The objective of this study was to test the effect of individual differences on appeal and use of video games. Participants were 299 adolescent boys from lower and higher secondary schools in the Netherlands and Belgium. In general, boys were most attracted to violent video games. Boys that scored higher in trait aggressiveness and lower in empathy were especially attracted to violent games and...

In order to generate complete games through evolution we need generic and reliable evaluation functions for games. It has been suggested that game quality could be characterised through playing a game with different controllers and comparing their performance. This paper explores that idea through investigating the relative performance of different general game-playing algorithms. Seven game-pl...

Background/Context There are recent trends of bringing highly defined, teacher-directed pedagogies into early-childhood contexts in Australia, the United States. and other Western contexts. While justification for these moves is often improvement outcomes young children, they ignore large body research that attests to social, emotional, academic benefits children having time play experience edu...

What happens when you play Chess and Tic-Tac-Toe at the same time? What about Mancala, Othello and Checkers? Playing multiple games together as a Combined Game introduces an entirely new, infinite set of games to analyze and play. We use traditional Game Theory tools to examine combined pairs of small, well-solved games, yielding information on the optimal strategies for playing each combined g...

Dance games are one of the most popular types of bodycontrolled console games, making them ideal candidates for initiating exertion in players who do not exercise regularly. However, in order to become effective tools for consistent cardiovascular exercise, dance games need to maintain interest over a long time span. One solution that could help with long-term engagement is the addition of more...