DESIGN
Designing Game Affordances to Promote Learning and Engagement
Mon, 07/06/2010 - 20:17 | 
sharritt
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Applied research will be presented from a qualitative study that highlights high school students' learning and use of several game interfaces, describing how particular affordances and game interface designs can encourage learning. Inductive generalizations from several 'commercial' games for good, including Civilization IV, Making History: The Calm & the Storm, and RollerCoaster Tycoon describe patterns of learning among game players, showing how the design of in-game visualizations either led to success or failure to learn to use basic game controls. This analysis, inspired by ethnomethodology and grounded theory, sought patterns from gathered video data of student gameplay to highlight learning episodes and patterns of interface use. Patterns in affordance use (uptake of a perceived action potential) during collaborative gameplay reveal relationships among the video game interface and player behavior, giving focus to how an interface design can guide game player interaction. In line with Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow, a proper balance of difficulty (between feelings of boredom, and too much difficulty) encouraged player engagement and learning. As evidenced in transcripts of collaborative gameplay, feelings of frustration with a game interface often led students to abandon in-game tasks, as did boredom with a given task. However, frustrated goal achievement often led to the re-negotiation of in-game strategies: an indication of engagement. Additionally, games that presented information using multiple channels encouraged learning, as did the use of specific visualizations such as the animation of in-game objects. Finally, a discussion of the affordances created by different game designs will offer educators and game designers guidelines to encourage motivated gameplay.
150 reads | 
Tags: Affordance, Affordances, Cognition, Cognition, cognitive, cognitive technology journal, collaboration, collaborative learning, DESIGN, E-Learning, Education, Education, Educational psychology, engagement, game design, Gameplay, Games, games for good, learning, Learning games, Matthew J
Source, player, Psychology, Situated cognition, situated cognition, situated learning, Technology, Technology, Technology, Video Games
A temporal perspective of the computer game development process
Tue, 26/01/2010 - 11:32 | Jason Rutter
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
This paper offers an insight into the games software development process from a time perspective by drawing on an in-depth study in a games development organization. The wider market for computer games now exceeds the annual global revenues of cinema. We have, however, only a limited scholarly understanding of how games studios produce games. Games projects require particular attention because their context is unique. Drawing on a case study, the paper offers a theoretical conceptualization of the development process of creative software, such as games software. We found that the process, as constituted by the interactions of developers, oscillates between two modes of practice: routinized and improvised, which sediment and flux the working rhythms in the context. This paper argues that while we may predeterminately lay down the broad stages of creative software development, the activities that constitute each stage, and the transition criteria from one to the next, may be left to the actors in the moment, to the temporality of the situation as it emerges. If all development activities are predefined, as advocated in various process models, this may leave little room for opportunity and the creative fruits that flow from opportunity, such as enhanced features, aesthetics and learning.
Add new comment | 116 reads | Tags: computer game, DESIGN, MODEL, software development process, software-development, Technology, Technology, temporal structure, Time
Measuring Player Immersion in the Computer Game Narrative
Thu, 21/01/2010 - 14:53 | Jason Rutter
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
In order to measure player immersion in the computer game narrative, this study explores and analyzes factors of the computer game narrative that influence players who are immersed in the game story world. Originally a questionnaire consisting of six dimensions-Curiosity, Concentration, Challenge, Control, Comprehension, and Empathy-was proposed. To evaluate the questionnaire, two surveys were conducted on the Internet, and data were collected from 734 respondents. After exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, the dimensions were modified to Curiosity, Concentration, Challenge and Skills, Control, Comprehension, Empathy, and Familiarity.
Add new comment | 84 reads | Tags: AMP Energy, DESIGN, environments, flow experience, player, Technology, Technology
Multiplayer Interface for a Computer-Augmented Learning Game
Thu, 21/01/2010 - 14:53 | Jason Rutter
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
The purpose of this article is to introduce an advanced user interface concept for collaborative simulation game. The user interface design was performed by a constructive proceeding. The functionality and the physical elements of a traditional board game and the calculation performance of a computer simulation model were combined in the new multiplayer interface concept. The operations of players are mediated to the computer through the game board elements, not through the standard input devices of the computer. The key usability targets of the user interface have been also identified. Based on very early findings the developed multiplayer interface seems to support the usability targets in terms of naturalness and collaboration. The conventional arrangement with the digital multiplayer simulation games is the user interface, where each player has their own keyboard and visual display. This study introduces new possibility for game designers to integrate a traditional board game concept and a computer simulation model to enhance collaboration and learning in gaming.
