This is the first textbook dedicated to explaining how artificial intelligence (AI) techniques can be used in and for games. After introductory chapters that explain the background and key techniques in AI and games, the authors explain how to use AI to play games, to generate content for games and to model players. The book will be suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses in games, artificial intelligence, design, human-computer interaction, and computational intelligence, and also for self-study by industrial game developers and practitioners. The authors have developed a website (http://www.gameaibook.org) that complements the material covered in the book with up-to-date exercises, lecture slides and reading.
The term “network” is now applied to everything from the Internet to terrorist-cell systems. But the word’s ubiquity has also made it a cliché, a concept at once recognizable yet hard to explain. Network Aesthetics, in exploring how popular culture mediates our experience with interconnected life, reveals the network’s role as a way for people to construct and manage their world—and their view of themselves. Each chapter considers how popular media and artistic forms make sense of decentralized network metaphors and infrastructures. Patrick Jagoda first examines narratives from the 1990s and 2000s, including the novel Underworld, the film Syriana, and the television series The Wire, all of which play with network forms to promote reflection on domestic crisis and imperial decline in contemporary America. Jagoda then looks at digital media that are interactive, nonlinear, and dependent on connected audiences to show how recent approaches, such as those in the videogame Journey, open up space for participatory and improvisational thought. Contributing to fields as diverse as literary criticism, digital studies, media theory, and American studies, Network Aesthetics brilliantly demonstrates that, in today’s world, networks are something that can not only be known, but also felt, inhabited, and, crucially, transformed.
Awesome S.T.E.A.M.-based science experiments you can do right at home with easy-to-find materials designed for maximum enjoyment, learning, and discovery for kids ages 8 to 12 Join the experts at the Good Housekeeping Institute Labs and explore the science you interact with every day. Using the scientific method, you’ll tap into your own super-powers of logic and deduction to go on a science adventure. The engaging experiments exemplify core concepts and range from quick and simple to the more complex. Each one includes clear step-by-step instructions and color photos that demonstrate the process and end result. Plus, secondary experiments encourage young readers to build on what they’ve discovered. A “Mystery Solved!” explanation of the science at work helps your budding scientist understand the outcomes of each experiment. These super-fun, hands-on experiments include: Building a solar oven and making s’mores Creating an active rain cloud in a jar Using static electricity created with a balloon to power a light bulb Growing your own vegetables—from scraps! Investigating the forces that make an object sink or float And so much more! Bursting with more than 200 color photos and incredible facts, this sturdy hard cover is the perfect classroom resource or gift for any aspiring biologist, chemist, physicist, engineer, and mathematician!
Anime/manga (Japanese animation and comics) have been increasing in popularity worldwide for decades. But despite being a global phenomenon, there’s been surprisingly little psychological research formally studying its devoted fanbase. In this book we aim to do just that with an overview of nearly a decade of research by fan psychologists. Otaku and cosplayers, genre preferences, hentai, parasocial connections, motivation, personality, fanship and fandom, stigma, and well-being – this book looks at all of these topics through a psychological lens. Many of these findings are being presented for the first time, without the jargon and messy statistical analyses, but in plain language so it’s accessible to all readers – fans and curious observers alike!
