Date of Award
2009
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Program
Computer Science
Supervisor
Dr. Kamran Sedig
Abstract
Computer games have initially and primarily been used for entertainment purposes. Recently, however, computer games have gained popularity in the educational and training arena. Epistemic computer games require players to think hard while entertaining them at the same time. Designing good epistemic computer games is complex and difficult. This thesis aims to further our understanding of how to design good epistemic computer games.
Super Maze is a puzzle game that requires players to navigate through a maze picking up things on the way. At each junction, players can move either up, down, left or right. Four different versions of Super Maze were created. These versions differ from each other with respect to the representation of the maze and the way players interact with the maze to move through and finish it. The alternative representation to the traditional maze representation externalizes the internal structure of the maze as a tree diagram.
An exploratory usability study was conducted to investigate how externalizing the internal structure of the game affects thinking and reasoning and if and how externalizing the internal structure of the game affects the gaming experience
Recommended Citation
Tagh Bostani, Sousan Sheida, "Externalizing the Latent Structure of Computer Games: Effect on game play, reasoning and implication for design" (2009). Digitized Theses. 4075.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/4075