Current Situation in the JapaneseGame Research and Game
Development Pedagogical PracticeGame Education in Japan

Qestion• There are 764 University(82 National, 87 Public, 588 Private 7 others)• How many University have faculty named “Game” something?
– Game design, Game development, Game study, Game programing etc

More than 100?
51 – 99?
11 – 50?
Less than 10?

Background of Education in Japan• There are no “Faculty” includes name of “Game” in 4 year University– There are a few game “Section (2)” or “Course (less than 10) as University”– Many University uses framework of Informatics or Media Science (ie. TUT andKanagawa of Institute Technology)– Curriculum restriction to new faculty by government– Strict requirement for teaching staff of new faculty(Ph.D degree, number of Journals）• Many Universities and Researchers conduct Game Researches• Most Game Development Education has conducted in Vocational
School (almost 40 school) (Diploma or non-Diploma)

TUT Curriculum

TUT Game Education and Research Heat Map• Game Design, Programing, and Game Production Experience of IGDA
Curriculum Frame Work are focused
IGDA Curriculum Frame work
– Critical Game Studies– Games and Society– Game Design– Game Programming– Visual Design– Audio Design– Interactive Storytelling– Game Production– Business of Gamin

Utilize Education Framework of School of Media Science（カシカセカイ）

Magi@7

Game Jam Style Education• Lots of experience from total game production• Completion (Finishing), Evaluation and Discussion are Important• No completion (Finishing) = No progress

Journal Regarding Game Education• Construction trial of a practical education curriculum for gamedevelopment by industry-university collaboration in Japan– Computers and Graphics Volume 34 Issue 6, December, 2010, Pages 791-799– https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1891110• Effectiveness of Game Jam-based iterative program for gameproduction in Japan– Computers & Graphics Volume 61, December 2016, Pages 1-10– https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0097849316300863#!

There are link in my web

http://mkmlab.net

Result• First successful example for 4 year game development curriculum– Accepted as Gavernment fund many times– Students could create original game and awarded– Students could publish journal and awarded– The Curriculum and Education Material also awarded by IPSJ (the biggest ITsociety in Japan)– TUT became core venue of “Global Game Jam”

My Lab. Students Working in Industry• Games– Satoshi Ban, Producer of “Sony Interactive Entertainment”– Kenneth Chan, Game Designer of “From Software”– Takashi Matsuo, Technical Artist of “Cyber Connect 2”– Working most of game publisher and developer• Animation and Feature Film
– Yoshitaka Takeuchi, 3D Director of “Your Name.”– Toshio Yoshikawa, Production MGR of Studio Ghibli “Princess Kaguya”
Koji Mikami

11Game Design Contest for Younger Generation“Peracon”-A concept sheet contest at CEDEC-

Motivation• Students were able to experience game development– Some of the games are awarded and have reasonable quality• Students could learn advanced technique in Programing, Graphics,
Sound and so on– We can evaluate their works (Program code, Portfolio or Demo Reel, Music scoreand so on)• Game Design sometimes difficult to evaluate without products or
prototype– Recently game engine help it in some extent…

Game Design Advanced Education• There are very good publications for Game Design by Eric
Zimmerman, Keti Salen, Tracy Fulluton and so on• Students can learn theory and case study
We require more crazy game designer who haseccentric, cutting edge, quite new idea

There are very unique game designer in Japan(But they have quite deferent thought and busy)

We would like to Utilize tremendous talent in a shorttime to encourage cutting edge game design educationby collaboration with famous professional events

Our Method• Peracon (A concept sheet contest) at CEDEC– “Pera” means 1 sheet– Competition by 1 page (A4 or Letter size) concept sheet– CEDEC is one of the biggest game developers conference in Japan• Judge by many famous Japanese Game Designer and Director– To keep Diversity of evaluation• Archive all of the “Pera” and Comments from Judge– Students and young game designer can feel the thought of idea of skillful gamedesigners to individual game idea
– They also can learn “Diversity” (skillful game designers sometimes haveopposite idea)

