Data Stewardship for Open Science: Implementing FAIR Principles has been written with the intention of making scientists, funders, and innovators in all disciplines and stages of their professional activities broadly aware of the need, complexity, and challenges associated with open science, modern science communication, and data stewardship. The FAIR principles are used as a guide throughout the text, and this book should leave experimentalists consciously incompetent about data stewardship and motivated to respect data stewards as representatives of a new profession, while possibly motivating others to consider a career in the field. The ebook, avalable for no additional cost when you buy the paperback, will be updated every 6 months on average (providing that significant updates are needed or avaialble). Readers will have the opportunity to contribute material towards these updates, and to develop their own data management plans, via the free Data Stewardship Wizard.

Authoring, its tools, processes, and design challenges are key issues for the Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) research community. The complexity of IDN authoring, often involving stories co-created by procedures and user interaction, creates confusion for tool developers and raises barriers for new authors. This book examines these issues from both the tool designer and the author's perspective, discusses the poetics of IDN and how that can be used to design authoring tools, explores diverse forms of IDN and their demands, and investigates the challenges around conducting research on IDN authoring. To address these challenges, the chapter authors incorporate a range of interdisciplinary perspectives on 'The Authoring Problem' in IDN. While existing texts provide 'how-to' guidance for authors, this book is a primer for research and practice-based investigations into the authoring problem, collecting the latest thoughts about this area from key researchers and practitioners.

Developing a successful game in today's market is a challenging endeavor. Thousands of titles are published yearly, all competing for players' time and attention. Game analytics has emerged in the past few years as one of the main resources for ensuring game quality, maximizing success, understanding player behavior and enhancing the quality of the player experience. It has led to a paradigm shift in the development and design strategies of digital games, bringing data-driven intelligence practices into the fray for informing decision making at operational, tactical and strategic levels. Game Analytics - Maximizing the Value of Player Data is the first book on the topic of game analytics; the process of discovering and communicating patterns in data towards evaluating and driving action, improving performance and solving problems in game development and game research. Written by over 50 international experts from industry and research, it covers a comprehensive range of topics across more than 30 chapters, providing an in-depth discussion of game analytics and its practical applications. Topics covered include monetization strategies, design of telemetry systems, analytics for iterative production, game data mining and big data in game development, spatial analytics, visualization and reporting of analysis, player behavior analysis, quantitative user testing and game user research. This state-of-the-art volume is an essential source of reference for game developers and researchers. Key takeaways include: Thorough introduction to game analytics; covering analytics applied to data on players, processes and performance throughout the game lifecycle. In-depth coverage and advice on setting up analytics systems and developing good practices for integrating analytics in game-development and -management. Contributions by leading researchers and experienced professionals from the industry, including Ubisoft, Sony, EA, Bioware, Square Enix, THQ, Volition, and PlayableGames. Interviews with experienced industry professionals on how they use analytics to create hit games.

For decades, Marvel Comics' superhero group the Avengers have captured the imagination of millions, whether in comics, multi-billion dollar grossing films or video games. Similar to the chronology of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Avengers video games first started with titles driven by single characters, like Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor and Captain America. Over time, the games grew to include more and more heroes, culminating in playing experiences that featured the Avengers assembled. This is the first-ever book assessing the video games starring "Earth's Mightiest Heroes." Featured games span consoles and platforms, from popular PlayStation and Xbox titles to an arcade game in danger of being lost to time. All video games are covered in depth, with each entry including game background and a detailed review from the author. Some game entries also include behind-the-scenes knowledge from the developers themselves, providing exclusive details on the Marvel video game universe.

