and used cluster sampling selecting two fifth grade classes from Sheng-li Elementary as subjects. The two classes were assigned to experimental group and control group, experimental group received computer adventure game activities while control group didn''''''''t participate in computer adventure game activities. The experiment was conducted for 25 times, 50 minutes a time, the time amount to 1250 minutes. This study had four kinds of variables: gander as background variable, experimental treatment as independent variable, the pretest scores of all research instruments as covariance and the posttest scores of all research instruments as dependent variable. The data were analyzed by two-way analysis of covariance（ANCOVA）.The major result can be drawn as fallows: 1.The effect of computer adventure game instruction on the creativity ability （1）There was no significant interaction effect on creative thinking ability between gander and treatment. （2）The girls got higher scores on elaboration than the boys, but there was no significant difference in other section between the boys and the girls. （3）The students of experimental group got higher scores on originality、 title and creative thinking ability total scores than the students of control group, but there was no significant difference in other section between the two groups. （4）There was no significant interaction effect on creative attitude between gander and treatment. （5）There was no significant difference on creative attitude between the boys and the girls. （6）There was no significant difference on creative attitude between the experimental group and the control group. 2.The effect of computer adventure game instruction on the problem solving ability （1）There was no significant interaction effect on problem solving ability between gander and treatment. （2）There was no significant difference on problem solving ability between the boys and the girls. （3）The students of experimental group got higher scores on problem solving ability than the students of control group. 3.The effect of computer adventure game instruction on the achievement motives （1）There was significant interaction effect on successful tendency and achievement motives total scores between gander and treatment. Experimental girls are better than control girls on success tendency and achievement motives total scores. （2）There was no significant difference on achievement motives between the boys and the girls. （3）The students of experimental group got higher scores on self tendency、 success tendency、challenge tendency and achievement motives total scores than the students of control group, but there was no significant difference on between the two groups. Finally, based on the result of this study, several suggestions for not only parents but also teachers who teach computer and further studies were presented.