You will learn to develop games for specific target groups. The demand for interactive games is increasing; games which immerse the players and provide good experiences. There are now markets for many kinds of games such as casual, educational, serious, and platform-dependent games (e.g. for smartphones), etc. In order for you to be able to navigate these dynamic games’ markets, you need both theoretical and practical knowledge on programming, artificial intelligence (AI), game physics, data mining, interactivity, user testing, narratives, cognition, and digital culture. Game development is a truly multidisciplinary topic.

Project examples from the games specialisation

Perceived camera velocity in racing games

In 2015, two 1st semester students decided to follow up on their 5th semester project by systematically investigating how various camera attributes – in particular, field of view, altitude, and motion blur – influence the perceived camera velocity in 3D racing games. They implemented a test scene, which allowed them to control these camera attributes and devised a test procedure to measure the perceived camera velocity by asking test participants to match the velocity of two cameras with different attributes. The results confirmed previously published results (e.g., a large field of view increases the perceived velocity), but they also revealed new insights (e.g., extreme motion blur decreases the perceived velocity). A few months after their examination, the students presented their results at the 5th EAI International Conference: ArtsIT, Interactivity & Game Creation.

Game feel

In 2015, an 2nd semester student decided to conduct an experiment based on the concept of “game feel” as defined by the game designer and book author Steve Swink, i.e., the sensation of control in video games. The student developed a web-based platform game with variable acceleration and deceleration times of the player’s avatar. The test participants played with various settings for these times and had to answer for each setting how the game felt. There were several interesting results; for example, the test participants’ idea of “stiff” game feel was very different from what Steve Swink considers “stiff.” This example shows that the vocabulary to describe game feel has to be chosen very carefully to avoid misunderstandings. A few months after the semester, the student published the results of the project at the Academic Mindtrek Conference 2015.

Internship led to job offer

In 2015, a 3rd semester student decided to work at a software company in Aarhus on several professional software projects. The projects included interactive museum installations, an educational web game, an interactive product presentation in virtual reality, etc. These projects allowed the student to apply theories and skills from the Medialogy education to large projects in a professional context with external clients. The student learned several important lessons, e.g., how to approach a large project as a newcomer and how important it is to write maintainable code. At the end of the successful internship, the company encouraged the student to join them after his graduation.

Master's thesis example: tangible widgets rather than finger touch

In 2015, three 4th semester students decided to follow-up on their 8th semester project by proving that it is possible to develop a multiplayer tablet game that players prefer to control with tangible widgets instead of finger touch. In this context, a tangible widget is a physical object that rests on several conductive points that a touch surface recognizes as touch points. The students designed the game around the idea of “hovering” the tangible widgets above the touch surface of the tablet and, therefore, called the game “Hover Wars.” Another version of the game used finger touch instead of the tangible widgets where the best touch gesture for hovering was determined by an informal user test. The final test compared the two versions of the game and showed that players indeed preferred to control the game with tangible widgets. The students published their results as part of the Student Game Design Competition at the CHI PLAY 2015 conference.

The specialisation in Interaction focuses on designing and implementing novel user interfaces (UI) such as natural, multimodal, assistive, robot, physical, haptic or wearable user interfaces in different contexts. For example, you could be working on allowing interactions with mobile phones based on body language, recognising and modelling interactions with tangible and intangible artifacts such as robots, drones, museum installations and virtual avatars – augmenting traditional setups with mouse, keyboard, joystick and screens. Designing interactions is based on understanding and development of how input should result in feedback to the user.

Project examples from the Interaction specialisation 

Project led to scientific article

In 2015, a group of 1st semester students examined the effectiveness of different navigation cues on wayfinding and object localization in virtual environments based on principles and theories related to navigation and wayfinding. Four conditions were examined: no aid, map, minimap and all aid, by focusing on the participants’ ability to navigate and localise items in the fastest time possible. The results showed that having no aid caused the participants to get disoriented and unable to complete the task; hence, a statistical significant difference was found between the no aid and all aid conditions with respect to the time taken, items collected and distance walked. However, no statistically significant difference was found between the map, minimap and all aid conditions; although, observations indicate that the all aid condition is superior. To this end, it was observed that having a map to study before vs. having a minimap in-game led to a higher ability to recall the route taken in-game. Due to a successful project, an article about the work has been submitted for publication to the “Transactions on Creative Technologies.”

Virtual system for rehabilitation of brain-damaged patients

In 2016, an 2nd semester project addressed the design and development of a Virtual Reality Training System (VRTS) and studied its impact on Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) patients who were part of a rehabilitation program. The focus of the rehabilitation process is on motor function in upper extremities and cognition. The study was conducted on patients and therapists from the NeuroRehab rehabilitation facility at Sydvestjysk Sygehus, Grindsted, Denmark. The setup consisted of a hand tracking device (Leap Motion Controller), a head-mounted display (Oculus Rift Development Kit 2), a desktop computer and a custom created 3D task simulator game. The game simulated a virtual kitchen, which is a virtual replication of NeuroRehab’s physical kitchen made for training Activities of Daily Living (ADL). In the virtual kitchen, the patients can perform tasks from ADL, such as making coffee, arranging groceries, cutting and toasting bread, wiping a table, and creating a shopping list. The testing procedure was conducted over a period of four weeks requiring the patients and therapists to use the system for at least three times per week. To assess the usability of the system different methods were utilized: the System Usability Scale (SUS), rehabilitation guidelines, participatory design, and focus group meetings. The group of students are now looking into commercialization of the VRTS in collaboration with a company.

