Guía de referencia para el diseño conceptual de un videojuego, donde se ofrecen los marcos teóricos para construir el juego como un sistema de información que necesita administrar los datos estratégicamente para crear una experiencia de juego (historia, placer, simulación y sentido) en el usuario.

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... Game design encompasses both analogue and digital mediums. The term 'game design' is very much linked to the practice of digital game design in the public understanding, and this is reflected in the large amount of scholarly research in this field (Salen & Zimmerman 2004;Trefry 2010;Fullerton et al. 2004;Zagal et al. 2006;Patrick 2013), however this should not discount the importance of analogue games. (Booth 2016), the use of screens to replace game boards (Magerkurth et al. 2003, Krause et al. 2014, Bakker et al. 2007), handheld gaming devices (Mandryk et al. 2002, Bergström et al. 2010, Kankainen & Tyni 2014, and tokens with embedded digital technology such as RFID chips (Mora et al. 2016 and Deliver, releasing a final product and reflecting on its success relative to the initial goal. ...

... The following section focuses on works by Schell (2008), Salen and Zimmerman (2004), Trefry (2010), Fullerton et al. (2004), and Costello (2018). 16 Schell brings together core principles of game design for both digital and tabletop games in his book The Art of Game Design (2008). ...

... 18 (2004), is a highly influential contribution to the principles of game design, which offers a unified model for looking at different types of games, both analogue and digital. Salen and Zimmerman (2004) offer a way of thinking about games as a whole, suggesting that iterative design is a vital playbased design process that is beneficial for every game designer. The section titled 'Unit 2: Rules', is particularly useful for thinking about game design, providing a perspective on rules that seeks to explore how these formal structures or mechanics function and their relevance to game design (Salen and Zimmerman 2004, pp. ...

  • Elysse Turner Elysse Turner

The tabletop games industry is experiencing a renaissance, with annual global sales estimated to be worth more than nine billion dollars (Graham 2016). Typically considered a 'niche' creative industry, there has been little scholarly attention to contemporary analogue experiences as most research focuses on digital games. As new media technologies have become accessible over time, tabletop game designers have capitalised on the opportunities afforded by these products, integrating them into gaming experiences. This combination of analogue and digital is a part of a sub-genre of 'hybrid' games that has recently begun to experiment with mobile 'smart' devices. This thesis contributes to game design research by examining analogue/digital hybridity in tabletop games. It aims to identify key design features of analogue/digital hybrid games, exploring how hybrid games integrate digital technologies into the analogue gaming experience through case studies of three existing hybrid games: Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition (Valens 2016), One Night Ultimate Alien (Alspach & Okui 2017); and DropMix (Hasbro 2017).

... Player engagement is very important for game designers (Fullerton, 2008;Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) and educators alike. Hence, for game designersand educators,keeping the players or learners in a game,or on a certain task while providing as much guidance as possible without pushing or boring themis a very desirable goal.Apart from its motivational effects, engagement also contributes to success in completing tasks, or learning certain content. ...

... In this special classroom setting, the students' engagement levels stayed almost the same for both virtual teachers and episodic narratives, as measured by cross-sectional surveys. Despite a body of literature supporting the value of narratives in games (Lee et al., 2006;Marsh, 2010;Salen & Zimmerman, 2004),classroom context seems to modify the lack of narratives whenthere are other objective providers present. This might hint that classroom usage of MMORPGs, even though they do not have all the features of an MMO, can still be engaging due to the unique classroom conditions. ...

... Narratives are one of the most important factors that makes games engaging for players (Dickey, 2006;Fullerton, 2008;Lee et al., 2006;Marsh, 2010;Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). In almost every modern game, there are narratives in various formats. ...

  • Mete Akcaoglu Mete Akcaoglu

This case deals with the problem of decision making in allocating resources during an educational game-development process. In educational games, unlike commercial games, there is an added focus on creating learning content, shifting the balance between learning and fun to a degree where essential game elements might be excluded from these games. In some cases, classroom settings, however, are filled with elements that can emulate the role of a missing element. As it was seen in this case, even when some important game elements (i.e., narratives) were missing from a game, the presence of some important classroom elements (i.e., teachers) helped replace them.

... Les règles constitutives d'un jeu vidéo peuvent être très restrictives ou au contraire très permissives et contribuer alors à générer des types d'expériences radicalement diérentes [Salen and Zimmerman, 2004]. La probabilité qu'un récit se déroule tel qu'il a été imaginé diminue parallèlement aux possibilités qui sont oertes aux joueurs d'intervenir et de changer le cours des événements. ...

... Nous montrons dans la suite de ce chapitre comment les récits naissent en grande partie de cet espace de possibilités dont le gameplay dessine le contour. Les règles qui forment le système de jeu permettent donc de délimiter le cadre dans lequel le joueur peut agir et de ce fait régissent indirectement son comportement [Salen andZimmerman, 2004, Juul, 2007] [Chatman, 1978, Genette, 1972. L'histoire représente la succession d'événements rapportée par le récit tandis que ce dernier désigne le texte lui-même. ...

... C'est également le cadre d'exécution des interactions qui permet de leur donner un sens qui va au delà de leur logique propre [Koster, 2012a,b]. Incorporer les règles du jeu et les actions du joueur à un univers et une intrigue participe à la création du meaningful play, c'est à dire un univers de jeu cohérent et suivant une logique interne compréhensible par le joueur [Salen and Zimmerman, 2004]. Les interactions avec le jeu se font alors dans un contexte riche et réactif qui évolue de façon cohérente et en accord avec les décisions du joueur. ...

  • Simon Chauvin Simon Chauvin

Cette thèse a pour objectif de créer et évaluer un modèle narratif pour les jeux vidéo émergents dont une part importante du contenu est générée de façon procédurale. Elle propose pour cela une application dans le jeu vidéo Minecraft. L'approche classique de la narration dans les jeux vidéo s'adaptant difficilement à des expériences de jeu plus libres nous proposons de donner au joueur les moyens de transformer le récit en temps réel et de manière explicite grâce à une forme narrative modulaire et adaptative au contexte de jeu courant. Dans un premier temps, la thèse explore les liens entre narration et interaction par le biais de l'étude des rôles de la narration dans les jeux vidéo. Puis, dans un deuxième temps, nous identifions les propriétés qui caractérisent les jeux vidéo émergents afin d'exposer les enjeux narratifs de ce type d'expérience de jeu. Dans un troisième temps, nous détaillons notre proposition d'un modèle narratif adapté aux jeux vidéo émergents ainsi que l'architecture logiciel permettant au joueur de transformer le récit en temps réel. Finalement, nous présentons deux expérimentations visant à vérifier nos hypothèses et à évaluer notre modèle narratif.

... Play is an interlinking concept with games (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) and a game is a type of play activity (Adams, 2014) that allows us to take risks, avoid fear of failure, be autonomous, create something new and/or actively engage our minds and our bodies. Play becomes a game when it is formalized through rules, and these rules provide playful behaviours with context to create a meaningful experience (Juul, 2011;Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). ...

... Play is an interlinking concept with games (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) and a game is a type of play activity (Adams, 2014) that allows us to take risks, avoid fear of failure, be autonomous, create something new and/or actively engage our minds and our bodies. Play becomes a game when it is formalized through rules, and these rules provide playful behaviours with context to create a meaningful experience (Juul, 2011;Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). In a similar fashion, videogames stripped of their contexts are a series of playful actions. ...

