Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
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.
Filtering by
- Creators: Computing and Informatics Program
For my creative project thesis, I have designed and developed a video game called Amity Academy. Amity Academy is a strategic resource management simulator that aims to subvert genre expectations and challenge generally accepted definitions of success and leadership both in-game and in the real world. It does so by moving the focus away from amassing large amounts of in-game currencies and becoming politically or militarily dominant towards caring for the denizens of the social unit the player controls. The player acts as an administrator at a school where they must make decisions on how to best run the institution. Although they are allowed to lead the school however they see fit, the emphasis is on prioritizing strong interpersonal and intracommunity relationships and connections and the wellbeing and happiness of those under their ward. Amity Academy is also part of the newly-emerging “wholesome” or “comfy” game genre. Unlike serious strategy games that can be stressful, Amity Academy presents a self-paced, low-stakes situation. This mood is further encouraged by calming environmental noises and music, a gentle color palette, and a charming art style. The game feels domestic and quaint, almost reminiscent of a Jane Wooster Scott or Mary Singleton painting. You can download and play Amity Academy here: https://mvaughn8.itch.io/amity-academy
This paper will demonstrate that the Agile development process helps to ensure incremental work on an Unreal Engine game project is achieved by presenting a product produced in Unreal Engine along with my experience in utilizing Scrum to facilitate the game’s development. Section 2 discusses project goals and motivations for using Agile, using Unreal Engine, and for the choice of genre in the final product. Section 3 contextualizes these goals by presenting the history of Unreal Engine, the novel applications of Unreal Engine, and the use of Unreal Engine in the development of Heady Stuff. Section 4 presents findings from the project’s development by describing my use of Agile and by presenting the steps taken in learning Unreal Engine. Section 4 continues by highlighting important development considerations in the use of Blueprints, C++, and HLSL in Unreal Engine. The section ends with the presentation of project feedback, its incorporation in the final product, and the resources used to assist development. Section 5 compares the workflow, help resources, and applications of Unreal Engine with those of Unity, another highly popular game engine. Lastly, Section 6 performs a post-mortem on the overall development process by considering how well Agile development processes were upheld along with how much of the original plans in the Design Document was present in the final product. Additionally, the section presents the major challenges encountered during project development. These challenges will help in proposing possible best practices for game development in Unreal Engine.
During the height of COVID-19 in the summer of 2020, most major sports leagues were shut down or postponed, to limit the spread of COVID-19. However, people still yearned for the community of cheering on their favorite team. To that end, The Game Band, a Los Angeles-based game development studio, decided to make America's favorite pastime, baseball, virtual. Just like that, Blaseball was born. In this creative project, the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com was subjected to analysis of its user interface and user experience elements by the author of this paper in the role of the researcher. The research questions posited by this project were as follows: - What user interface/user experience elements of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com were effective, and what elements detracted from the purpose of the site? - What recommendations could be made by the researcher to improve the user experience and allow for a more effective user experience of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com? To answer these questions, two deliverables were decided upon. The first was a research study consisting of a usability survey and interviews with web developers who worked on Blaseball or Blaseball-related projects. The second deliverable was an industry-level analysis of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com to be presented as a culmination of the research and work. Through this process, it had been discovered that while the site was simplistic and could easily direct users to other pages, as intended by the developers, UI elements on individual pages confused and misled users. As such, clarifications and a more in-depth UI were recommended.
During the height of COVID-19 in the summer of 2020, most major sports leagues were shut down or postponed, to limit the spread of COVID-19. However, people still yearned for the community of cheering on their favorite team. To that end, The Game Band, a Los Angeles-based game development studio, decided to make America's favorite pastime, baseball, virtual. Just like that, Blaseball was born. In this creative project, the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com was subjected to analysis of its user interface and user experience elements by the author of this paper in the role of the researcher. The research questions posited by this project were as follows: - What user interface/user experience elements of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com were effective, and what elements detracted from the purpose of the site? - What recommendations could be made by the researcher to improve the user experience and allow for a more effective user experience of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com? To answer these questions, two deliverables were decided upon. The first was a research study consisting of a usability survey and interviews with web developers who worked on Blaseball or Blaseball-related projects. The second deliverable was an industry-level analysis of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com to be presented as a culmination of the research and work. Through this process, it had been discovered that while the site was simplistic and could easily direct users to other pages, as intended by the developers, UI elements on individual pages confused and misled users. As such, clarifications and a more in-depth UI were recommended.
During the height of COVID-19 in the summer of 2020, most major sports leagues were shut down or postponed, to limit the spread of COVID-19. However, people still yearned for the community of cheering on their favorite team. To that end, The Game Band, a Los Angeles-based game development studio, decided to make America's favorite pastime, baseball, virtual. Just like that, Blaseball was born. In this creative project, the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com was subjected to analysis of its user interface and user experience elements by the author of this paper in the role of the researcher. The research questions posited by this project were as follows: - What user interface/user experience elements of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com were effective, and what elements detracted from the purpose of the site? - What recommendations could be made by the researcher to improve the user experience and allow for a more effective user experience of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com? To answer these questions, two deliverables were decided upon. The first was a research study consisting of a usability survey and interviews with web developers who worked on Blaseball or Blaseball-related projects. The second deliverable was an industry-level analysis of the Season Twelve version of Blaseball.com to be presented as a culmination of the research and work. Through this process, it had been discovered that while the site was simplistic and could easily direct users to other pages, as intended by the developers, UI elements on individual pages confused and misled users. As such, clarifications and a more in-depth UI were recommended.
The process of learning a new skill can be time consuming and difficult for both the teacher and the student, especially when it comes to computer modeling. With so many terms and functionalities to familiarize oneself with, this task can be overwhelming to even the most knowledgeable student. The purpose of this paper is to describe the methodology used in the creation of a new set of curricula for those attempting to learn how to use the Dynamic Traffic Simulation Package with Multi-Resolution Modeling. The current DLSim curriculum currently relates information via high-concept terms and complicated graphics. The information in this paper aims to provide a streamlined set of curricula for new users of DLSim, including lesson plans and improved infographics.
