Barrett

Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.

Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.

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You Died: The Cultural Dynamic of Death in Video Games

DescriptionDeath is a common mechanic in video games, but how does it relate to humanity's understanding of death? This thesis project seeks to understand the cultural dynamics of death within video games, as well as how death is approached and depicted within said games.
ContributorsYen, Jay (Author) / Bauer, Danielle (Thesis director) / de la Garza, Amira (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Arts, Media and Engineering Sch T (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor)
Created2023-12
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Supply Chain Management Alternate Thesis

Description
The purpose of this thesis paper is to discuss the life cycle curves of today’s innovation-driven digital services and how these life cycles can be extended. To decide on this subject, four supply chain management seminars were attended and summarized, and personal notes were added. After analysis of…

The purpose of this thesis paper is to discuss the life cycle curves of today’s innovation-driven digital services and how these life cycles can be extended. To decide on this subject, four supply chain management seminars were attended and summarized, and personal notes were added. After analysis of the seminars, the paper will dive deeper into the topic discussed by Professor Adegoke Oke of Arizona State University in his lecture on innovation-driven life cycle curves and their exemplification of the shark fin curve. This paper will analyze the nature of product life cycle curves, discuss three PC games and their life cycle curves, and evaluate the best methods for creating life cycle extension.
ContributorsDriscoll, Trevor (Author) / Oke, Adegoke (Thesis director) / Printezis, Antonios (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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HelperBot: An Adaptive AI for Teaching Advanced Fighting Game Techniques

Description
Popular competitive fighting games such as Super Smash Brothers and Street Fighter have some of the steepest learning curves in the gaming industry. These incredibly technical games require the full attention of the player and often take years to master completely. This barrier of entry prevents newer players from enjoying…

Popular competitive fighting games such as Super Smash Brothers and Street Fighter have some of the steepest learning curves in the gaming industry. These incredibly technical games require the full attention of the player and often take years to master completely. This barrier of entry prevents newer players from enjoying the competitive social environment that such games offer, creating a rift between casual and competitive players. Learning the rules can sometimes be more difficult than playing the game itself. To truly master these concepts requires personal attention from someone who deeply understands the core mechanics that operate behind the scenes.
Meanwhile, machine learning is growing more advanced by the day. Online retailers like Amazon run complex algorithms to recommend future purchases and monitor price changes. Mobile phones use neural networks to interpret speech. GPS apps track anonymous motion data in smartphones to give real-time traffic estimates. Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly ubiquitous because of its versatility in analyzing and solving human problems; it follows, then, that a machine could learn how to teach humans skills and techniques. HelperBot is a platform fighting game project that employs this cutting-edge learning technology to close the skill gap between novice and veteran gamers as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
ContributorsPalermo, Seth Daniel (Author) / Olson, Loren (Thesis director) / Marinelli, Donald (Committee member) / Arts, Media and Engineering Sch T (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Octopath Traveler: Video Games and Their Potential Impact on Mental and Emotional Growth and Development

Description
The topic of video games and their potential benefits had been researched and catalogued by a number of experts in the past when it came to aspects such as improving cognitive function and increasing learning capabilities. However, there was little research on how video games provide benefits to players in…

The topic of video games and their potential benefits had been researched and catalogued by a number of experts in the past when it came to aspects such as improving cognitive function and increasing learning capabilities. However, there was little research on how video games provide benefits to players in terms of mental and emotional growth and development. Yet, a game by the name of Octopath Traveler had been given little to no academic attention despite its interesting premise of eight separate characters following their own narratives and improving themselves over their journeys. This essay examined how Octopath Traveler provided deep messages and lessons on faith, perseverance, communication, and independence onto its player, ultimately assisting in their mental and emotional development and maturity. Each of the four messages is supported by two of the eight characters, and each character presented a differing perspective on the theme discussed; the characters Therion and Ophilia examined faith in both the self and others, the characters Alfyn and Primrose dissected perseverance regarding beliefs and goals, the characters Cyrus and Tressa discussed communication as a means of learning and as a means of interaction, and the characters Olberic and H’aanit examined independence regarding seeking a purpose and assisting the community as a whole. Octopath Traveler shows that video games can impart strong moral values onto individuals and help them develop both mentally and emotionally.
ContributorsSveinsson, Jordan Daniel (Co-author) / Sveinsson, Jordan (Co-author) / Garcia, Julie Amparano (Thesis director) / Devine, Theresa (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
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Intelli-Trail

Description
Intelli-Trail is a game where the player plays as a small blue man with the simple goal of reaching the purple door. The player will primarily interact with the game through combat. The game itself will react to the patterns in the players behavior to progressively become harder…

Intelli-Trail is a game where the player plays as a small blue man with the simple goal of reaching the purple door. The player will primarily interact with the game through combat. The game itself will react to the patterns in the players behavior to progressively become harder for the player to win.
ContributorsCurtin, Ethan (Author) / Gonzalez Sanchez, Javier (Thesis director) / Baron, Tyler (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
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Unlocking the Truth: Exploring the Discovery Narratives of Video Games

Description
This paper examines and analyzes what Dr. Marcello Arnaldo Picucci termed “discovery narratives” in video games, which is something unique only to the interactive and dynamic video game medium. Discovery narratives exist to give players a level of freedom in engaging with the game’s story and world, requiring the player…