... Despite the advancement of technology that has allowed games to move from the physical to the virtual world, these categorisations of play remain relevant. Videogames, just as normal games, may be broken down into a system and include basic design components such as challenge, goals, feedback and rewards (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004;Schuytema, 2007). ...

This paper focuses on examining play activities in people's favourite videogame experience. Through interviews with 30 videogame players we discovered which types of play activities are most appealing. Our research identifies the level of appeal of a wide range of game play activities. We have established that high levels of engagement for many participants is grounded in play as power and play as strategy, with play as fantasy adding to the experience. Through our study we established that conflict-based activities hold strong appeal. We subsequently investigated the context in which players talked about their experience of conflict within game. By using activities as a categorisation of gameplay we have been able to capture the play experience across a range of games and a range of gaming contexts. By examining players' individual experience we begin to understand why conflict in videogames appears to be a popular choice of activities.

... Even when armed with the most recent findings of learning science theory, there are several trillion ways one could design an instructional intervention [76]. In addition to the inherent complexity in instructional design, games, particularly the kind of open-ended simulation games commonly used in educational settings [152], employ a delicate balance of mechanical systems that can result in emergent behavior [133]. This property of games can make it difficult to anticipate how a design choice will affect the behavior of the system and subsequently the learning of players. ...

... Game designers create experience, but only indirectly." -Salen and Zimmerman [133]. ...

... In so far as the pedagogical intent of an educational game is for players to come away with a better understanding of the content the game is meant to be about then it is crucial that these systems behave appropriately. I do not intend to claim that this is the only way to evaluate whether a game is upholding its intended meaning, as players can derive meaning from many aspects of game experience [133], including re-appropriating a game in transgressive play [1] or creating meaning around it in a social context [72], but remaining grounded in feedback-a well-regarded instructional design principle [14] in its own right-provides a concrete basis on which to build an evaluation technique. ...

  • Erik Harpstead Erik Harpstead

Educational games have become an established paradigm of instructional practice; however, there is still much to be learned about how to design games to be the most beneficial for learners. An important consideration when designing an educational game is whether there is good alignment between its content goals and the instructional behaviors it makes in order to reinforce those goals. Existing methods for measuring alignment are labor intensive and use complex auditing procedures, making it difficult to define and evaluate this alignment in order to guide the educational game design process. This thesis explores a way to operationalize this concept of alignment and demonstrates an analysis technique that can help educational game designers to both measure the alignment of current educational game designs and predict the alignment of prototypes of future iterations. In my work, I explore the use of Replay Analysis, a novel technique that uses in-game replays of player sessions as a data source to support analysis. This method can be used to capture gameplay experience for the evaluation of alignment, as well as other forms of analysis. The majority of this work has been performed in the context of RumbleBlocks, an educational game that teaches basic structural stability and balance concepts to young children. Using Replay Analysis, I leveraged replay data during a formative evaluation of RumbleBlocks to highlight some misalignments the game likely possesses in how it teaches some concepts of stability to players. These results led to suggestions for several design iterations. Through exploring these design iterations, I further demonstrate an extension of Replay Analysis called Projective Replay Analysis, which uses recorded student replay data in prototypes of new versions of a game to predict whether the new version would be an improvement. I implemented two forms of Projective Replay: Literal Projective Replay, which uses a naïve player model that replays past player actions through a new game version exactly as they were originally recorded; and Flexible Projective Replay, which augments the process with an AI player model that uses prior player actions as training data to learn to play through a new game. To assess the validity of this method of game evaluation, I performed a new replication study of the original formative evaluation to validate whether the conclusions reached through virtual methods would agree with those reached in a normal playtesting paradigm. Ultimately, my findings were that Literal Projective Replay was able to predict a new and unanticipated misalignment with the game, but Flexible Projective Replay, as currently implemented, has limitations in its ability to explore new game spaces. This work makes contributions to the fields of human-computer interaction by exploring the benefits and limitations of different replay paradigms for the evaluation of interactive systems; learning sciences by establishing a novel operationalization of alignment for instructional moves; and educational game design by providing a model for using Projective Replay Analysis to guide the iterative development of an educational game.

... Prototyping is a well-studied activity in the field of human-computer interaction and interaction design, but its role in computer game design is relatively unexplored. It is clear though that prototyping is an important part of game design (Fullerton 2008, Fullerton et al 2006, Glinert 2010, Salen & Zimmerman 2004Schell 2008. New game technologies are rapidly developing, which means that new game design possibilities arise (Schell 2008). ...

... Prototypes have an important role to play in game design. A challenge in design of games, electronic as well as analogue, is that they are rule based and that changes in rules produce emergent effects that are difficult to predict (Salen & Zimmerman 2004). This calls for short iterations and frequent prototyping. ...

... Data has also shown indications on how game prototyping, due to mainly two factors in combination, is unique in relation to other design prototyping. There is a main interest from the designer towards the experience of the user and there is an element of unpredictability not only caused by the unpredictability of software development but also the unpredictable nature of game systems (Salen & Zimmerman 2004). However, many of the communicational values of a prototype seem to be equal to other design practices way of using prototypes. ...

... Game design literature provides game designers with many theories and tools to support the process of developing a game, for example [1,[10][11][12]. In addition, emergence and progression are two commonly used concepts to characterize the development of game play [10,13]. ...

... Many theories from the game design literature describe how play or games can be systematically modeled, by defining the game rules and attributes in a formalized approach [e.g. 12,31]. When designing games, these theories provide designers with tools to create balance and control in the game. ...

... Different types of rules can be recognized in play. Salen and Zimmerman [12] distinguish three types of rules: (1) Continuative Rules, these are the abstract core mathematical rules. (2) Operational Rules, these are the rules of play, e.g. as printed in a manual. ...

Designing for open-ended play poses specific new challenges to designers. Designing for closed games includes defining rules and goals to balanced the game properly. A design for open-ended play has no predefined rules and goals. The design needs to provide users with more freedom to continually change goals and rules of play, which distinguishes the field from designs of closed games. Gaining knowledge on the design process of creating this freedom is essential. For this purpose, an integrated model for open-ended play is proposed. This model is based on a combination of two existing models: Hunicke's Mechanics Dynamics and Aesthetics (MDA) model and Grünvogel's formal models for game design. Both of the above mentioned existing models are generalized to make them applicable for analyzing open-ended play. In the proposed combined model we distinguish between the perspectives of the design, and the perspective of play. It addresses how to handle changing rules and goals, instead of the assumptions that rules and goals do not change. Furthermore, the model was used to improve our understanding on progression and emergence, two key concepts that are commonly used in game design. The _integrated model for open-ended play_ (IMO) was used in a preliminary case study with a digital play application, an interactive environment for open-ended play named the GlowSteps, to evaluate the model and to underline our insights on emergence and progression.

... […] está claro que aquilo que é costumeiramente chamado de "jogabilidade emergente" (ver Smith, 2001;Salen e Zimmerman, 2004) está no centro da prática de speedrunning [terminar o jogo o mais rápido possível], mesmo que boa parte desta emergência esteja centrada na exploração de falhas [glitches] ao invés do uso de um conjunto de ferramentas ou recursos abertos. Assim, é difícil definir exatamente onde e se a emergência foi pretendida pelo desenvolvedor ou é uma consequência de seus erros de programação e anomalias inevitáveis e limitações da sua modelagem e design 12 (Newman, 2008, p. 135, tradução nossa (Juul, 2002), contradiz a segunda no sentido de que um game designer pode deixar de perceber um comportamento do sistema que não seja efeito da complexidade da atualização das regras. ...

