I love to work with numbers and data. Learning to solve equations and extrapolate points to predict outcomes will help me hone the talents I want to pursue a job based in an area I enjoy. Solving problems and creating solutions is like a puzzle or a game to me. Games are a big part of my life… from family game night to chess to computer games and math problems. This concept of problem-solving and solution-finding is what led me to this thesis. My Data Analytics and Supply Chain Management majors both involve these concepts as well, so revolving them around my thesis project helped to give me more experience that will help me in my future career. When looking into the field of games, people enjoy many different types around the world. Games can range anywhere from card and board games, to video games, and even sports and the Olympics. These are all considered games, and my goal in taking this thesis course is to become a game designer and start my journey into providing entertainment for my audience to play. Due to the already enormous amount of games in circulation today, I was creative and used the game-making skills I learned in this class when making my game. I focused on developing a strategy board game. Since I have played games all my life, I know that game development is not a simple task to undertake. That is why this Honors Thesis Course is important to me since it was beneficial to gain the skills necessary to create my own game. Making sure the game I created maintained the proper mechanics, story, aesthetic, and technology was paramount to creating an enjoyable board game. Figuring out a cohesive theme was also necessary to sufficiently market the game so people will want to add it to their collection, and more importantly, spend hours of their time playing. Those are skills I learned in my honors-directed study. I used my research by examining different genres of board games and determining which aspects in each influenced my own game design. Once I figured out the general concept of my project, I looked into how already existing games in this genre or other games that are related to my idea function and why they became popular. It was important to understand exactly how these games operate and function in order to be intuitive enough that most people can understand how to play them. I also had to make sure the game wasn’t so basic that people wouldn’t have fun playing them over and over. Once I figured these things out, I started construction of the game prototype, which served as the final deliverable for my Honors Thesis. My purchase list consists of the supplies I needed to construct my board game. I purchased a variety of materials that I needed for this project. I needed to make three copies of it, since my professor requested I give her and my second a copy if I was able. I needed a box, which turned out to be the most expensive single item on the list. The player cards I made doubled as a dice pad since I needed to use dice during the game. I bought plastic gemstones to simulate my currencies, of which I had five types. Four of those came from the same package while the diamonds I bought separately. The bags I bought are used for storage of each type of gemstone, and then they become the player bags when setting up the game. The little cubes I bought are for the quest boards so players can track their actions and certain quests. When constructing the board tiles as well as the quest boards, I needed to buy the wooden blocks, paint, brushes, glue, and lamination sheets. I first painted half of each block with either royal purple or gold to signify what tile it would become. Once I completed that, I printed and laminated the fronts of each tile and glued them together with the blocks. My goal for my thesis project was to create a board game that I would want to buy, and I believe I have accomplished this. Of course, many things will have to change when I work towards publishing my game, such as commissioning artwork, working on different marketing strategies, and lowering the cost of production per game. For a prototype though, I believe that I have done as well as I could with making as good a game as I could. Thank you for this opportunity, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot that will help me in the future.
This project is a video game implementation of the Filipino ruleset of Mahjong for the purpose of increasing awareness of the Mahjong game and Filipino culture. The game, titled Todas!, is built from scratch using various free resources and contains a Tutorial for teaching players the basics of the game and a Multiplayer mode that enables remote gameplay for up to four people.
different currency rates. In the game, the player can control a group of heroes against another
set of heroes. In this project, two different currency rates are examined. The player can get
money more easily in a lower currency rate. Two groups of players are formed, and there are 5
players in group A and group B respectively. Players in group A are assigned to play the idle
game with a higher currency rate and players in group B are assigned to play the game with a
lower currency rate. The idle game is created by using Unity and C# language. The feedback
from the players is collected by asking them to finish an 11-question survey. The analysis is
based on the game’s currency rate and survey results. It is concluded that a higher currency rate
lowers players’ enjoyment of the idle game.
Unity simulation tool by implementing political policies or adjusting values via sliders, buttons, etc., which will alter the values in the framework. The user can then use the simulation interface to view different estimated population values for categories of people, such as regional differences, education levels, and more.
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.
As the future for our planet it is our job to understand what is happening in our world especially in an age of technology. We have the world at our fingertips yet many of us do not know what is happening around the world. Anthropogenic and natural threats are wreaking havoc on the sea turtle population from coral bleaching to bycatch(Shaver et al., 2020). We have come together as a population to reduce the amount of plastic straws in the oceans, but many have stopped there. Not realizing that sea turtles are keystone species that keep the oceans and the wildlife within it healthy (Why do sea turtles matter? 2020). All are listed under the Endangered Species Act but some of those most threatened species are the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, which are critically endangered and Leatherbacks which are endangered (Bandimere, 2020). Sea Life Survival is a board game that creates an interactive learning experience based on many different childhood favorite games. Learning takes on many forms and fun is definitely the best way to learn (de Freitas, 2018). This game provides a way to gain information while also experiencing an engaging and entertaining adventure. Understanding why people play games helped create a game that met the components of intention and enjoyment in order to produce a game that people would want to play (Hamari & Keronen, 2017). The purpose of the game is to spread information on sea turtles in a way that presents them in a light hearted way while still touching on the tragic life that some sea turtles succumb to. Future improvements to the game would include party packs which would showcase the new knowledge that has been discovered.