This paper examines and analyzes what Dr. Marcello Arnaldo Picucci termed “discovery narratives” in video games, which is something unique only to the interactive and dynamic video game medium. Discovery narratives exist to give players a level of freedom in engaging with the game’s story and world, requiring the player to explore and interact with the game in specific ways to access these particular narratives. While Dr. Piccuci didn’t focus on discovery narratives too much and only lightly touched upon the topic with a few examples, this paper will categorize six different types of discovery narratives and explore an example of a game for each category. These categories are “Side-stories,” “Character Information,” “Sidequests,” “Main Quests,” “Challenge Narratives,” and “True Endings.” Before categorizing, though, the paper will make important clarifications regarding some possible areas of confusion or conflict in the analysis, such as the definition of narrative itself according to H. Porter Abbott, the methodology of the categorization, the other three models of narrative architecture besides discovery narratives, the distinction between “alternative narrative paths” and discovery narratives, and the external process of how these narratives are discovered. The categories of discovery narrative are not mutually exclusive, however, and in the final part of the paper, the game Dark Souls will be used as a prime example of how these different categories of discovery narrative can be mixed together in order to create a narrative that functions almost entirely on discovery. By exploring these different methods of discovery narrative and analyzing the games that use them, the unique narrative possibilities of video games will be much more understood.
ContributorsManganiello, Dominic Christopher (Author) / Irish, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Fette, Donald (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05

The History and Practical Applications of Video Games as a Medium for Dispersing Knowledge of and Generating Discussion Around Sustainability

Description
Games are prolific as an educational medium, and are able to tell a much richer story than pictures or words alone. This has led to the widespread phenomenon known as “gamification” in the educational and business sectors, as well as educational games. While gamification itself is very prolific, its application…

Games are prolific as an educational medium, and are able to tell a much richer story than pictures or words alone. This has led to the widespread phenomenon known as “gamification” in the educational and business sectors, as well as educational games. While gamification itself is very prolific, its application to sustainability issues has been somewhat limited. With the progression of technology and the high percentage of gamers within the population, the time is ripe for a paradigm shift. Humans have always played games to inform themselves and others, and though this takes many forms, they always will, be their efforts dedicated to education, entertainment, or profit. While teaching and entertainment may sometimes be at odds with one another, they do not have to be. Many audiences respond well to varied forms of entertainment, and when the ability of a thing designed to further educate or gamify is given room to be entertaining as well, all involved benefit. Sustainability as a whole is an incredibly nebulous and broad concept, such that current educational and entertaining games exploring the subject largely addresses it on a smaller scale, or looks at a piece of the picture instead of all of it, as smaller pieces are easier to break down and address. There are ways that games can be and are vehicles for both entertainment and education, and by combining the two end goals in relatively equal measure, a solid platform can be built off of which both learning and personal growth can occur.
ContributorsHarrenstein, Heather Lee (Author) / Breetz, Hanna (Thesis director) / Selgrad, Justin (Committee member) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Rollback Netcode: How to Sustain a Competitive Fighting Game Community

Description

This project was a long form article talking about the struggles the competitive fighting game community had with poor online multiplayer during the pandemic and how rollback netcode aims to remedy that problem as well as provide easy online play for everyone.

ContributorsVan Ligten, Connor (Author) / Boivin, Paola (Thesis director) / Kurland, Brett (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Comm (Contributor)
Created2022-05
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RiZing: Connecting Students to Roommates Through Video Games

Description

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to grou…

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to group students effectively with some universities opting to market this inefficiency as a normal part of the college experience. For our thesis as a part of Founders Lab, we created our company, RiZing, to tackle this inefficiency. RiZing addresses the student-housing gap and proves that the lack of effective matching can be solved with the right people and of course, video games. Both students and higher education institutions are desperately trying to solve this problem. General event service vendors are racing just as quickly to serve this collegiate market and are extremely motivated to work with anyone who does. As the world today is becoming increasingly digitized, the founders of RiZing believe that the solution to building and maintaining strong connections with peers is possible through leveraging technology such as video games to create strong personal bonds.
ContributorsTopasna, Eric (Author) / Menna, Grace (Co-author) / Schmidt, Alexius (Co-author) / Williams, Jordan (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Satpathy, Asish (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor)
Created2022-05
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RiZing: Connecting Students to Roommates Through Video Games

Description

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to grou…

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to group students effectively with some universities opting to market this inefficiency as a normal part of the college experience. For our thesis as a part of Founders Lab, we created our company, RiZing, to tackle this inefficiency. RiZing addresses the student-housing gap and proves that the lack of effective matching can be solved with the right people and of course, video games. Both students and higher education institutions are desperately trying to solve this problem. General event service vendors are racing just as quickly to serve this collegiate market and are extremely motivated to work with anyone who does. As the world today is becoming increasingly digitized, the founders of RiZing believe that the solution to building and maintaining strong connections with peers is possible through leveraging technology such as video games to create strong personal bonds.
ContributorsSchmidt, Alexius (Author) / Menna, Grace (Co-author) / Topasna, Eric (Co-author) / Williams, Jordan (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Satpathy, Asish (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Industrial, Systems & Operations Engineering Prgm (Contributor)
Created2022-05