... Ela é um programa "gravado diretamente no silício", por isso para ter controle total do aparelho seria necessário acessá-la. Smith 2001;Salen and Zimmerman 2004) is at the very heart of speedrunning, even though much of this emergence is centred on the exploitation of glitches rather than the use of an open set of tools or resources. As such, it is difficult to define exactly where and whether the emergence is intended by the developers or is a consequence of their inevitable programming errors and anomalies and limitations of their modelling and design". ...

Ao longo da história dos videogames é possível detectar a atuação de comunidades e jogadores que subvertem as expectativas estruturais dos sistemas para inventar novos modos de jogo. Essa abordagem transgressiva se manifesta em diversas escalas, que possuem suas especificidades, mas que, de certo ponto de vista, apresentam lógicas análogas. Este artigo tem como objetivo evidenciar essas lógicas por meio de três estudos de caso. Na primeira escala, observaremos a lógica transgressiva suprajogo, que será ilustrada pela modificação amadora brasileira de Guitar Hero III, o jogo Guitar Hero Brazucas. Na segunda, mudaremos para a escala intrajogo, analisando a desconstrução criativa de regras por parte dos speedrunners de Super Mario Bros. e Half-Life 2. Finalmente, utilizaremos a dinâmica do metagame em GunZ: The Duel como demonstração concreta da cognição inventiva demandada por essas transgressões.

... Both academics and practitioners are divided on the potential and scope of narrative in regards to video games. A foundational issue of these perspectives is the lack of a shared understanding of "narrative"the term might be variously used to mean an ornamental function to provide context (Juul 2005), a structural quality of the video game artifact (Fullerton et al. 2008), an experiential quality during the experience of a video game (Pearce 2004;Salen and Zimmerman 2004), or a high-level analytical framework to understand video games (via textual analysis (Fernández-Vara 2014)). Each of these perspectives represent valid approaches; however, implicit definitions of "narrative" are prevalent in academic and professional discourse on video game narrative, Springer International Publishing AG 2018 N. Lee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08234-9_154-1 ...

... The experiential perspective is also a cornerstone of Salen and Zimmerman's game design book Rules of Play. They write: "our intention is not just to arrive at a formal understanding of narrative (What are the elements of a story?) but instead an experiential one (How do the elements of a story engender a meaningful experience?)" (Salen and Zimmerman 2004). For these authors, the main question is how to best design "narrative play" (ibid). ...

  • Hartmut Koenitz Hartmut Koenitz

Today, no generally accepted definition of video game narrative exists. The academic discourse has pointed out ontological and phenomenologi- cal differences to more traditional forms of narra- tive, and therefore, the relationship to established scholarship in narratology is complex. In the field of video game studies, narrative aspects of video games are often described in contrast to rule-based aspects. A wider scan of related fields reveals additional positions. Ludonarrative is variously understood as a structural quality of the video game artifact, as an experiential quality during the experience of a video game, or as a high- level framework to understand video games. Finally, a number of scholars emphasize the difference to traditional manifestations and there- fore work towards specific theories of video game narrative. While all legitimate by them- selves, these different usages of "narrative" in the context of video games are often not clearly distinguished in professional or academic dis- course and can lead to considerable confusion. It is therefore essential to scrutinize the particular context and underlying assumptions when approaching the topic. This state of affairs puts particular responsibility on scholars to identify the origins of their understanding of video game nar- rative and define their particular usage of the term in contrast to earlier applications.

... In our case, game design thinking is constructed from six different, yet closely interrelated, aspects of game design. The first aspect concerns formal game elements (Fullerton, 2008, Salen & Zimmerman, 2004. As many formal elements of the game should be listed as possible, in order to understand objects, their properties, behaviour and relationships. ...

... The second aspect concerns game balancing and finding more than one way to win (Sirlin, 2008) in order both to create meaningful choices (Salen & Zimmerman 2004) and generate strategic thinking (Crawford, 1982). Game balancing concerns the balancing of relationships in order that, in multiplayer games, both players have equally viable options and thereby both consider the game to be fair. ...

This article considers game design research in educational settings. Its focus is on how undergraduate students – particularly engineering students – learn computer game design. From observations conducted during our game design courses we have developed a model of expanded game design space. It encapsulates the entire development process from the first ideas to the final game with emphasis on game design thinking. Our model of expanded game design space consists of four separate – yet interconnected – layers in the process of game development. The first layer addresses the importance of framing, providing a clear game design assignment that involves the formulation of intended player experience and a description of game mechanics. The second layer focuses on game design thinking from six different aspects of game design chosen in relation to the framing of the game design assignment. The third layer establishes correspondence between formal elements of computer games and the structure of problem-based creativity. It addresses how game design challenges should be formulated and how creative solutions can be measured. The fourth and final layer demonstrates how clear framing can act as a guideline for evaluating game design thinking and for measuring solutions made in the development process. To strengthen our model of expanded design space, we will present examples from our game design courses.

... The potential for games as a learning and engagement tool has been a recurring theme over the last three decades [1][2][3]. Various types of games from physical board games to virtual reality and "Exergames" are being studied for purposes other than entertainment including education, training, and emotional well-being. Gaming habits have also changed significantly during the past decades, from classic board games, to computer games, to mobile phone gaming and other types of games involving pervasive computing "gaming" has been incorporated into a vast field of activities and platforms [4]. ...

... Gaming habits have also changed significantly during the past decades, from classic board games, to computer games, to mobile phone gaming and other types of games involving pervasive computing "gaming" has been incorporated into a vast field of activities and platforms [4]. Despite this proliferation, the act of playing a game still has a unique effect on players, providing a more natural setting for group cohesion, team work, goal setting, and other positive experiences [2]. It is these positive, social elements of games that are leveraged in applications for education and training. ...

  • Sreeram Kongeseri
  • Christopher Coley Christopher Coley

This paper presents research on a tabletop game design for enhancing focused discussion strategy creation, engagement motivation, planning and resource allocation, and service leadership through collaborative gameplay. Background: Although the field of serious games has developed over the last three decades, the potential of games to be used as civic engagement and educational tools still lay unrealized. People in rural communities in India experience a range of barriers for constructive engagement. Serious games have been used to address the issue of civic engagement effectively. In this paper, we present a case study of Aadarsh Gaon, build your ideal village, a tabletop game where participants work together to discuss strategies to solve social issues in their community, in order to win the game. The paper discusses the concepts in the game, evolution of the game during playtesting and aspects of collaborative gameplay. Results: Three phases of playtesting with diverse participants suggest that the game could trigger focused discussions on strategy creation to solve social problems, but do not indicate significant progress in attitude towards service leadership, and planning and resource allocation. We conclude that serious games with purposeful game design elements could lead to constructive civic engagement.

... When looking into interactive narratives, it is important to understand the concept of player choice. The quality of a game design can be characterized by looking at the relationship between the player's choice and the system's response [28]. This relationship should both be supported in terms of the feedback system of the game such as receiving points, known as discernable relationships as well as in the larger context of the game, affecting the overall goal, where the outcome of the game should rely on players' choices, known as integrated relationships [28]. ...

... The quality of a game design can be characterized by looking at the relationship between the player's choice and the system's response [28]. This relationship should both be supported in terms of the feedback system of the game such as receiving points, known as discernable relationships as well as in the larger context of the game, affecting the overall goal, where the outcome of the game should rely on players' choices, known as integrated relationships [28]. This can be related to interactive narratives, which offer players choices and the ability to navigate within a multi-linear branching structure of the narrative, thereby influencing the narrative [27]. ...

