Modern Game Engines nowadays offer a variety of possibilities to develop a game and script the behavior of its agents. Besides classic coding, more visual approaches become present in the working routine of a game developer. By taking a look at Unity 2021.3.3f1, the so-called "Visual Scripting" has become an integral part next to the usual C# scripting environment. It offers the choice to use "Script Machines" and "State Machines" as visual development tools. This thesis demonstrates how State Machines can provide an alternative way to integrate behavior of, for example, non-player-characters (NPCs) during the game development process. Part of this thesis is a Unity game project in which the player/developer takes control over his character using a State Machine. It will be shown how typical Statechart patterns and principles like clustering or orthogonality can be implemented. These principles originate in the 1980s and their theoretical basis were described by David Harel in "Statecharts: A Visual Formalism For Complex Systems". This is also the theoretical basis of this thesis. There are differences between the theory and the current implementation in Unity, which are shown. The accompanying game project is designed as Serious Game, however, it is not build and an editable Unity project file. After describing the game, teaching aspects and the Gamification process are also illustrated and discussed. Pro and con of the goal-based "learning-by-doing" approach inside the development environment are discussed with the result that it is quite beneficial to leave everything "open", for example as template for future projects by the player/developer.

This thesis explores the development of semi-automated blockout tools for 3D game design,
focusing on the transition from level design to environment art. We first investigate the level
design process as a whole and the use of annotations and vignettes in the creation of game
levels in the industry to enhance collaboration between collaborators.
The tools we propose are designed regarding our previous investigation to improve visualization during the early stages of level design. They aim to enhance spatial communication and visualizations in the iterative process. By integrating these tools into the game development workflow, our research demonstrates their potential to improve the initial design phases, resulting in the development of cohesive and visually appealing game environments.
This thesis suggests that these tools can significantly improve the efficiency and quality of
level design and development.

This thesis examines the similarities and differences between film production and game development, focusing on how each medium creates visual and entertaining experiences. While films offer a linear journey and games provide an interactive experience, both face similar organizational, creative, and financial challenges. The study aims to compare the storytelling structures, roles, processes, and communication methods in both industries, focusing on how game development can benefit from film production practices. Consequently, this thesis seeks to identify and analyze key similarities and differences through literature research and qualitative interviews with film industry professionals, offering insights for improving game development processes.

Most procedural content generation techniques heavily rely on input parameter design.
However, few consider the role of human designers in the process of applying procedural
generation. The variability of configuration parameters further complicates the
integration of procedural algorithms into the game design process. This thesis proposes
a unified representation of gamespaces capable of modeling the properties of spaces and
objects in games. The defined framework illustrates a design process that uses these
properties to automate the configuration of input parameters for procedural content generators.
The introduced Gamespace Graph offers an interface to intuitively design gamespaces
while simultaneously configuring procedural inputs. It establishes a hierarchical
hypergraph structure that formally represents gamespaces and provides simplified perspectives
and design tools. The concept of a Data Transformer is presented as a tool for
interpreting the gamespace graph’s structure and data into configurations for content
generators. It acts as an intermediary layer between the content designer and the developer
of procedural algorithms and streamlines the content design process by significantly
reducing the parameter design effort. A Unity framework is developed to implement the
theoretical concepts. It validates the system’s properties within a well-known commercial
game engine, evaluating the resulting design process concerning various procedural
content generation algorithms. Additionally, specialized procedural algorithms are
developed to leverage the gamespace graph structure and produce refined generation
results.