Group items tagged

abstract: "We present the second iteration of the Family Hedge, a tangible digital artifact that was re-designed to elicit enjoyment using principles of game design. The initial aim was to create a device crafted for a family to explore the rich social and relational aspects of their lives by making connections between people, objects and stories. The second iteration facilitated more open interaction and playfulness in its role as an artifact for school children. We examine the key role a game design approach played in its iterative development and a key element in this was ensuring any user, or "gamer", could appropriate the device for personal expressive use."

"We present the second iteration of the Family Hedge, a tangible digital artifact that was re-designed to elicit enjoyment using principles of game design. The initial aim was to create a device crafted for a family to explore the rich social and relational aspects of their lives by making connections between people, objects and stories. The second iteration facilitated more open interaction and playfulness in its role as an artifact for school children. We examine the key role a game design approach played in its iterative development and a key element in this was ensuring any user, or "gamer", could appropriate the device for personal expressive use."

(all information is from the publisher's page) The first title in Continuum's Approaches to Game Studies series, *Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens The Digital Role-Playing Game* is a collection of scholarly essays that seeks to represent the far-reaching scope and implications of digital role-playing games as both cultural and academic artifacts.

Abstract: "Reality-based interfaces bring new design opportunities to social games. These novel game interfaces, exemplified by Wii, Kinect, and Smart phones, leverage players' existing physics, bodily, environmental, and social skills. Moreover, they enable a shared hybrid physical-digital space in which the players' co-presence can be enhanced by their physical and digital co-location. However, many digital social games occupy players' attention with the digital display and content, reducing their attention spent on one another and limiting the synchronization of actions and emotions among players. How do we design technologies that do not interfere with social play but enhance and innovate it? In this thesis work, I focus on one particular kind of reality-based interfaces, Handheld Augmented Reality (HAR), to extend players' interaction from the small mobile devices to the shared hybrid space around a computationally trackable surface. This thesis explores how to encourage social play with HAR interfaces, which brings in challenges of designing with the affordances and constraints of the HAR interface, understanding the complicated phenomenon of social play, and integrating these understandings in multiplayer HAR game design. Adopting Research-through Design as the overarching research method, I collaborate with multiple teams, design and study three multiplayer HAR game prototypes. I present four main contributions. First, this work yields design artifacts and examples of social games with HAR interfaces. I communicate to the game design and Augmented Reality communities through these prototypes, including BragFish, ARt of Defense, and NerdHerder. Second, I provide empirical findings on social play in a shared hybrid space. Through lab-based user studies, observation, video analysis, interviews, and surveys, I collect and analyze interpersonal play behaviors and emotions in the shared hybrid space enabled by the HAR interface. Third, I adopt and adapt sociologic

Abstract: "This thesis aims to study the design possibilities for supporting explorative form-finding in 3D modeling applications. For today's many design professions, 3D forms are achieved partly in engagement with digital environments. Use of software has far exceeded final idea execution, extending to the early phases of design work in which the outcome is not predetermined. This insight led designers of interactive systems support sketching and ideating activities by reducing the risk of experimentation and cognitive effort demanded from user. Yet, there has been less emphasis on traditional design and craft practice that acknowledges engagement with materials and effort spent on work as an integral part of creative process. The notion of exploration in the scope of this thesis attempts to incorporate such aspects. Relevant literature about workshop practice in design and craft has been reviewed, as well as examples of CAD technologies that aid designers. In this light, HCI perspectives on the design of creativity support tools and games have been discussed. The thesis work aimed to concretize this background by building a design strategy and an interactive artifact. A 3D form-finding application concept using objects in modeling space to indirectly manipulate geometry, "kfields", has been developed and evaluated with users at various stages. The thesis concludes by reflecting on the findings of different design stages and proposing further directions for design. Keywords: 3D Modeling, CAD, digital material, form"

Abstract: "Search-based procedural content generation methods allow video games to introduce new content continually, thereby engaging the player for a longer time while reducing the burden on developers. However, games so far have not explored the potential economic value of unique evolved artifacts. Building on this insight, this paper presents for the first time a Facebook game called Petalz in which players can share flowers they breed themselves with other players through a global marketplace. In particular, the market in this social game allows players to set the price of their evolved aestheticallypleasing flowers in virtual currency. Furthermore, the transaction in which one player buys seeds from another creates a new social element that links the players in the transaction. The combination of unique user-generated content and social gaming in Petalz facilitates meaningful collaboration between users, positively influences the dynamics of the game, and opens new possibilities in digital entertainment."

"In the game, the player acts out the role of a conservator, conservation scientist or collection manager by virtually interacting with objects, materials and data embedded in quest narratives. Within the game, players will be allowed to manage a library and protect it from the elements that accelerate deterioration. Another quest will allow players to take samples from ancient artifacts and analyze them to discover the secrets of its past."