... All games have the following four characteristics: they have a goal, they have rules, they have restrictions, and they require the acceptance of rules by the players (Hastie, 2021). Salen (2003) suggests that every game has three (3) sets of rules: constitutive rules (core mathematical rules of a game and where the game's internal logic exists), operational rules (the rules of play which guide the game and direct and determine the gamers' behaviour), and implicit rules (the rules that are not specifically indicated in the instruction manual, yet cherished by players internally). Games consist of both visual and auditory elements; the visual elements include the title screen, heads-up display (HUD) and game menus (Chalk, 2012), whereas the auditory elements consist of 2D and 3D sounds in the game (Mraz, 2020). ...

The engagement and motivation of students in drawing activities are of great importance to their learning processes. The decline in attendance and difficulties stimulating the drawing skills of students make it crucial to develop novel methodologies that can overcome these difficulties. In visual art education research, utilizing game elements within a non-gamified setting (gamification) has become of great interest, as it can directly increase motivation to learn drawing and therefore activity in learning to draw. This research implemented gamification for home economics students as an instructional strategy in the teaching and learning of drawing and evaluated its impact on the students' drawing skills. A quasi-experimental design was implemented and a questionnaire was used to collect data, with a five-point Likert scale. Purposive sampling was used to select the one hundred Senior High School students from Ghana who participated in the study. The respondents' scores on both non-gamified and gamified tasks were compared using a paired sample test and independent sample t-test. The collected quantitative data were analysed using SPSS version 16.0. The implementation of gamification stimulated the interest of the respondents in drawing, thereby engaging and motivating them to improve their drawing skills. There was a statistically significant difference between gamified and non-gamified approaches for teaching drawing. Gamification positively affected the cognition of the respondents and boosted their motivation to draw and improve upon their drawing skills.

... Para definir jogo, recorre à definição de Salen & Zimmerman (2004): ...

... 5 De serieuze toepassing van computerspellen was tot die tijd grotendeels beperkt tot het onderwijs (edutainment). De introductie van spellen in het primaire en secundaire onderwijs in de VS (de 'K-12' markt) is eind jaren '90 op een grote mislukking uitgelopen (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, cf. Overmars, 2005. ...

  • Robbin te Velde Robbin te Velde
  • Reg Brennenraedts
  • Bram Kaashoek

1. Serious games en game technology worden op dit moment al voor een groot aantal verschillende toepassingen gebruikt. Dat aantal groeit gestaag – met na-me buiten de traditionele sector onderwijs. In principe staat de toepassing van een bepaald type spel los van de sector of markt. Nederland blijft zeker niet achter, met name als het gaat om de ontwikkeling van serious games. In het buitenland (lees: de VS en Canada) gaan de ontwikkelingen echter nog veel sneller. De breedte van het toepassingsgebied van serious games daar wordt in Nederland nog bij lange na niet gehaald. 2. Het ontwikkelen van serious games is een vak op zich. Het is van groot belang dat de specifieke kenmerken van het spel goed worden aangepast aan de specifieke (hogere) doelen die worden nagestreefd. Het combineren van de gaming en bijvoorbeeld de pedagogische invalshoek is echter bepaald geen sinecure. Serious games vereisen een specifieke mix van de basiscomponenten (visualisatie, gameplay, interfaces, story – zie Figuur 2). 3. Het concept 'serious games' verkoopt zich, ondanks de bijna overdreven aandacht in de media, zeker niet vanzelf. Het (speelse) label 'serious gaming' heeft onder professionals en met name onder bestuurders en managers een negatief imago. De introductie van gaming in een professionele organisatie ver-eist daardoor veel duw- en trekwerk en proactieve marketing. 4. Er is een strikte scheiding tussen de markt voor entertainment games en de markt voor serious games. Die scheiding lijkt in Nederland nog harder dan in het buitenland. Ontwikkelaars van entertainment games betreden nog nauwelijks alternatieve markten en de markt voor serious games wordt zelfs met enig dédain bekeken. Dit is enigszins bevreemdend omdat de markt voor serious games in theorie interessante mogelijkheden biedt voor bedrijven uit de entertainment gaming industrie. 5. Binnen de ontwikkelgemeenschap van serious games in Nederland zijn twee 'bloedgroepen' te onderscheiden: die van grafische ontwerpbureaus en die van ingenieurs gespecialiseerd in simulaties. De tegenstelling tussen de groepen komt niet alleen naar voren in een bepaalde voorkeur voor een business model (customized versus publisher) maar ook in de verschillende oriëntatie op creativiteit ('unieke schepping' versus 'creatief kopiëren'). 6. De keuze om bij het ontwikkelen van een serious game de hoge kwaliteitseisen van een entertainment game te hanteren, is van groot belang voor de eventuele cross-over tussen sectoren en tussen markten. De hoge ontwikkelkosten die deze keuze met zich meebrengt, dwingen de ontwikkelaar/uitgever tot efficiënt (her)gebruik van componenten (engines) en elementen. Hoewel de ontwikkel-kosten van een aantal games volgens het customized model zijn ontwikkeld naar verhouding niet eens zoveel lager liggen, is de prikkel tot hergebruik in dit segment van de markt veel minder omdat de kosten immers al door de opdracht-gever zijn gedekt. 7. De ontwikkelkosten van serious games die in eigen beheer, louter voor gebruik binnen de eigen organisatie (of zonder duidelijke externe markt voor ogen), zijn ontwikkeld, liggen relatief hoog terwijl de opbrengsten (in termen van gebruik en diffusie) vaak tegenvallen. 8. De vaak lange besluitvormingstrajecten in de publieke sectoren vormen een belangrijk knelpunt bij de ontwikkeling van serious games. In het geval van het customised model geldt dat het intensieve contact tussen de ontwikkelaar en afnemers vaak heel veel tijd vergt. In het geval van het publisher model geldt dat de ontwikkelkosten vooraf door de ontwikkelaar/uitgever zijn betaald, en dat die kosten zo snel mogelijk terug moeten worden verdiend. De trage besluit-vorming rond de aanschaf van het serious game kan de terugverdientijd dan aanzienlijk vergroten. 9. Claims dat het gebruik van serious games en game technologie direct tot aanzienlijke kostenbesparingen leidt, moeten met een korreltje zout worden genomen. Voor zover ze al optreden, worden ze vaak gecompenseerd door complementaire uitgaven. Netto leveren de directe effecten dan nauwelijks besparingen op. De complementaire uitgaven (dat wil zeggen investeringen in zaken die voorheen nog of nog niet zo goed werden gedaan) leiden echter als het goed is tot kwaliteitsverbeteringen en de indirecte besparingen die door deze kwaliteitsverbeteringen mogelijk worden gemaakt, zijn vaak van een veel grotere orde dan de directe besparingen. Die effecten zijn over het algemeen echter moeilijk te monetariseren. Dit levert met name voor cases waar de na-druk op kwalitatieve verbeteringen ligt moeilijkheden op omdat de directe netto kostenbesparingen negatief zijn. 10. De huidige onvolgroeide status van de markt voor serious games in Nederland zorgt voor relatief hoge prijzen. Aan de aanbodzijde liggen de ontwikkelkosten relatief hoog omdat de ontwikkelaars van serious games vaak nog niet professioneel en efficiënt werken (geen inzet van game engines, geen hergebruik van elementen enzovoort). Aan de vraagzijde geldt dat gebruikers vaak (nog) niet goed weten wat een reële prijs is voor een bepaalde applicatie. Afnemers kunnen daardoor (te) hoge prijzen vragen. Bovendien is er weinig transparantie in de markt. De verkokering wordt verder in de hand gewerkt door de dominantie van het customised model. Er bestaan daardoor grote prijsverschillen in de markt. 11. De gebrekkige kennis vanuit de sector van (serious) games en game technologie zorgt er onder andere voor dat de meeste afnemers (nog) geen bewuste afweging kunnen maken tussen ontwikkelkosten en flexibiliteit. De algemene stelregel uit de ICT dat de kosten voor onderhoud en ontwikkeling een veelvoud bedragen van de initiële ontwikkelingskosten gelden onverkort voor serious games. In het geval van maatwerk zijn de initiële kosten relatief laag (dit zorgt voor een bias naar het customized model) maar is de afnemer voor elk onder-houd en verandering afhankelijk van zijn leverancier (zeker als die het intellectueel eigendom behoudt) en moet daar ook steeds opnieuw voor betaald worden. 12. Voor de implementatie van serious games is de afstemming tussen de game developer en de professionals uit de sector van cruciaal belang is. Serious games worden voor en door professionals gemaakt maar die hebben vaak geen kaas gegeten van de (vele) mogelijkheden van games en game technology. Game developers hebben vaak onvoldoende (voor)kennis van een sector en kunnen zo flink de fout ingaan. Intermediaire partijen vervullen een belangrijke rol in dit afstemmingsproces omdat ze een breed overzicht hebben van de industrie en de sector waarin ze werken. Aan de aanbodkant kunnen ze zorgen voor een slim hergebruik van kennis en vaardigheden. Aan de vraagkant kunnen ze zorgen voor een bundeling en een betere definitie van de vraag. Het feit dat in de Nederlandse markt voor (serious) games dit soort intermediairs nog grotendeels ontbreken, vormt een ernstige belemmering voor cross-sectorale innovatie. 13. Grootschalige implementatie van ICT-toepassingen die op kleine schaal succes-vol zijn, wordt mede belemmerd doordat ICT-systemen onvoldoende zijn geïntegreerd en onvoldoende koppelbaar zijn. Gebrek aan massa in de markt is een probleem dat hieraan is gerelateerd. Over het algemeen geldt dat opschaling zich zou moeten richten op de duurste onderdelen van een toepassing. Vaak is het pas vanaf een bepaald schaalniveau rendabel om dergelijke grote investeringen te doen. Bij een gefragmenteerde markt zonder grote afnemers wordt dat kritische niveau nooit gehaald en blijft iedereen afzonderlijk van de suboptimale oplossing gebruik maken.