Game Anim teaches the technical and artistic fundamentals of video game animation and goes further to provide practical advice and industry insights to help you become a rounded and successful game animator. Covering every stage of game production from the animator's perspective, it is packed with the lessons learned from working on a variety of game types in both in-game and cinematic roles in animator, lead, and director positions. These have been successful across multiple studios regardless of team, size and culture. The 2nd edition includes a new chapter on 2D and Pixel Art Animation, an enhanced mocap chapter covering the latest developments in Motion Matching, and even more interviews with top professionals in the field. Game Anim provides essential guidance to those looking to break into the industry and successful animators wishing to take the next step in their career. Key Features * 20 Years of Insight: Accumulated knowledge from 2 decades of experience in all areas of game animation. * The 5 Fundamentals: Reinterprets the classic 12 animation principles and sets out 5 new fundamentals for great game animation. * Animator Interviews: Notable game animators offer behind-the-scenes stories, tips, and advice. * Free Animation Rig: Free "AZRI" maya rig, tutorials and other resources on the accompanying website: www.gameanim.com/book

This textbook presents a systematic methodology for program development by using design recipes, i.e. a series of steps, each with a specific outcome, that takes a problem solver from a problem statement to a working and tested programmed solution. It introduces the reader to generative recursion, heuristic searching, accumulative recursion, tail recursion, iteration, mutation, loops, program correctness, and vectors. It uses video game development to make the content fun while at the same time teaching problem-solving techniques. The book is divided into four parts. Part I presents introductory material on basic problem solving and program design. It starts by reviewing the basic steps of a design recipe using structural recursion on a list. It then proceeds to review code refactoring-a common technique used to refine programs when a better or more elegant way is found to solve a problem-and introduces the reader to randomness. Next, Part II explores a new type of recursion called generative recursion. It navigates the reader through examples involving fractal image generation, efficient sorting, and efficient searching techniques such as binary, depth-first, and breadth-first search. Part III then explores a new type of recursion called accumulative (or accumulator) recursion. Examples used include finding a path in a graph, improving insertion sorting, and list-folding operations. Finally, Part IV explores mutation. To aid the reader in properly sequencing mutations it presents Hoare Logic and program correctness. In addition, it introduces vectors, vector processing, in-place operations, and circular data. Throughout the whole book complexity analysis and empirical experimentation is used to evaluate solutions. This textbook targets undergraduates at all levels as well as graduate students wishing to learn about program design. It details advanced types of recursion, a disciplined approach to the use of mutation, and illustrates the design process by developing a video game exploiting iterative refinement.

This book teaches beginners and aspiring game developers how to develop 2D games with Unity. Thousands of commercial games have been built with Unity. The reader will learn the complete process of 2D game development, step by step. The theory behind each step is fully explained. This book contains numerous color illustrations and access to all source code and companion videos. Key Features: Fully detailed game projects from scratch. Beginners can do the steps and create games right away. No coding experience is necessary. Numerous examples take a raw beginner toward professional coding proficiency in C# and Unity. Includes a thorough introduction to Unity 2020, including 2D game development, prefabs, cameras, animation, character controllers, lighting, and sound. Includes a step-by-step introduction to Unity 2019.3. Extensive coverage of GIMP, Audacity, and MuseScore for the creation of 2D graphics, sound effects, and music. All required software is free to use for any purpose including commercial applications and games. Franz Lanzinger is the owner and chief game developer of Lanzinger Studio, an independent game development and music studio in Sunnyvale, California. He started his career in game programming in 1982 at Atari Games, Inc., where he designed and programmed the classic arcade game Crystal Castles. In 1989, he joined Tengen, where he was a programmer and designer for Ms. Pac-Man and Toobin' on the NES. He co-founded Bitmasters, where he designed and coded games including Rampart and Championship Pool for the NES and SNES, and NCAA Final Four Basketball for the SNES and Sega Genesis. In 1996, he founded Actual Entertainment, publisher and developer of the Gubble video game series. He has a B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame and attended graduate school in mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a former world record holder on Centipede and Burgertime. He is a professional author, game developer, accompanist, and piano teacher. He is currently working on remaking the original Gubble game in Unity and Blender.