Game designers today are expected to have an arsenal of multi-disciplinary skills at their disposal in the fields of art and design, computer programming, psychology, economics, composition, education, mythology—and the list goes on. How do you distill a vast universe down to a few salient points? Players Making Decisions brings together the wide range of topics that are most often taught in modern game design courses and focuses on the core concepts that will be useful for students for years to come. A common theme to many of these concepts is the art and craft of creating games in which players are engaged by making meaningful decisions. It is the decision to move right or left, to pass versus shoot, or to develop one’s own strategy that makes the game enjoyable to the player. As a game designer, you are never entirely certain of who your audience will be, but you can enter their world and offer a state of focus and concentration on a task that is intrinsically rewarding. This detailed and easy-to-follow guide to game design is for both digital and analog game designers alike and some of its features include: A clear introduction to the discipline of game design, how game development teams work, and the game development process Full details on prototyping and playtesting, from paper prototypes to intellectual property protection issues A detailed discussion of cognitive biases and human decision making as it pertains to games Thorough coverage of key game elements, with practical discussions of game mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics Practical coverage of using simulation tools to decode the magic of game balance A full section on the game design business, and how to create a sustainable lifestyle within it
Can we learn through play? Can we really play while learning? Of course! But how?! We all learn and educate others in our own unique ways. Successful educational games adapt to the particular learning needs of their players and facilitate the learning objectives of their designers. Educational Game Design Fundamentals embarks on a journey to explore the necessary aspects to create games that are both fun and help players learn. This book examines the art of educational game design through various perspectives and presents real examples that will help readers make more informed decisions when creating their own games. In this way, readers can have a better idea of how to prepare for and organize the design of their educational games, as well as evaluate their ideas through several prisms, such as feasibility or learning and intrinsic values. Everybody can become education game designers, no matter what their technical, artistic or pedagogic backgrounds. This book refers to educators and designers of all sorts: from kindergarten to lifelong learning, from corporate training to museum curators and from tabletop or video game designers to theme park creators!
Digital games offer enormous potential for learning and engagement in mathematics ideas and processes. This volume offers multidisciplinary perspectives—of educators, cognitive scientists, psychologists and sociologists—on how digital games influence the social activities and mathematical ideas of learners/gamers. Contributing authors identify opportunities for broadening current understandings of how mathematical ideas are fostered (and embedded) within digital game environments. In particular, the volume advocates for new and different ways of thinking about mathematics in our digital age—proposing that these mathematical ideas and numeracy practices are distinct from new literacies or multiliteracies. The authors acknowledge that the promise of digital games has not always been realised/fulfilled. There is emerging, and considerable, evidence to suggest that traditional discipline boundaries restrict opportunities for mathematical learning. Throughout the book, what constitutes mathematics learnings and pedagogy is contested. Multidisciplinary viewpoints are used to describe and understand the potential of digital games for learning mathematics and identify current tensions within the field. Mathematics learning is defined as being about problem solving; engagement in mathematical ideas and processes; and social engagement. The artefact, which is the game, shapes the ways in which the gamers engage with the social activity of gaming. In parallel, the book (as a te xtual artefact) will be supported by Springer’s online platform—allowing for video and digital communication (including links to relevant websites) to be used as supplementary material and establish a dynamic communication space.
If you agree that physical education should be fun, instructive, and a place where students acquire physical and life skills, then you'll love PE2theMax: Maximize Skills, Participation, Teamwork, and Fun. J.D. Hughes, author of the popular No Standing Around in My Gym, has created 30 never-been-done-before games, tried and tested in the gymnasiums and on the fields and courts of Villa Rica, Georgia, where he teaches elementary school. These games are designed for large groups--anywhere from 30 to 75 students--but can be scaled back easily for smaller class sizes. Each game provides students of all athletic abilities the opportunity to have fun, be active, and acquire movement and sport skills. Here's what you will discover about the games in PE2theMax: - No down time. The games are quick and easy to get going, and they'll keep students active for the entire class period. - Essentially no prep time. These games are ready to use, simple to understand, and supplemented with clear illustrations, diagrams, and a game finder to help you readily find the game you want. - Plenty of skill-building time. Students acquire not only movement and sport skills but life skills as well. The games emphasize cooperation, communication, personal responsibility, respect for others, positive competition, critical thinking, and problem solving. - Fun participation. If PE is fun, kids will want to participate. If they participate, they will experience the joy of being active. If they experience that joy, they just might move toward remaining active throughout their lives. The games in PE2theMax are student centered, not teacher centered. As such, students are motivated to challenge themselves to succeed. The games are inclusive and developmentally appropriate. They define what a quality PE program and the New PE philosophy are all about: promoting participation and lifelong fitness as well as self-esteem and initiative. Most important, from the kids' perspective, "these games rock."
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Videogame Sciences and Arts, VJ 2020, held in Mirandela, Portugal, in November 2020.* The 10 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 46 submissions. *The conference was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