... The mechanics are formed by the basic components of the game, e.g. the rules of the game. Rules define what a player is 'allowed' or 'obliged' to do, and how artifacts are to be used [19]. The dynamics describe "the runtime behavior" [18] of the game. ...

How can we design intelligent play environments for open-ended play that support richness in play? Rich play can be described as ongoing play that changes over time in character, form and nature. This paper elaborates on our initial insights on how rules and goals develop from interaction opportunities of the system, based on two pilot studies with an interactive play environment for open-ended play. Furthermore we will discuss the roles of feedback and adaptation mechanisms in the environment. Those system properties will change the interaction opportunities to match with the current situation in the play environment and to support richness in play.

... A need for adjustment might arise from the fact that most users already reached the final level. In particular, we define the following requirements: R7) Gamification Feedback Rate -Feedback is an important element of games [SZ04,ZC11,WH12]. We define Gamification Feedback as any state change in the game that is perceived by the user as success, e.g., gaining points, or receiving a badge. ...

Application and gamification data contain valuable information about users and their behavior. This data can be used to measure the success of gamification projects, to analyze user behavior, and to continuously improve gamification designs. However, to support the process of gamification analyses, appropriate tool support is missing. Moreover, the specific requirements for methods and tools have not been studied yet and remain unclear. Therefore, this paper presents a theoretical model of 22 requirements that can be used to assess existing solutions or construct novel methods and tools for gamification analytics. The presented model is validated based on comprehensive expert interviews.

... But why is defining challenge of such importance? In related research so far, it is hard to find a proper definition of what challenge truly is [10][11] [12]. Crawford, C. has tried to define challenge, but defined it through its difficulty and concluded there is no objective answer to what challenge is [13]. ...

In this paper, we examine the concept of challenge in video games and argue that the current way of defining challenge is faulty in nature. Since challenge should be considered a core component to any digital video game, it is of importance that we understand the concept of challenge in-depth while designing games. With challenge being generally defined by its level of difficulty, we propose to define challenge by how challenge should be designed instead and have defined six characters by which a proper challenge should adhere. The goal of this paper is to clarify the concept of challenge and to redefine it according to the way challenge is created, not through the height of its difficulty.

... Gaming is the running of software artefacts known as electronic games (often simply called " games " ). It is regarded as a closed system in which the guidelines have to be clearly stated beforehand (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). McGonigal (2011) suggests that goals, rules, feedback systems, and voluntary participation are important characteristics of gaming. ...

Gaming as a cutting-edge concept has recently been used by some innovative tourism sectors as a marketing tool and as a method of deeper engagement with visitors. This research aims to explore the gamification trend and its potential for experience development and tourism marketing. Using a focus group, this paper discusses gaming and tourism, and explores what drives tourists to play games. The results suggest tourists' game playing motivation is multidimensional. Players tend to start with purposive information seeking, then move on to an intrinsic stimulation. Socialization is also an important dimension. The research demonstrates several implications for tourism marketing.

... Using these scales, in the following section I briefly analyze a foundational canon of 11 publications (Murray 1997;Aarseth 1997;Juul 1998;Juul 2001;Juul 2005;Eskelinen 2001;Aarseth 2001;Jenkins 2004;Pearce 2004;Salen and Zimmerman 2004;Ryan 2006) on the topic of interactive and video game narrative, and score them on media specificity and user agency (Table 3). These scores were then used to create a two-dimensional mapping ( Figure 1) which is discussed in Section 4. The selection criteria for the canon were high-impact (a google scholar citation count of at least 200 citations 2 ) and from the formation years (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006) of video game studies and related areas concerned with interactive forms of narration. ...

  • Hartmut Koenitz Hartmut Koenitz

There have been misunderstandings regarding "narrative" in relation to games, in part due to the lack of a shared understanding of "narrative" and related terms. Instead, many contrasting perspectives exist, and this state of affairs is an impediment for current and future research. To address this challenge, this article moves beyond contrasting definitions, and based on a meta-analysis of foundational publications in game studies and related fields, introduces a two-dimensional mapping along the dimensions of media specificity and user agency. Media specificity describes to what extent medium affects narrative, and user agency concerns how much impact a user has on a narrative. This mapping is a way to visualize different ontological positions on "narrative" in the context of game narrative and other interactive narrative forms. This instrument can represent diverse positions simultaneously, and enables comparison between different perspectives, based on their distance from each other and alignment with the axes. A number of insights from the mapping are discussed that demonstrate the potential for this process as a basis for an improved discourse on the topic.

... However, only a subset is concerned with the issue of establishing a descriptive and formal design vocabulary. When we find a development of terminology (as in [7,8]), the focus is on formal descriptions for games. This leaves us with a much smaller group of publications focusing on the design process itself, for example Dough Church's Formal Abstract Design Tools. ...

This paper reports on an aspect of a long-term project to create a body of evidence-based interactive narrative design methods. In this context, we discuss aspects of formal design descriptions as a basis for a quantitative approach to verify the effects of design choices on the experience of audiences. Specifically, we discuss the notion of 'design conventions' by acknowledging earlier usages of the term and the related discourse in video game studies.

