This thesis proposes two different frameworks in the field of Games in
Research.
Contribution 1
Architectural design decisions stand to benefit by accounting for the
presence and activities of human crowds that inhabit these spaces.
Computational methods for simulating synthetic crowds provide a cost
effective means of exploring and analyzing the design search space.
However, crowd-aware architectural design is a complex combinatorial
decision process, where small changes in the design solution may affect
crowds and their flow patterns in unexpected and potentially unintuitive
ways. Existing solutions rely on expert intuition or automation, but are
unable to account for many contradicting, and often subjective properties
while optimizing designs. A single solution approach may also miss
potential design solutions that achieve the desired objective specifications,
while meeting subjective criteria. We propose a means of combining these
methods in a gamified framework. Using our system, ``players" (novice
users or experts) can rapidly iterate on their designs while soliciting
feedback from computer simulations of crowd movement, as well as the
designs of previous players. Our approach affords a new way of thinking of
the solution space in that it inherently supports competitive co-design and
crowd sourced solutions. We evaluate our framework through a user study
and demonstrate the potential of crowd-aware co-design of environments
using simulation guided multiplayer games.
Contribution 2
Games in research is a modern trend in the world of research.
Games are being used to simulate, monitor and test occurrences in the real
world. However, Game development knowledge is the initial requirement to
use games in research either in any non-technical or technical field.
Besides, availability of existing games suited to research is very meager.
Also, attracting and reaching out to enough users for proper user study is a
difficult task. We propose a connected real-time website and
desktop-based game application. The website is themed as a social
network which will help connect researchers with gamers and keep them
updated. Our application also allows a researcher to choose and modify a
few configuration parameters to change the game according to his
requirement as well as dedicated ownership to the collected data. The
game application provides a robust Massive Multiple Online game
environment for a smooth and exciting gaming experience to involve
gamers to contribute to research.