Game Analysis Using the Game Ontology - CMPS 80K

Overview

The Game Ontology Project is a framework for describing, analyzing, and studying games. It has a hierarchical list of concepts from computer games, to date mostly focused on an analysis of the components of game rules. The goal of the Game Ontology Project is to identify the most important structural elements of games, and the relationships between them. This ontology can then be used to explore, decompose, and understand core game elements and their interactions. A more detailed description of the Game Ontology project can be found in the paper, Towards an Ontological Language for Game Analysis.

The game ontology itself is organized as a Wiki, a series of web pages that can be modified by anyone with an account on the Game Ontology Project website, www.gameontology.org. Just as other Wiki sites develop a community of people interested in contributing content, the hope for the Game Ontology wiki is to create a community of people who wish to work collaboratively to expand the ontology, and thereby contribute to an improved understanding of game design elements. Each entry in the ontology has a description of the element, as well as a list of strong an weak examples. A strong example is one that very clearly demonstrates the specific concept (for example, Kong in the game Donkey Kong is a strong example of a Boss Challenge). A weak example is one that demonstrates the concept, but perhaps not as clearly or completely as a strong example.

Assignment

For the game ontology analysis assignments in CMPS 80K, you are required to contribute to this Wiki, as follows:

Pick two games that you know well. For each of those games do the following:

1. Pick an element in the game ontology, with at least one being listed under Rules, for which your game is a strong example. Modify the game ontology element to add your game as a strong example. Each strong example includes the name of the game, and a description of why the game is a good example, including a description of the specific game elements that form the strong example.
2. Pick an element in the game ontology, with at least one being listed under Rules, for which your game is a weak example. As above, modify the ontology element to add your game as a weak example.

To modify a game ontology entry, you must be logged in to the game ontology site, and then must click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the page. Before you can log into the site, you will need to create an account on the Game Ontology website. From the main page, click on "Create an account or log in" in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Please use the same username that you used for the Gamelog assignments. This will allow us to connect your edits with you as a person (and hence assign a grade correctly). If you are unable to use the same login name (the Game Ontology site has a more restrictive set of characters it allows in usernames than the Gamelog site), please send Jose Zagal an email with your name to username mapping. Jose can be reached at jp@cc.gatech.edu. Please also use your "@ucsc.edu\" email address, as this will also help us to find you.

Some existing strong and weak examples can be found in the following entries:

• To Own
• Level
• Boss Challenge

Additionally, you may optionally do the following:

• Pick an example that someone else has written for a game you are familiar with. Is there anything you would add/change in that example? Edit that example by making changes you feel are appropriate.
• Is the game ontology missing an element from a game you are familiar with? If so, add a new element to the game ontology. The Game Ontology Project site keeps track of previous versions of the site, so feel free to make modifications. Undesirable changes can always be backed out.

Grading

Grading for this assignment will focus on whether you have added both 2 strong examples and 2 weak examples to the existing game ontology. It is often the case that disagreements about examples lead to refinement of the ontology itself, so our grading will not focus on the correctness of examples. Full credit is received for writing all 4 examples (2 strong and 2 weak). Students lose 25% for each missing example. Extra credit may be awarded for participation that goes above and beyond the assignment requirements, and may include meaningful contributions to existing entries, editing and refining existing entries, making new entries, or participating in discussions.