... been based on the works of Johan Huizinga (1951) and Roger Caillois (1958) and on the notion of "magic circle" that the former is supposed to have forged in his book Homo Ludens (Copier 2009). As Eric Zimmerman (2012) explains, this misconception is due to an interpretation of his own book Rules of Play, written with Katie Salen (Salen and Zimmerman 2004). Scholars too often agitate the "strawman" of the magic circle to counter the idea that a game is separated from the rest of the world, 7 even if Huizinga himself underlined that a game has a function for the community in which it is played. ...

  • Laurent Di Filippo Laurent Di Filippo

This paper addresses the question of concrete realizations of imaginary worlds as situated worlds. As a case study, the author bases his reflections on Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventure, an MMORPG based on the adventure of Conan the barbarian, the character created by Robert E. Howard in the 1930s. The author of the paper uses Erving Goffman's theory of game and the notions of "locally realized world" and "membrane" to address this situated production. He then discusses the place of the player and the relations to the representations in the game as a vicarious experience and a distance implied by playful practices. By crossing several works of Erving Goffman, the author shows that immersion in gaming worlds is the product of both being absorbed in the action and maintaining a distance with it in order to be at the same time an actor and a spectator of the action

... Players refer to their characters in first person yet simultaneously reflect on their own position as players. Additionally, they use the subject pronoun "it" to refer to the agency of the game itself, clearly no longer a "game" in the sense of "free movement within a more rigid structure" as Salen and Zimmerman [40] put it, but a system of predetermined choices. We also see players rationalizing the choices made by their characters and, instead of resisting, "playing along" and roleplaying as the idiosyncratic character they are playing. ...

The practice of designing Interactive Digital Narratives [IDN] is often described as a challenge facing issues such as the "narrative paradox" and avoid-ing the unintentional creation of "ludonarrative dissonance". These terms are expressions of a perspective that takes narrative and interactivity as dichotomic ends of a design trajectory, mirroring an enduring discussion in-game studies be-tween positions often cast as ludologists and narratologists. The dichotomy of ludo versus narrative is, in itself, problematic and is often the source of the very conflict it describes. In this paper, we investigate this issue through the example of the cooperative game A Way Out, in which two players team up to break out of prison. The game is designed with a narrative twist, involving the escalation and final resolution of the game's competitive motif in the final scene. To understand the user experiences of this reveal, and the concomitant consequences, we engage in a discursive analysis of "Let's Play" videos as a largely untapped re-source for research. By analyzing the interactions and performances in these videos, we can more clearly understand player responses to unsatisfying IDN design. As a result, we introduce the notion of a 'hermeneutic strip', extending Koenitz' SPP model to locate and describe the involved processes of narrative cognition in IDN work.

... A game is a system characterised and constituted by a set of features or elements (Fullerton, 2008;Salen and Zimmerman, 2004). The inclusion of specific features in a game defines its type, for instance, a story is essential for a role-play game but not for a mini-game (Heintz and Law, 2018). ...

Digital Education Games (DEGs) have been used to support children's learning in various domains. A number of existing studies on DEGs has focused on whether they could improve children's learning performance. However, only a few of them have attempted to address the critical question of how young children interact with DEGs. Bridging this gap was the main motivation underpinning this research study. With the use of eye-tracking technology, we explored our research goal by evaluating a bespoke DEG on numeracy and its cardboard version that we developed based on the UK Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework. A between-subject experiment study involving 94 five-year-olds was conducted. The research protocols and instruments were pilot tested and ethically approved. In analysing the eye-tracking data, we refined the Gaze Sub-sequence Marking Scheme to infer children's interaction strategies. Results showed that the difference in the learning effect between the digital and cardboard game was insignificant, that the children's interaction strategies varied significantly with their achievement level, and that children's gender was not a significant factor in determining the impact of learning with the DEG. Implications for rendering eye-tracking technology more child-friendly and designing DEGs for young children are drawn.

... Inspired by the engaging psychological effects of video games [SZ04], starting from 2010 many consumer and business applications started to adopt the concept of gamification as part of their user experience design. In parallel, researchers from numerous fields, such as psychology, human-computer interaction, marketing, education, and software engineering started to study the new concept from different perspectives. ...

  • Benjamin Heilbrunn Benjamin Heilbrunn

Inspired by the engaging effects in video games, gamification aims at motivating people to show desired behaviors in a variety of contexts. During the last years, gamification influenced the design of many software applications in the consumer as well as enterprise domain. In some cases, even whole businesses, such as Foursquare, owe their success to well-designed gamification mechanisms in their product. Gamification also attracted the interest of academics from fields, such as human-computer interaction, marketing, psychology, and software engineering. Scientific contributions comprise psychological theories and models to better understand the mechanisms behind successful gamification, case studies that measure the psychological and behavioral outcomes of gamification, methodologies for gamification projects, and technical concepts for platforms that support implementing gamification in an efficient manner. Given a new project, gamification experts can leverage the existing body of knowledge to reuse previous, or derive new gamification ideas. However, there is no one size fits all approach for creating engaging gamification designs. Gamification success always depends on a wide variety of factors defined by the characteristics of the audience, the gamified application, and the chosen gamification design. In contrast to researchers, gamification experts in the industry rarely have the necessary skills and resources to assess the success of their gamification design systematically. Therefore, it is essential to provide them with suitable support mechanisms, which help to assess and improve gamification designs continuously. Providing suitable and efficient gamification analytics support is the ultimate goal of this thesis. This work presents a study with gamification experts that identifies relevant requirements in the context of gamification analytics. Given the identified requirements and earlier work in the analytics domain, this thesis then derives a set of gamification analytics-related activities and uses them to extend an existing process model for gamification projects. The resulting model can be used by experts to plan and execute their gamification projects with analytics in mind. Next, this work identifies existing tools and assesses them with regards to their applicability in gamification projects. The results can help experts to make objective technology decisions. However, they also show that most tools have significant gaps towards the identified user requirements. Consequently, a technical concept for a suitable realization of gamification analytics is derived. It describes a loosely coupled analytics service that helps gamification experts to seamlessly collect and analyze gamification-related data while minimizing dependencies to IT experts. The concept is evaluated successfully via the implementation of a prototype and application in two real-world gamification projects. The results show that the presented gamification analytics concept is technically feasible, applicable to actual projects, and also valuable for the systematic monitoring of gamification success.

  • Olexandr Horban Olexandr Horban

У статті з'ясовуються особливості відеогри як особливого феномену в житті сучасної людини. Обґрунтовується ідея про необхідність вироблення якісно нової стратегії розвитку освітнього простору, заснованої на активному залученні в освітній процес новітніх комунікаційних технологій на відеоігрових платформах. З'ясовано, що діяльність людини переплітається з грою або включає в себе певні ігрові елементи від самого початку формування суспільства. Гра виконує зокрема виховну функцію, моделює певні ситуації та дозволяє отримати базові практичні навички. При цьому, ігровий процес навчає через розваги, виховує з невимушеністю, якої подекуди не вистачає класичній освіті. Виявлені освітній потенціал та проаналізовані освітні перспективи відеоігор. Наголошується на використанні відеоігор в освітньому процесі за трьома напрямками: освітні ігри, гейміфікація освіти та навчання на основі гри (Game Based Learning). Зроблений висновок про перспективи залучення відеоігор до навчального процесу як новаційного методичного інструментарію, здатного сформувати відповідні навчальні та професійні компетентності.