CEDEC• Game Developers Conference hosted by CESA
– More than 200 sessions regarding Game Design, Engineering, Visual Arts,Sound, Production, Management, Business, Academic and so on– More than 7000 attendee for 3 days conference• CEDEC 2018 22-24, Aug. 2018 at Yokohama, Japan– Keynote by Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo)

List of Judge (Abstracted)
NameWorksMasanobu Endoh(Digra)"XEVIOUS", "The Tower of Druaga"(Chair of “Peracon”)
Takashi Hiraro"Star Wars: Racer Arcade"Toshiyuki Hoi"God Eater"
Yuji Horii"Dragon Quest"
Mizuki Hosoyamada"Puyo Puyo!! Quest"
Kazutoshi Iida
"Kyojin no Doshin"
Toru Iwatani(Digra)"Packman"
Kenji Kaido"ICO", "Shadow of the Colossus"
Yuichi Kanemori"KINGDOM HEARTS"
Koji Kenjo"Custom Robo Battle Revolution"
Masahide Kitoh"Dead Storm Pirates"
Yoshihiro Kishimoto"R.B.I. Baseball", "Baraduke"(Digra)Kazutaka Kodaka"Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony"
Hiroyuki Kotani"Patapon"
Yasumi Matsuno"Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together"

NameWorksHiroshi Matsuyama".hack//G.U."

Tetsuya Mizuguchi
Yuji Naka
Yasuhito Nagaoka
Junya Okura
Yosuke Shiokawa
Hiroyuki Sonobe
Masanobu Suzui
Goichi Suda
SWERY (Hidetaka Suehiro)
Takashi Tokita"Rez Infinite", "Chile of Eden""Sonic the Hedgehog""Gravity Days""Gravity Days""Fate/Grand Order""Best Keiba Derby Stallion""NES Remix""Killer7", "LOLLIPOP CHAINSAW""D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die"
"Chrono Trigger"

Tomoyuki Yamada"Uncharted Waters Online"

Yohei Yanase
Yuichi Yokoyama
Koji Mikami(Digra)"Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom""Blaze Union: Story to Reach the Future"

History of Peracon (1,038 submission)
Year Submission

Theme

Theme reason

2011 57

Stopover(途中下車)

In memory of narrator narrator of the TV programusing the same phrase

2012 92

Men and women simultaneously In the 400-meter medley relay of swimming, men（男女同時）
and women acquire medals simultaneously

2013 111

Temperature control（温度コントロール）

In memory of Yoshida, who served to cool down
the Fukushima nuclear power plant2014 157

Self-growth（自己増殖）

From Ice Bucket Challenge to support ALSOpen（オープン）

Submission are open to everybody <normallyattendee only>

2016 195

Ring/Ling（リング）From the 5 rings of the Rio Olympics

2017 184

Baton touch（バトンタッチ）

Japanese athletes took medals at the world
championship 400-meter relay

2015

242*（open entry）

Submission• Organizing Committee Provide Theme– Theme which is difficult to imagine the games as is• Create concept sheet and upload it to the system or submit it on site
• Concept sheet will be displayed at web site and on site board at CEDEC– Early submitter will take better place of web and board

Judgement Rule
• Official Judge– Judgement by selected judge (skillful game designer and director, educator)– Official Judge just check “like” or “not” (almost within 15 seconds)– Judge will leave comments and select the candidate of Special Prize namedthem• Open Judge– Judgement by audience of website– If official judge point is same, we consider open judge score– Official judge will usually review sorting by open judge score2017 Best Sheet (184) “Guide! 10 seconds Robot”
Theme: Baton touch
Positive
Nagaoka
It is easy to understand what kind ofgame it is, it is a good impression thatthe theme is properly digested. Besides
making a foothold, if there are various
uses of robo out of batteries, the depth
as a puzzle will come out.
Watanabe
It seems that it will be interesting if you
can arrange a gimmick so that the routeto the goal is not too linear.
Negative
YanaseThe making of the proposal is very
beautiful and good. Because the takeover
action where corpses remain has aprecedent, it is a pity that the novelty isweak. I wanted elements unique torobots.

