Bachelor of Science (BS), Ohio University, 2010, Media Arts and Studies

Due to their unique capability to be altered by those experiencing them, games have the potential to tell a more immersive story and evoke a stronger emotional response than traditional entertainment media. Moreover, it is in the nature of open world games to facilitate the most personal and immersive gameplay and narrative experience. Admittedly, sacrifices have to be made on both sides in order for the best match of gameplay and narrative to be found. By studying the shortcomings of other sandbox games, and carefully balancing modular developer controlled content with player freedom, or at least the appearance of player freedom, this potential can be attained.

Committee: Beth Novak (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Wright State University, 2022, Computer Science and Engineering PhD

Inadequate professional training and practices related to health care may result in severe complications to care experiences and outcomes. Moreover, healthcare professionals are as susceptible to the possibility of implicit biases as any other group. Importantly, the health care training is critical and challenging as minor prejudicial beliefs have an adverse influence or serious consequences on patients' health outcomes. Thus, facilitating serious role-playing virtual care practices along with raising awareness of healthcare professionals about the enduring impact of implicit/explicit biases and Social Determinants of Health (SDH) on health outcomes assist to advance the patient-provider relation, care experiences (e.g., healthcare experience and patient care experience), and promote health equity. In addition, employing the “learning by doing” approach for health care practices directly in real-life is less preferred wherein high-risk care is essential. Thus, there is a high scope and demand for the utilization of alternative ways which can facilitate a self-driven and self-motivational digital experiential learning approach with the integration of innovative computer technology that encourages learners to acquire professional development skills. The primary focus of this research is to deliver Computer-Supported Experiential Learning (CSEL) and Computer-Supported Expert-Guided Experiential Learning (CSEGEL) approaches to deliver professional development skills (e.g., healthcare skills). Specifically, this research and development deliver CSEL and CSEGEL approaches-based serious role-playing games or mobile applications as digital experiential learning tools by integrating first-person virtual role-playing scenarios to enhance healthcare skills (e.g., cultural humility, professional communication, awareness of the enduring impact of both social determinants of health and implicit/explicit biases on health outcomes, and compassionate and empathetic attitude) of (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Thomas Wischgoll Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Yong Pei Ph.D. (Committee Member); Michael L. Raymer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Paul J. Hershberger Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science; Education; Educational Software; Health; Health Care; Higher Education; Information Technology; Public Health; Public Health Education; Special Education; Systems Design

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2022, Computer Science

Promoting awareness of social determinants of health (SDoH) among healthcare providers is important to improve the patient care experience and outcome as it helps providers understand their patients in a better way which can facilitate more efficient and effective communication about health conditions. Healthcare professionals are typically educated about SDoH through lectures, questionaries, or role-play-based approaches; but in today's world, it is becoming increasingly possible to leverage modern technology to create more impactful and accessible tools for SDoH education. Wright LIFE (Lifelike Immersion for Equity) is a simulation-based training tool especially created for this purpose. It is a mobile app that would be available on both Google Play and Apple Store for easy access to the providers. This highly realistic, interactive, and captivating app is essential for creating mindfulness about SDoH and generating long-lasting compassion and empathy in health care workers for their real patients and helping them to build a good clinician-patient relationship. An important aspect of this simulation is the realism of the characters and their behavior. This thesis specifically focuses on the strategy and experience of designing and developing realistic human character models and animations so that the players connect naturally and deeply with the virtual characters. This contributes to the generation of a greater level of empathy in the providers and decreases the level of biases. In addition to its contribution to creating efficient design methodologies, this effort also resulted in a portfolio of high-quality, low-memory multi-modal avatars resembling diverse people of various ethnicities, ages, body types, and gender.

Committee: Yong Pei Ph.D. (Advisor); Paul J. Hershberger Ph.D. (Committee Member); Thomas Wischgoll Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science; Design; Educational Software; Health Care; Information Technology; Systems Design

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of the Arts / School of Music, Hugh A. Glauser

Part I of this dissertation is a large-scale composition for orchestra and mixed choir entitled The Forgotten Child of Zeal. This is a programmatic work inspired by the classic 1995 role-playing game Chrono Trigger. The piece chronicles the story of an enigmatic young boy named Janus, who possesses innate magical powers, and his terrifying transformation into Magus, the dark sorcerer who terrorizes the world. The composition is organized into two contrasting movements, Premonition and Degeneration, which vary greatly in style, but are unified through a recurring 4-note “mystic motive.” There are also key quotations of Scriabin's Prometheus: The Poem of Fire and Prefatory Action within the piece, creating a bridge between the musical and programmatic content of all three works. The Forgotten Child of Zeal lasts approximately 22 minutes in performance. Part II of this dissertation is a theoretical paper that analyzes the pitch organization of the first movement of Alexander Nemtin's realization of Scriabin's unfinished masterpiece, Prefatory Action. Prefatory Action is a programmatic work written for orchestra, mixed choir, vocal soloists, and tastiera per luce (light keyboard), lasting roughly two and a half hours in length. The piece is divided into three massive movements entitled Universe, Humanity, and Transfiguration. Scriabin originally began writing Prefatory Action as a prelude to the Mysterium, which he envisioned as a divine musical ceremony that would transfigure the human race and end the universe. More than half a century later, Nemtin spent 26 years of his life completing the piece, using the literary text and musical sketches that Scriabin left behind as a guide. This paper is organized into six chapters – the first two chapters discuss the genesis of Prefatory Action and its subsequent realization, the middle two chapters explore Scriabin's post-tonal style, and the final two chapters offer an in-depth analysis of Universe.

