Author Archives: lankoski

Benefits of Play

Peter Gray wrote two pieces on benefits of play. One piece deals with the need of some unregulated, unsafe play. The other piece discusses the benefits fo video game playing for children. How Children Learn Bravery in an Age of Overprotection The Many Benefits, for Kids, of Playing Video Games (this one contains a goodContinue reading “Benefits of Play”

Violent Video Games Effects? What Are They?

Now game violence effect discussion is active again in Sweden after Karolinska Institute researchers have been publishing their opinions in DN, I did some research on the topic (again). A report Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games on Violent Crime by Cunningham et al (2011) states: First, they [the study results] support the behavioralContinue reading “Violent Video Games Effects? What Are They?”

Joystickit kuumina PDF

Markku Reunanen has made our (Reunanen, Lankoski, Heinonen) chapter in Digirakkaus 2 available as PDF. The chapter can downloaded at http://www.kameli.net/~marq/joystickit_kuumina.pdf (in Finnish). Figure shows how our informants remembered certain titles from 1980 to 1995. When we posted questionnaire we missed some notorious  games in US, such as Swedish Erotica series, that would have beenContinue reading “Joystickit kuumina PDF”

Introduction to special issue: experiencing games: games, play and players

Petri Lankoski, Södertörn University Annika Waern, Stockholm University Anne Mette Thorhauge, University of Copenhagen Harko Verhagen, Stockholm University This is a reprint version of the introduction article for special issue in the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds 3: 3, DOI: 10.1386/jgvw.3.3.175_7. The text contains DOI links to the special issue articles on Intellect site.

Perception System Explained

Here is a bit explanation how the perception system code works. Basic features of the code is as follows If the player object is behind some other object, it is not seen. This is tested with Physics.Linecast from the center of perceiving object to the center of the player object. If player object is reallyContinue reading “Perception System Explained”

Difficulty Graphs (by Rafael Vázquez)

Rafael Vázquez writes about evaluating the difficulty level of games on Gamasutra in the feature How Tough Is Your Game? Creating Difficulty Graphs: They are graphical representations of how difficulty changes throughout the game. This is to say that they plot how challenge changes over time. There are two main types, time-based and distance-based. TheContinue reading “Difficulty Graphs (by Rafael Vázquez)”

Simple Perception System (Unity, C#)

Here is a very simple perception C# code that I used my lecture today for Unity. Function that can be added to the Enemy class to check if the enemy sees the player object or not (the code for other functionality can be found on the post /2011/10/29/intro-to-gameplay-programming-with-unity/). With this code, an enemy can perceiveContinue reading “Simple Perception System (Unity, C#)”