2013 Best Sheet(111) “Easy Tera Form”
Theme: Temperature control
PositiveHiraro
I thought that the motif of temperature
control is compatible with "garden
observation type AI game". There weremany competing proposals, but the
project plan here is particularly wonderfulin the world view.
A somewhat nostalgic image was pretty
lovely, I felt outstanding! I want to play! !
Negative
MikamiI like this visual. But it is wasteful thatthe user can operate only the directchange in switch.
Yanase
The concept that terraforming can bedone with a combination of living things
to send is interesting, and the sheet isalso very beautiful. But is it strange forthemes to control living things freely byswitching between day and night?

2013 Rank 101 (Takahashi Award)“Cool Sing Heat”
Positive
Takahashi
I like this kind of thing. You have to work hard on thesystem etc, but at the real live venue, everything will beable to control?
Negative
MatsunoI think that the means of "singing songs well" and "singing
poorly" are important, but it is regrettable that there is noreference to that means.
Swery
The temperature control is the result, and the center ofthe game is in the performance part, so it feels likechanging ordinary rhythm games and dance gates.
Miyagawa
The strategy method and the score are a little confusing.

Result and Comments are achived

Conclusion & Thank you• There are few University which teach game development but many
Universities and Researchers conduct Game Researches• Peracon (a unique game design contest) are conducted in corporation
with famous game designer and director and the result is archived

ContactKoji Mikami (mikami@stf.teu.ac.jp)
Twitter:@mkmtut
URL:
http://mkmlab.net/(I will put my full version of presentation on web site)

Supplimental

2011 Best Sheet(57)Theme: Stopover”I Drop Off”

2011 Best Sheet(57)Theme: Stopover

Positive
Abe
It is a very simple game nature
whether it is a success or a failure
by pushing a button with matching
timing.
By produce a "get off" a variety ofin life, likely to be able to provide
the fun will come out involuntarily
laugh (black humor, including).
Negative
Suenho (SWERY)
The project completion of theplanning document is high, imagining
various spreads.
However, in fact it is a project of“variation = fun”, so if you make it
low budget, you may feel that it was
surprisingly shallow. Ignoring themanhours and making judgments inthe proposal book, I can make it to
the number of web votes as it iswell done.

2012 Best Sheet(92)Theme: Men and women simultaneously“Switch Detectives Double Heart”

2012 Best Sheet(92)Theme: Men and women simultaneously
Positive
MiyakePlay can be imaged at the moment.
Various ideas are likely to come out
when brain storming.
Ishikawa
There are a lot of ideas of swapping
men and women, but it was nice toknow what I could and what happens at
the moment I saw it. The compositionof the document is also good.
Negative
Yasumoto
Although the ADV part is good, thenecessity of switching the sex is difficult
to understand in the ACT part.
Sugawara
I think that the degree of completion isvery high. But, in myself, it isimpressive that "swapping" is different
from "simultaneous" ... It is regrettable.

2013 Best Sheet(111)Theme: Temperature control“Easy Tera Form”

2013 Best Sheet(111)Theme: Temperature control
PositiveHiraro
I thought that the motif of temperature
control is compatible with "gardenobservation type AI game". There weremany competing proposals, but theproject plan here is particularly wonderfulin the world view.
A somewhat nostalgic image was pretty
lovely, I felt outstanding! I want to play! !
Negative
MikamiI like this visual. But it is wasteful thatthe user can operate only the directchange in switch.
YanaseThe concept that terraforming can bedone with a combination of living things
to send is interesting, and the sheet isalso very beautiful. But is it strange forthemes to control living things freely byswitching between day and night?

2013 Rank 101(of 111)
Positive
Takahashi
I like this kind of thing. You have to work hard on thesystem etc, but at the real live venue, everything will beable to control?
Negative
MatsunoI think that the means of "singing songs well" and "singingpoorly" are important, but it is regrettable that there is noreference to that means.
Swery
The temperature control is the result, and the center ofthe game is in the performance part, so it feels likechanging ordinary rhythm games and dance gates.
Miyagawa
The strategy method and the score are a little confusing.