This student-friendly book provides an accessible overview of the primary debates about the effects of video games. It expands on the original The Video Game Debate to address the new technologies that have emerged within the field of game studies over the last few years. Debates about the negative effects of video game play have been evident since their introduction in the 1970s, but the advent of online and mobile gaming has revived these concerns, reinvigorating old debates and generating brand new ones. The Video Game Debate 2 draws from the latest research findings from the top scholars of digital games research to address these concerns. The book explores key developments such as virtual and augmented reality, the use of micro-transactions, the integration of loot boxes, and the growth of mobile gaming and games for change (serious games). Furthermore, several new chapters explore contemporary debates around e-sports, gamification, sex and gender discrimination in games, and the use of games in therapy. This book offers students and scholars of games studies and digital media, as well as policymakers, the essential information they need to participate in the debate.

Welcome to Game Audio Programming: Principles and Practices! This book is the first of its kind: an entire book dedicated to the art of game audio programming. With over fifteen chapters written by some of the top game audio programmers and sound designers in the industry, this book contains more knowledge and wisdom about game audio programming than any other volume in history. One of the goals of this book is to raise the general level of game audio programming expertise, so it is written in a manner that is accessible to beginners, while still providing valuable content for more advanced game audio programmers. Each chapter contains techniques that the authors have used in shipping games, with plenty of code examples and diagrams. There are chapters on the fundamentals of audio representation and perception; advanced usage of several different audio middleware platforms (Audiokinetic Wwise, CRI ADX2, and FMOD Studio); advanced topics including Open Sound Control, Vector-Based Amplitude Panning, and Dynamic Game Data; and more! Whether you're an audio programmer looking for new techniques, an up-and-coming game developer looking for an area to focus on, or just the one who got saddled with the audio code, this book has something for you. Cutting-edge advanced game audio programming concepts, with examples from real games and audio engines Includes perspectives of both audio programmers and sound designers on working and communicating together Coverage not just on game audio engine design, but also on implementing audio tools and working with sound designers providing a comprehensive perspective on being an audio programmer

Since 1980, in-the-know computer gamers have been enthralled by the unpredictable, random, and incredibly deep gameplay of Rogue and those games inspired by it, known to fans as "roguelikes." For decades, this venerable genre was off the radar of most players and developers for a variety of reasons: deceptively simple graphics (often just text characters), high difficulty, and their demand that a player brings more of themselves to the game than your typical AAA title asks. This book covers many of the most prominent titles and explains in great detail what makes them interesting, the ways to get started playing them, the history of the genre, and more. It includes interviews, playthroughs, and hundreds of screenshots. It is a labor of love: if even a fraction of the author's enthusiasm for these games gets through these pages to you, then you will enjoy it a great deal. Key Features: Playing tips and strategy for newcomers to the genre Core roguelikes Rogue, Angband, NetHack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, ADOM, and Brogue The "lost roguelikes" Super Rogue and XRogue, and the early RPG dnd for PLATO systems The Japanese console roguelikes Taloon's Mystery Dungeon and Shiren the Wanderer Lesser-known but extremely interesting games like Larn, DoomRL, HyperRogue, Incursion, and Dungeon Hack "Rogue-ish" games that blur the edges of the genre, including Spelunky, HyperRogue, ToeJam & Earl, Defense of the Oasis, Out There, and Zelda Randomizer Interviews with such developers as Keith Burgun (100 Rogues and Auro), Rodain Joubert (Desktop Dungeons), Josh Ge (Cogmind), Dr. Thomas Biskup (ADOM), and Robin Bandy (devnull public NetHack tournament) An interview regarding Strange Adventures in Infinite Space Design issues of interest to developers and enthusiasts Author Bio: John Harris has bumped around the Internet for more than 20 years. In addition to writing the columns @Play and Pixel Journeys for GameSetWatch and developer interviews for Gamasutra, he has spoken at Roguelike Celebration. John Harris has a MA in English Literature from Georgia Southern University.

This innovative text bridges media theory, psychology, and interpersonal communication by describing how our relationships with media emulate the relationships we develop with friends and romantic partners through their ability to replicate intimacy, regularity, and reciprocity. In research-rich, conversational chapters, the author applies psychological principles to understand how nine influential media technologies-theatrical film, recorded music, consumer market cameras, radio, network and cable television, tape cassettes, video gaming, and dial-up internet service providers-irreversibly changed the communication environment, culture, and psychological expectations that we then apply to future media technologies. With special attention to mediums absent from the traditional literature, including recorded music, cable television, and magnetic tape, this book encourages readers to critically reflect on their own past relationships with media and consider the present environment and the future of media given their own personal habits. 20th Century Media and the American Psyche is ideal for media studies, communication, and psychology students, scholars, and industry professionals, as well as anyone interested in a greater understanding of the psychological significance of media technology, usage, and adoption across the past 150 years.