Company internship resulted in job upon graduation

In the fall of 2015, two 3rd semester students were in an internship at Trifork A/S as software developers working on a large project involving a team of nine developers. The project, entitled EV3 Programmer, is a graphical environment for the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, which is a subset of the desktop application LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Home Edition. The two students worked on the design and development of an Android version that matched the visuals and behavior of the application. Some of the most important learning outcomes were: understanding the steps required to make a finished, customer ready product; understanding the testing process a project must undergo before shipment; applying Agile methods within a large team; and learn advanced software development techniques. Due to a very successful internship, both students had a job as software developers at Trifork A/S waiting for them when they graduated in the summer of 2016.

Master's thesis example: Telehealth system for COPD-patients

In 2016, a group of two 4th semester students worked on a telehealth system for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The effects on user needs and concerns when healthcare provider continuously monitor and patients provide subjective and objective data over time were poorly understood in the literature. Personal Informatics literature informed the analysis of interviews with six COPD patients to improve understanding of user needs and concerns in the use of a state of the art telehealth solution. While patients generally felt taken care of, the system in many ways did not meet their needs, e.g. due to difficulties assessing reliable subjective measures and no support on reflection and follow-up action. Interviews, workbooks and design feedback sessions with patients served as the foundation for redesigning the system to support data collection and reflection. Findings from a two week trial involving five COPD patients showed that the system supported one of two types of patients in becoming more informed and aware about their health status, leading to increased empowerment in their everyday life and motivation to set goals and improve their condition.

Computer graphics relies on the human visual perception and cognition to convey computer-generated visual information. Of particular interest are the possibilities and limitations of technology and design. Computer graphics involves complex and multi-disciplinary tasks. For instance, for a long time, the film industry has used computer graphics mixed with real imagery. The complexity of generating the necessary geometry, material and lighting models for this has given rise to a range of techniques such as image-based modelling and lighting, etc. In order to be successful in computer graphics, you must master several of these techniques. You can work with e.g. animation, 3D graphics and motion capture, reproduction, manipulation, augmented and virtual reality, computer vision and visualisation of information, etc.

Project examples from the Computer Graphics specialisation

Body-ownership of wings in virtual reality

In the fall of 2015, a group of four 1st semester students decided to investigate how people can achieve agency and body-ownership of virtual wings in virtual reality. Using a head-mounted display and motion tracking of the head, upper arms, and torso, test participants were able to control their avatar in virtual reality. Large virtual mirrors in the virtual environment allowed the participants to see the virtual wings on the backs of their avatars without turning their heads. The test participants compared three different scenarios: one was without motor control over the virtual wings; one was with motor control over the wings; and one was with motor control and tactile feedback from vibrators on the backs of the test participants. The results showed that motor control was necessary for establishing agency and body-ownership of the wings and that the additional vibrotactile feedback significantly enhanced the agency and body-ownership of the wings. A few months after the exam, the students presented their results at the Virtual Reality International Conference 2016.

Augmented reality for self-service guides in a museum

In the spring of 2016, a group of three 2nd semester students tried to find out how museums’ self-service guides could benefit from augmented reality (AR) technologies. Specifically, they collaborated with the architectural museum Utzon Center in Aalborg and developed two AR self-service guides for two exhibits at Utzon Center. One of the AR guides used a smartphone to display additional information about the exhibits on top of the camera view. The second AR guide used smart glasses (Epson Moverio BT-200) to display additional information directly in the field of view of the user. The user test not only revealed advantages and disadvantages of both guides, but it also started a discussion at Utzon Center about using AR technologies in future self-service guides for smartphones.

Programming of games in real time

In the fall of 2015, several 3rd semester students participated for one semester in the education offered by the National Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment (DADIU). Together with students from various Danish universities and academies, they formed teams and developed games for Android tablets. In particular, one student in the Computer Graphics specialization signed up as “Programmer” in the DADIU education and was, therefore, responsible for the graphics programming. Since the graphics performance of tablets is a lot worse than the graphics performance of desktop computers, he had to work hard on optimizations to make sure that the game is running in real time. Furthermore, he had to work with the art director and CG artists on the team (who lacked his technical knowledge) to find ways to bring their visions to life in spite of the limitations of the hardware. His team called their game “Game Changer” and published it as a free app on the Google Play store.

Master's thesis example: New rendering technique for light field displays

In 2016, two 4th semester students decided to develop a new rendering technique for light field displays, which are one of the very few display technologies for animated, computer-generated holograms, i.e., these displays provide even more depth cues and are more comfortable to look at than 3D television. Light field displays usually require several dozens of computer-generated images from slightly different viewpoints to show a single frame of an animated hologram. Unfortunately, computing that many images in real time requires a lot of graphics performance. To reduce the required performance, the students developed an algorithm that requires only four images from four different viewpoints. From the pixels of these images, the algorithm can compute the remaining images without processing any other data that would usually be necessary to render the images. The students implemented their algorithm for graphics processing units (GPUs) and evaluated not only the performance of the algorithm but also the visual quality of the images as perceived by human users. The results showed that the visual quality is sufficient but the performance requires further optimizations. Maybe more importantly, their algorithm inspired a follow-up project about how to improve the rendering of computer-generated 360 degree panoramas in head-mounted displays.