  • Nabila Hamdaoui Nabila Hamdaoui

Gaming has pleasantly and inevitably accompanied human life throughout history. Due to their intrinsic ludic and motivational values and with the advent of digital technologies and globalization, games have begun to invade serious domains such as education, hence the label 'serious games'. But, while addressing areas like education, game designers hit at various obstacles because they have to create memorable and ludic experiences without neglecting the learning objectives. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the educational effectiveness of serious games and to standardize the learning process to create effective serious games. We will describe the use, and the integration of IMS learning design specification in the design process of serious games to facilitate the communication between educators and game designers and to create adaptive learning experiences.

Technology is rapidly changing the way we perceive the world. In order to cope with this constant evolution, we reviewed in this paper the approach of Emotional Design, focusing on users' emotional response towards new technologies. We then propose to address Emotional Design from a different perspective, proposing a framework in which emotions are correlated through user experience and interaction. We introduce the concept of Reverse Engineering of Emotions, where emotions are considered as the starting points to depict the user experience pattern, and therefore to better design the interaction. We propose to apply the framework in a specific case study concerning the introduction of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology into everyday life. We outline the structure of a serious game through which it would be possible to test some future scenarios of use for this technology and obtain an emotional map thanks to users' self-reports; then we correlate emotions to user experience , interaction and needs.

  • Julian Alvarez Julian Alvarez
  • Damien Djaouti
  • Rashid Ghassempouri
  • Pr Gilles Méthel

The aim of this article is to present V.E.Ga.S tool, which intends to classify video games, study their nature and to corroborate hypothesis by a pragmatic approach. The approach has been inspired by the methodology of Vladimir Propp, who has classified Russian Tales at the time, as well as on the works and the "iterative" approach of the game designers Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman. The approach consists in studying a significant number of video games in order to index their composition of elementary "bricks". Basing our study on this "bricks" and crossing them with other fields, we will try to classify and study video games. We thus hope to be able to have at our disposal, elements which will contribute to the research of the "emerging discipline of Game design".

The aim of this article is to present a classification of video games deduced by a pragmatic approach. The methodology consisted in indexing a significant number of video games by taking account their elementary "game bricks". At last all these combinations have been studied in a database called V.E.Ga.S

The aim of this article is first to present V.E.Ga.S., a tool which intend to classify video games, study their nature and to corroborate hypothesis by a pragmatic approach. It consists in studying a significant number of video games in order to index their composition of elementary "game bricks". Basing our study on this bricks and crossing them, we try to classify and study video games. In a second time, this paper presents the classification deduced from the results of V.E.Ga.S.

In a context where the involvement of youngers in the development of games is seen as an effective way to promote a deeper identification and engagement with the educational content, the Gamers4Nature project introduces a Toolkit designed to support youngsters in the creation of mobile digital games addressing environmental and biodiversity preservation. The Gamers4Nature Toolkit to Game Design includes a set of resources developed to support younger audiences in the creation of digital games: a Game Construction Cards Set, a Rapid Game Design Document and thematic cards, presented in a cardboard box. This paper reports on the methodological approach used for the design and evaluation of the Toolkit to Game Design. All resources were developed following a participatory design approach, with experts (n=18) and potential end-users (n=83) involved in the design and evaluation process. Preliminary results indicate that the Toolkit to Game Design is seen as an engaging and useful approach to game creation, able to be adopted in schools, Universities and environmental organizations activities.

There is an increasing trend in HCI to combine eating and technology. We highlight the potential of interactive technology to support an experiential perspective on eating, in particular, how interactive technology can support experiencing eating as play. To understanding this, we reflect on four playful interactive eating systems we designed and two other works to articulate five strategies: make eating challenging, break cultural norms, design across eating stages, reduce eating autonomy, and playfully extend the social aspect. For each, we also include practical implementation options to provide designers with initial guidance on how they can begin to support experiencing eating as play. Ultimately, with our work, we aim to facilitate a future where eating is more playful.

Take Away Points:  This chapter describes our experience constructing conceptually meaningful gameplay metrics that are helpful in exploring which players are likely to receive the intended benefits from playing serious games.  Takeaways and lessons learned from two case studies are presented in which the authors define, construct, and apply game metrics to measure conceptually meaningful player behaviors.  Case study 1 looks at brain games played repeatedly over a period of weeks, addressing the question of how to construct gameplay metrics that offer insight into whether brain game players are experiencing the optimal level of challenge, and hence are likely to experience the cognitive benefits they were seeking.  Cast study 2 considers gaming mindset and learning game play. Mindset theorist Carol Dweck has shown that people with a fixed mindset, who believe intelligence is fixed and can't improve with effort, avoid hard challenges because they interpret failure as a negative evaluation of their intelligence (Dweck, 2000). Many significant gameplay differences were found between fixed mindset and growth mindset players, with likely implications for whether and how much each learned from the game.

  • Lasse Juel Larsen Lasse Juel Larsen

This article is a study of the aesthetics of action in computer games seen from the perspective of game design. It is an investigation of what constitutes the aesthetics of action. The study assumes aesthetics of action can be formally mapped out and that they inherently involve identifiable and translatable effects, reflected as sensations in players. In what follows will a specific range of techniques from computer games, play and movies be used as examples and compared in order to demonstrate a common ground for the aesthetics of action across computer games, play and movies. The working hypothesis is that the aesthetics of action and the affinities between medias centre on collision. It will be suggested that collisions produce thrills ranging from the pleasure of destruction to the experience of spatial disorientation. Following will the aesthetics of action be coined 'collision thrills'. The examination of the aesthetics of action will draw on aesthetic theory (Dewey, 2005; Burgin, 2010) and will be analysed with the game design concept of 'game feel' (Swink, 2009) and assaultive action aesthetics (Stork, 2013) from media studies.

Model-driven game development (MDGD) introduces model-driven methodology to the computer game domain, shifting the focus of game development from coding to modeling to make game development faster and easier. The research on MDGD is concerned with both the general model-driven software development methodology and the particular characteristics of game development. People in the MDGD community have proposed several approaches in the past decades, addressing both the technology and the development process in the context of MDGD. This article presents the state-of-art of MDGD research based on a literature review of 26 approaches in the field. The review is structured around five perspectives: target game domains, domain frameworks, modelling languages, tooling, and evaluation methods. The article also includes reflections and a discussion of the challenges within MDGD.

  • Toh Weimin

This volume puts forth an original theoretical framework, the ludonarrative model, for studying video games which foregrounds the empirical study of the player experience. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to and description of the model, which draws on theoretical frameworks from multimodal discourse analysis, game studies, and social semiotics, and its development out of participant observation and qualitative interviews from the empirical study of a group of players. The volume then applies this approach to shed light on how players' experiences in a game influence how they understand and make use of game components in order to progress its narrative. The book concludes with a frame by frame analysis of a popular game to demonstrate the model's principles in action and its subsequent broader applicability to analyzing video game interaction and design. Offering a new way forward for video game research, this volume is key reading for students and scholars in multimodality, discourse analysis, game studies, interactive storytelling, and new media.

  • Kevin McSorley Kevin McSorley

This paper argues that the political significance and cultural resonance of contemporary video wargames lies not simply in the forms of militarism that such games engender. Rather video wargames are a signature late modern medium through which forms of resilience are entrained through permanent arousal and continuous exposure to contingency and failure. The video wargamer is a subject who ultimately understands and experiences themselves as a resilient subject, a survivor. While inevitable failure may make the player deeply frustrated, such anger is predominantly directed towards a delimited form of self-improvement rather than towards structural critique of the gameworld, which is ruled out of court because the rules of the game cannot be changed. Wargaming thus serves as an activity in which specific models and practices of resilience training are increasingly made manifest. Wargames may be best understood and critiqued not simply in terms of cultural militarisation or pre-training for war, but as a space for playing through continual emergency, as an increasingly prominent cultural form where the player learns emotionally and imaginatively to bear the disaster of living in the end times.