This tutorial-based book allows readers to create a first-person game from start to finish using industry-standard (and free to student) tools of Unity, Substance Painter, and Maya. The first half of the book lays out the basics of using Maya and Substance Painter to create game-ready assets. This includes polygonal modeling, UV layout, and custom texture painting. The book then covers rigging and animation solutions to create assets to be placed in the game, including animated first-person assets and motion-captured NPC animations. Finally, readers can put it all together and build interactivity that allows the player to create a finished game using the assets built and animated earlier in the book. * Written by industry professionals with real-world experience in building assets and games * Build a complete game from start to finish * Learn what the pros use: construct all assets using the tools used at game studios across the world * All software used are free to students * When complete, students will have a playable version of an FPS game Jingtian Li is a graduate of China's Central Academy of Fine Arts and New York's School of Visual Arts, where he earned an MFA in Computer Art. He currently is an Assistant Professor of 3D Animation & Game Design at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Adam Watkins is a 20-year veteran of 3D education. He holds an MFA in 3D Animation and a BFA in Theatre Arts from Utah State University. He currently is the Coordinator and Professor of the 3D Animation & Game Department at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Kassandra Arevalo is an instructor of 3D Animation & Game Design at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. She previously worked as an animator at Immersed Games. Matt Tovar is an industry veteran animator. He has worked at Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward, and Sony Interactive on such games as The Last of Us, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and most recently Marvel's Avengers with Crystal Dynamics. He is an Assistant Professor of 3D Animation at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas.

This book offers critical perspectives on the digital 'iconic', exploring how the notion of the iconic is re-appropriated and re-made online, and the consequences for humanity and society. Examining cross-cultural case studies of iconic images in digital spaces, the author offers original and critical analyses, theories and perspectives on the notion of the 'iconic', and on its movement, re-appropriation and meaning making on digital platforms. A carefully curated selection of case studies illustrates topics such as phantom memory; martyrdom; denigration and pornographic recoding; digital games as simulacra; and memes as 'artification'. Situating the notion of the iconic firmly within contemporary cultures, the author takes a thematic approach to investigate the iconic as an unstable and unfinished phenomenon online as it travels through platforms temporally and spatially. The book will be an important resource for academics and students in the areas of media and communications, digital culture, cultural studies, visual communication, visual culture, journalism studies and digital humanities.

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This book looks closely at the endings of narrative digital games, examining their ways of concluding the processes of both storytelling and play in order to gain insight into what endings are and how we identify them in different media. While narrative digital games share many representational strategies for signalling their upcoming end with more traditional narrative media - such as novels or movies - they also show many forms of endings that often radically differ from our conventional understanding of conclusion and closure. From vast game worlds that remain open for play after a story's finale, to multiple endings that are often hailed as a means for players to create their own stories, to the potentially tragic endings of failure and "game over", digital games question the traditional singularity and finality of endings. Using a broad range of examples, this book delves deeply into these and other forms and their functions, both to reveal the closural specificities of the ludonarrative hybrid that digital games are, as well as to find the core elements that characterise endings in any medium. It examines how endings make themselves known to players and raises the question of how well-established closural conventions blend with play and a player's effort to achieve a goal. As an interdisciplinary study that draws on game studies as much as on transmedial narratology, Forms and Functions of Endings in Narrative Digital Games is suited for scholars and students of digital games as well as for narratologists yet to become familiar with this medium.

Computer simulation is an effective and popular universal tool that can be applied to almost all disciplines. Requiring only basic knowledge of programming, mathematics, and probability theory, Computer Simulation: A Foundational Approach Using Python takes a hands-on approach to programming to introduce the fundamentals of computer simulation. The main target of the book is computer science and engineering students who are interested mainly in directly applying the techniques to their research problems. The book will be of great interest to senior undergraduate and starting graduate students in the fields of computer science and engineering and industrial engineering.