Committee: Richard Devore Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Frank Wiley D.M.A. (Committee Co-Chair); Adam Roberts Ph.D. (Committee Member); Mary Hricko Ph.D. (Committee Member); Gustav Medicus Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Music

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2017, American Culture Studies

Forum-based role-playing games are a rich, yet barely researched subset of textbased digital gaming. They are a form of storytelling where narratives are created through acts of play by multiple people in an online space, combining collaboration and improvisation. This dissertation acts as a pilot study for exploring these games in their full complexity at the intersection of play, narrative, and fandom. Building on theories of interactivity, digital storytelling, and fan fiction studies, it highlights forum games' most unique features, and proves that they are is in no way liminal or secondary to more popular forms of role-playing. The research is based on data drawn from a large sample of forums of various genres. One hundred sites were explored through close textual analysis in order to outline their most common features. The second phase of the project consisted of nine months of participant observation on select forums, in order to gain a better understanding of how their rules and practices influence the emergent narratives. Participants from various sites contributed their own interpretations of forum gaming through a series of ethnographic interviews. This did not only allow agency to the observed communities to voice their thoughts and explain their practices, but also spoke directly to the key research question of why people are drawn to forum gaming. The main drawing power of forum games is their focus on creative, collaborative writing. Players interested in writing with others in a playful setting, and engaging with their favorite popular culture texts through composition, are drawn to these sites because of the narrative freedom they offer compared to other gaming platforms. In addition, their narratives born from play are consciously, intentionally, and enthusiastically multimodal. Multimodality offers a wide range of creative opportunities for telling stories in a digital space, and it also has connections to older, oral forms of (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kristine Blair Dr. (Committee Co-Chair); Radhika Gajjala Dr. (Committee Co-Chair); Jeremy Wallach Dr. (Committee Member); Lisa Gruenhagen Dr. (Other) Subjects: Composition

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2015, Popular Culture

This thesis is a critical examination of how players of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons use the concept of race, both in and out of the game. The study of race in role-playing games has been neglected, and this is a tragedy, because these games offer a unique space where the concept of race, often a difficult and uncomfortable topic of conversation, is questioned, criticized, and reshaped by the players. Role-playing games are spaces of encounter between the players and a cast of imaginary others, and this requires a degree of empathy on the part of the players that makes role-playing games a space of ideological change, as players are forced to consider the world from viewpoints both familiar and alien. The theoretical framework within combines a phenomenological analysis of roleplaying games that allows non-gamers to understand the practice and importance of these games with critical race theorists such as bell hooks, Paul Gilroy, and Patricia Hill Collins that defines what race is and how it affects all of us on a day-to-day basis. This thesis is also based on interviews with geographically diverse set of gamers who demonstrate the highly personal nature of gaming, and how race takes on a multitude of meanings both within the fictional game settings and around the gaming table.

Committee: Jeremy Wallach (Advisor); Esther Clinton (Committee Member); Marilyn Motz (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Ethnic Studies; Recreation

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Theatre

As technology is altering the world, electronic games are changing the face of popular entertainment, infecting spectators with a craving for spectacle and interaction. Games allow viewers to become active participants in dramatic narrative, transforming audience into performer. The game player is joining in a mediatized theatrical experience that reshapes notions of performance, theatre, and audience. The first theatre scholar to connect theatre, computers, and performance was Brenda Laurel. Speculating on the nature of user interaction with the computer, Laurel used the Aristotelian elements of dramatic structure to create a new poetics for interactive fantasy generated in the computer realm. Since Laurel's initial work in 1986, games have evolved beyond those of her pioneering study, creating a level of theatrical experience worthy of critical examination. The games from the late 1990's and into the current century show a level of complexity in design and narrative that compels a re-examination of what has been dismissed by many as escapist entertainment. The electronic game industry has adopted theatrical devices and principles to produce a live, non-repeatable, and new form of theatrical experience. My research draws from traditional theatre theorists (such as Aristotle, Bertolt Brecht, Adolphe Appia, and Augusto Boal), modern theatre and performance theorists (such as Brenda Laurel, Janet Murray, Gay McAuley, and Richard Schechner), and game design theorists (such as Steven Poole, Bob Bates, and Richard Rouse), to assess the electronic game as a new and distinctive form of performance. This dissertation will examine a variety of computer and video games from five perspectives: 1) space 2) plot structures, 3) character, 4) theme, and 5) interactivity, with a view to articulating the modes of kinship between games and live performance. In recognizing and articulating such relationships, both gaming and theatre benefit, strengthening the aesthetic and structural (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lesley Ferris (Advisor) Subjects: Theater