  • Francisco Queiroz Francisco Queiroz

Sumário Uma análise do papel de jogos eletrônicos enquanto ferramentas para criação e processos imaginativos, levando em consideração aspectos lúdicos e a natureza digital do videogame, seguida de uma proposta de categorização de artefatos criados neste ou para este universo. Abstract: Within the debate on the role of imagination and the imaginary in design theory and practice, there is a correlate issue that should be addressed. An issue within the scope of that debate, but that subverts the original perspective: the role of design in imaginary and creative practices. The objective of this analysis is to identify and discuss aspects and features that enable virtual ludic environments, such as electronic games, as catalysts for imaginative and creative processes. In order to investigate such connections, both terms that incorporate the definition of our subject must be taken in consideration: The ludic qualities, or sense of play, that makes them games, and also the elements that differentiate them as virtual, system-based, electronic. Digital tools have been used for all kinds of purposes. They are routinely used as extensions of our memories, via databases and storage spaces, and our senses, through the use of communication devices such as webcams. What is being proposed here is an investigation on how new technologies, more specifically video games, can function as extensions of our imagination and creativity-and how playfulness, inherent to such cultural artifacts, could relate to this technology, lending and borrowing qualities capable of amplifying their potentials, resulting in a successful and powerful combination that insufflates the creative process. This analysis takes in consideration perspectives presented by contemporary game and new media studies, and also by studies on traditional games and play.

  • Theresa Devine Theresa Devine

This article presents a methodology to decipher and explore this question: is Art a new predicate, a new way to introduce creative innovation, for games? Examining Art as a new way to innovate for Games introduces the idea that there are low and high games, signified thusly: games and Games. The process exposes, through an examination of Games that are Art, there are currently six (6) Art predicates for Games. This study also reveals that these newly found predicates are, indeed, defining traits of Games that are works of Art. In discovering these traits this article identifies the boundaries of an already existing "Gameworld" as Arthur Danto might have seen it, if he had been inclined to conduct such a study.

  • Luis Sebastián Ramón Rossi

In this article, we use the Deleuzoguattarian division between social subjection (assujettissement) and machinic enslavement (asservissement machinique) as the basis for understanding the formation of the cognitariat in Global Game Jams. After contextualizing these sessions and their importance for the video game development industry, we will examine the dimensions of user-producer subjection (such as the appeal to entrepreneurship, continuing training, and formation of communities) and explore dimensions of machinic enslavement (flexible work dynamics, game and labour fusion, division of tasks and projects, etc.).

  • Don Merritt

Video games as an entertainment venue and business category continue to grow rapidly. Despite their increasing cultural relevance there is little discussion about the experience of video game players with disabilities, especially in virtual world games. There are, however, examples of games with very successful players with a wide variety of disabilities. One such virtual world video game is Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft. The user interface design and approach of World of Warcraft serves as an example of one way play can be opened to a wide variety of payer abilities while also enhancing the play of all users. Additionally, the application of the principles of Universal Design for Learning offer a method by which game designers can consider accessibility in the design of user interfaces and by which game researchers can evaluate the accessibility of interfaces.

  • Seugnet Blignaut
  • Werner Ravyse Werner Ravyse

The authors systematically searched the internet for information on African Digital Games (ADGs). They then applied a lens of serious games where they defined serious games created to have an impact on the target audience, which is beyond the pure entertainment aspect. They found a wide variety of ADGs and grouped them according to two broad main groups of games: those with a traditional African flavour and those with a modern flavour. Due to the authors' bias towards serious games, they opted to not include Westernised games with content which did not address the current African societal nature, but rather content which related to African cultural, mythological or historical themes. The authors created an initial axial instrument for the mapping of ADGs. They also examined the game genre accounted, countries of origin, types of games, platforms generally used, as well as a description of the landscape of ADGs.

  • Jaakko Stenros Jaakko Stenros

This article reviews the history of the concept of the magic circle, its criticism and the numerous other metaphors that have been used to capture the zone of play or the border that surrounds it, such as world, frame, bubble, net, screen, reality, membrane, zone, environment, or attitude. The various conceptions of social, mental and cultural borders are reviewed and identified. Finally, a model is put forward where the psychological bubble of playfulness, the social contract of the magic circle and the cultural game forms are separated.

  • Guillaume Baychelier

Science-fiction and the imaginary of cosmos bring a fertile framework to video games. Apart the depth of the fictional worlds that it allows to develop, Space void as a narrative and iconographic trope opens a wide variety of issues linked to the relation between players and the spatiality of video games. Contrasting with the need for guidance that underpins the experience of 3D video games, Space void forms a field that offers no landmarks. As the absolute uncharted territory, Space is dedicated to the rough experience of wandering but also to the pleasure of exploration (No Man's Sky, 2016). Because of its inherent hostility, Space could be a powerful tool designed to arouse emotions in horror video games. From Dead Space (2008) to Alien : Isolation (2014), fear of void is used in a dialectic that articulates enclosure in cells and effusion of the infinite darkness of Space. In this way, survival horror genre consolidates its game mechanics : being immerged in Space becomes a trial that makes vulnerable to claustrophobic narrowing and also to vertiginous endlessness. Using science-fiction tropes allows to extend the video game space representational modalities but also the content of its experience. This text interrogates the issues of the tensions resulting from the descent into Space void, from an iconological and a gaming perspective.

  • Guillaume Grandjean

L'objet de ce travail est l'étude des spatialités construites et représentées dans le jeu vidéo. En testant l'hypothèse d'une forme de « langage » du level design, nous mettons en lumière le caractère structurel de l'espace vidéoludique, identifiable d'un jeu sur l'autre au sein d'une « grammaire partagée », mais également sa valeur communicationnelle, comme instance de médiation entre le jeu et le joueur ou la joueuse. À partir d'une analyse précise et détaillée de la manière dont l'espace se construit et évolue dans la série The Legend of Zelda (1986- 2017), nous formalisons, classons et hiérarchisons les différentes structures qui forment le répertoire de la spatialité vidéoludique, puis nous mettons en évidence les stratégies de médiation mises en place par les jeux pour faciliter le décodage de l'information navigatoire. Nous terminons en brossant un portrait diachronique de la façon dont ce langage se transforme, en particulier concernant la question du contrôle de la navigation, en mobilisant la notion-outil de « parcours critique » et ses implications dans une histoire formelle et communicationnelle du jeu vidéo.

  • Enrico Gandolfi Enrico Gandolfi

The article focuses on an empirical procedure aimed to harness digital games in exploring sensible issues in social research. By merging qualitative and creative methods and taking into account suggestions from Sociology, Media Studies, and Game Studies, the suggested approach combines single interviews, focus groups and participative design exercises according to a creative learning path. In order to put its effectiveness to the test, four groups of players (N: 20) with different attitudes toward play were recruited for addressing the theme of sustainability. The digital games Crusader Kings 2 and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri were selected as facilitating tools due to the related pertinence. Results show an increment of consciousness and awareness about the topic and a noteworthy potential in engaging subjects and stimulating their feedback in empirical investigations. In turn, some limits emerged to the extent that further interventions are required to stress and relativize the proposal.

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