Handbook of Robust Low-Rank and Sparse Matrix Decomposition: Applications in Image and Video Processing shows you how robust subspace learning and tracking by decomposition into low-rank and sparse matrices provide a suitable framework for computer vision applications. Incorporating both existing and new ideas, the book conveniently gives you one-stop access to a number of different decompositions, algorithms, implementations, and benchmarking techniques. Divided into five parts, the book begins with an overall introduction to robust principal component analysis (PCA) via decomposition into low-rank and sparse matrices. The second part addresses robust matrix factorization/completion problems while the third part focuses on robust online subspace estimation, learning, and tracking. Covering applications in image and video processing, the fourth part discusses image analysis, image denoising, motion saliency detection, video coding, key frame extraction, and hyperspectral video processing. The final part presents resources and applications in background/foreground separation for video surveillance. With contributions from leading teams around the world, this handbook provides a complete overview of the concepts, theories, algorithms, and applications related to robust low-rank and sparse matrix decompositions. It is designed for researchers, developers, and graduate students in computer vision, image and video processing, real-time architecture, machine learning, and data mining.

Nature-Inspired Computing: Physics and Chemistry-Based Algorithms provides a comprehensive introduction to the methodologies and algorithms in nature-inspired computing, with an emphasis on applications to real-life engineering problems. The research interest for Nature-inspired Computing has grown considerably exploring different phenomena observed in nature and basic principles of physics, chemistry, and biology. The discipline has reached a mature stage and the field has been well-established. This endeavour is another attempt at investigation into various computational schemes inspired from nature, which are presented in this book with the development of a suitable framework and industrial applications. Designed for senior undergraduates, postgraduates, research students, and professionals, the book is written at a comprehensible level for students who have some basic knowledge of calculus and differential equations, and some exposure to optimization theory. Due to the focus on search and optimization, the book is also appropriate for electrical, control, civil, industrial and manufacturing engineering, business, and economics students, as well as those in computer and information sciences. With the mathematical and programming references and applications in each chapter, the book is self-contained, and can also serve as a reference for researchers and scientists in the fields of system science, natural computing, and optimization.

This collection of essays is devoted to the philosophical examination of the aesthetics of videogames. Videogames represent one of the most significant developments in the modern popular arts, and it is a topic that is attracting much attention among philosophers of art and aestheticians. As a burgeoning medium of artistic expression, videogames raise entirely new aesthetic concerns, particularly concerning their ontology, interactivity, and aesthetic value. The essays in this volume address a number of pressing theoretical issues related to these areas, including but not limited to: the nature of performance and identity in videogames; their status as an interactive form of art; the ethical problems raised by violence in videogames; and the representation of women in videogames and the gaming community. The Aesthetics of Videogames is an important contribution to analytic aesthetics that deals with an important and growing art form.

Advances in sequencing technology have allowed scientists to study the human genome in greater depth and on a larger scale than ever before - as many as hundreds of millions of short reads in the course of a few days. But what are the best ways to deal with this flood of data? Algorithms for Next-Generation Sequencing is an invaluable tool for students and researchers in bioinformatics and computational biology, biologists seeking to process and manage the data generated by next-generation sequencing, and as a textbook or a self-study resource. In addition to offering an in-depth description of the algorithms for processing sequencing data, it also presents useful case studies describing the applications of this technology.

This innovative text bridges media theory, psychology, and interpersonal communication by describing how our relationships with media emulate the relationships we develop with friends and romantic partners through their ability to replicate intimacy, regularity, and reciprocity. In research-rich, conversational chapters, the author applies psychological principles to understand how nine influential media technologies-theatrical film, recorded music, consumer market cameras, radio, network and cable television, tape cassettes, video gaming, and dial-up internet service providers-irreversibly changed the communication environment, culture, and psychological expectations that we then apply to future media technologies. With special attention to mediums absent from the traditional literature, including recorded music, cable television, and magnetic tape, this book encourages readers to critically reflect on their own past relationships with media and consider the present environment and the future of media given their own personal habits. 20th Century Media and the American Psyche is ideal for media studies, communication, and psychology students, scholars, and industry professionals, as well as anyone interested in a greater understanding of the psychological significance of media technology, usage, and adoption across the past 150 years.