2014 Best Sheet(157)
Theme: Self-growth
Japan "total dandelion" plan2014 Best Sheet(157)
Theme: Self-growth
Positive[Okura]I was impressed with the point of view of using theultimate random element "wind direction", which is incooperation with real data, and nothing can be done byhuman power.
【Endoh】 Idea focusing on breeding of plants. The idea oftaking the wind part from the weather forecast to make it
an element of the neglected part is good. If the theme isweather forecast wind and abandonment, the main line is
how quickly you can reach the destination with a windfree balloon that can only handle the timing of takeoff
landing. With the nationwide total dandelion, the purposeis blurred and it is difficult to motivate the end of play.

Negative[Shimoda] If all is linked with natural phenomena, there is
no room to play as a game.

2015 Best Sheet(242)
Theme: Open
“10 seconds dash”

2015 Best Sheet(242)
Theme: Open
PositiveIwatani
Doors not knowing whether to pull or push,shapes of the knobs are strange, escape walls to
break through and so on can be considereddiversely.
Nagaoka
I thought that it is good to connect simple ways
to open various doors to game properties. I
thought that it would be nice if there was apromising funny opening way, such as opening
the door with a pistol shot with a locked door.

Negative
ShimodaI do not know the meaning of 10 seconds in thiscase. It can be said that all the obstacles of theso-called run system game were made into doors.
EndohA game system that feels like it already is. As
this idea alone got bored with one minute, it
should have suggested a fun amusing as ametagame

2016 Best Sheet(195)
Theme: Ring(Ling)“Climb Gulin Tower”

2016 Best Sheet(195)
Theme: Ring(Ling)
Positive
Kaido
The basic idea is excellent. It looks goodas a visual. There seems to be someproblems in actually playing games, but I
thought that there is a possibility ofripping.
YanaseIt seems that the task of making thetower and the element of protecting thehero make a dilemma well. However, itseemed that “dead lock" easily occurred,so it was still better if there was an idea
to overcome it.
Negative
Baba
Does the character automatically avoid it
to some extent?
Even if there is nothing to do by player itwill be stressful, if player can control bythemself it will be work. The picture iscute.

2017 Best Sheet(184)Theme: Baton touch“Guide! 10 seconds Robot”

2017 Best Sheet(184)Theme: Baton touch
Positive
Nagaoka
It is easy to understand what kind ofgame it is, it is a good impression thatthe theme is properly digested. Besides
making a foothold, if there are various
uses of robo out of batteries, I think thatthe depth as a puzzle will come out.
Watanabe
It seems that it will be interesting if you
can arrange a gimmick so that the routeto the goal is not too linear.
Negative
YanaseThe making of the proposal is very
beautiful and good. Because the takeover
action where corpses remain has aprecedent, it is a pity that the novelty isweak. I wanted elements unique torobots.

Reserch & Development

Control of Enemies’ Behaviors
According to the Player’s Field of View
in VR Games
Koji Mikami
Tokyo University of Technology

Motivation• Many previous research indicate that player can see only limited areaeven though the game has extra wide screen such as VR– 40 to 50 degree is effective visual area (Seya 2010, Spherical screen )– 44 to 50 degree is effective visual area (Sugai 2014, HMD)
This means…

In VR game, enemies sometime surround player andattack from invisible or unconscious area
ProblemSeya et al. (2010)

This unexpected “damage” or ”death” frominvisible or unconscious area cause disappointmentof playersSugai et al. (2014)

Our Method• Control enemies’ behaviors according to player’s FoV– Prepare 3 area
• “Response Area”, “Recognition Area” and “Peripheral Area”– Changeable parameters• "hit rate", "frequency of shot" and "time of cover"
Peripheral Area
(50 degree+)
Recognition Area
(40-50 degree)
Response Area(-40 degree)