Since its official release in 2011, Minecraft has sold nearly 50 million copies across all gaming platforms. The premise of Minecraft is simple: destroy, collect, build and interact in a world made entirely of colored cubes. Unlike Lego blocks or other construction toys, Minecraft's digital play space allows for virtually limitless creation without the cost and limitations of physical building materials. Creator Mojang's generous policies toward modification and other uses of their intellectual property also engender enthusiasm and creativity from fans who make music, art and animation inspired by the software. The first essays in this collection cover Minecraft's origins, describing its relationship to other video games and toys and examining the learning models implicit in its design. Later essays describe and theorize the various ways players interact with the software, which simultaneously presents them with structural constraints and limitless possibility.

Big Data of Complex Networks presents and explains the methods from the study of big data that can be used in analysing massive structural data sets, including both very large networks and sets of graphs. As well as applying statistical analysis techniques like sampling and bootstrapping in an interdisciplinary manner to produce novel techniques for analyzing massive amounts of data, this book also explores the possibilities offered by the special aspects such as computer memory in investigating large sets of complex networks. Intended for computer scientists, statisticians and mathematicians interested in the big data and networks, Big Data of Complex Networks is also a valuable tool for researchers in the fields of visualization, data analysis, computer vision and bioinformatics. Key features: Provides a complete discussion of both the hardware and software used to organize big data Describes a wide range of useful applications for managing big data and resultant data sets Maintains a firm focus on massive data and large networks Unveils innovative techniques to help readers handle big data Matthias Dehmer received his PhD in computer science from the Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany. Currently, he is Professor at UMIT - The Health and Life Sciences University, Austria, and the Universitat der Bundeswehr Munchen. His research interests are in graph theory, data science, complex networks, complexity, statistics and information theory. Frank Emmert-Streib received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Bremen, and is currently Associate professor at Tampere University of Technology, Finland. His research interests are in the field of computational biology, machine learning and network medicine. Stefan Pickl holds a PhD in mathematics from the Darmstadt University of Technology, and is currently a Professor at Bundeswehr Universitat Munchen. His research interests are in operations research, systems biology, graph theory and discrete optimization. Andreas Holzinger received his PhD in cognitive science from Graz University and his habilitation (second PhD) in computer science from Graz University of Technology. He is head of the Holzinger Group HCI-KDD at the Medical University Graz and Visiting Professor for Machine Learning in Health Informatics Vienna University of Technology.

Evolutionary Psychology and Digital Games: Digital Hunter-Gatherers is the first edited volume that systematically applies evolutionary psychology to the study of the use and effects of digital games. The book is divided into four parts: Theories and Methods Emotion and Morality Social Interaction Learning and Motivation These topics reflect the main areas of digital games research as well as some of the basic categories of psychological research. The book is meant as a resource for researchers and graduate students in psychology, anthropology, media studies and communication as well as video game designers who are interested in learning more about the evolutionary roots of player behaviors and experiences.

Practical Guidance on the Efficient Development of High-Quality Software Introduction to Software Engineering, Second Edition equips students with the fundamentals to prepare them for satisfying careers as software engineers regardless of future changes in the field, even if the changes are unpredictable or disruptive in nature. Retaining the same organization as its predecessor, this second edition adds considerable material on open source and agile development models. The text helps students understand software development techniques and processes at a reasonably sophisticated level. Students acquire practical experience through team software projects. Throughout much of the book, a relatively large project is used to teach about the requirements, design, and coding of software. In addition, a continuing case study of an agile software development project offers a complete picture of how a successful agile project can work. The book covers each major phase of the software development life cycle, from developing software requirements to software maintenance. It also discusses project management and explains how to read software engineering literature. Three appendices describe software patents, command-line arguments, and flowcharts.