Log who’s playing: psychophysiological game analysis made easy through event logging
Sun, 23/11/2008 - 12:46 | acagamic
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Modern psychophysiological game research faces the problem that for understanding the computer game experience, it needs to analyze game events with high temporal resolution and within the game context. This is the only way to achieve greater understanding of gameplay and the player experience with the use of psychophysiological instrumentation. This paper presents a solution to recording in-game events with the frequency and accuracy of psychophysiological recording systems, by sending out event byte codes through a parallel port to the psychophysiological signal acquisition hardware. Thus, psychophysiological data can immediately be correlated with in-game data. By employing this system for psychophysiological game experiments, researchers will be able to analyze gameplay in greater detail in future studies.
Add new comment | 1182 reads | Tags: Analysis, biometrics, DESIGN, Events, Experience, gameplay, Half-Life 2, instrumentation, interactive, level design, logging, metrics, Neuropsychology, physiological, Play, psychophysiology, Psychophysiology, software, techniques, usability, ux
Boredom, Immersion, Flow - A pilot study investigating player experience
Sun, 23/11/2008 - 12:29 | acagamic
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Designing and evaluating gameplay experience comes to life after measures for player experience have been found. This paper describes a pilot study measuring game experience with a set of game stimuli especially designed for different player experiences. Gameplay experience is measured using self-report questionnaires after each play session. Results of the questionnaires are then separately compared to design intentions and player evaluations. Our experiment shows that gameplay experience can be assessed with a high reliability for certain gameplay features.
Add new comment | 1105 reads | Tags: Affect, Aggression, bas, bis, boredom, Boredom, challenge, Cognition, Company Location, DESIGN, epq, Experience, Experience point, flow, Flow, fuga, game design, Game design, gameplay, Gameplay, Gaming, geq, Half-Life 2, Human behavior, immersion, Immersion, Level, level design, metrics, Personality, Play, player, quantitative study, reliability, self-report measures, tension, ux
Play and the Private
Wed, 12/11/2008 - 05:24 | nisbojin
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Over the past half a century or more, historical, anthropological and philosophical examinations of the concept of play have remained largely situated in the arena of ontological discussion. In these previous interrogations of play, the notion of play has been assumed a priori, been defined stipulatively in relation to larger frameworks of games, or discarded altogether. This work adopts Wittgenstein’s Private Language argument as a lever to unpack the usefulness in looking at play from an epistemological perspective: paying special attention to linguistic cues, ostensive relationships and associated activities around those things players call ‘play’ within specific, behavioral, situational and linguistic contexts. This paper explores how unraveling the term ‘play’ in this way can potentially afford us a new perspective on play as an epistemologically dynamic phenomenon.
Add new comment | 425 reads | Tags: A priori and a posteriori, Abstraction, DESIGN, epistemology, grinding, Language, Logic, Logicians, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ontology, Ostensive definition, Philosophy, Play, Private language argument
Language Games/Game Languages: Examining Game Design Epistemologies Through a ‘Wittgensteinian’ Lens
Fri, 27/06/2008 - 00:56 | nisbojin
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Recent theorizing around games and notions of play has drawn from a pool of mid-20th century scholars including such notables as Johann Huizinga, Gregory Bateson, Roger Caillois and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Through his articulation of the concept of language as a type of game, Wittgenstein has been both adopted and critiqued for purposes of circumscribing what are now commonly held as the necessary constituents of games including their systemic nature and the acquiescence of their participants to an agreed-upon rule structure: a set of rules which Wittgenstein likens to the ‘grammar’ of language (Salen and Zimmerman, 2001;Suits, 1978; Juul, 2005; Wittgenstein, 1953; Finch, 2001; Brenner, 1999). Although thus far Wittgenstein has served as a pillar of 20th and 21st century game theory canon, this paper adopts Wittgenstein’s notion of language-games not for purposes of examining games, but for purposes of examining the design of games. The pursuit of this paper is to utilize Wittgenstein’s lens of the language-game to investigate what it is that informs and consequently shapes and reinforces game design epistemologies in an attempt to encourage a reflexivity about the design practices behind the games we create.
Add new comment | 2233 reads | Tags: Analytic philosophy, DESIGN, epistemology, Game, Game, Human behavior, Language, Language-game, Logicians, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy of language, Play, Play, Wittgenstein
Stacking the Deck for Learning: What Educational Game Designers Can Learn From Card Games Designed by Kids
Wed, 05/12/2007 - 19:28 | nisbojin
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
This paper details the results of an exploratory informant design workshop in which nine 10-12 year olds were asked to design their own card games with the aim of having them incorporate information about West Nile Virus into their design. This paper details the workshop process in its entirety and considers the rule systems, allowable choices, artificial conflicts and conditions of victory incorporated by the children into their games. This paper concludes by evaluating the participants’ game design choices, the manners in which content was incorporated and their potential usefulness to future educational game design pursuits
Add new comment | 1001 reads | Tags: children, DESIGN, Design, Educational game, endogenous, exogenous, Exogeny, Game design, learning, Loading screen, Nintendo Entertainment System, php, User interface
Gaming Literacies: A Game Design Study in Action
Tue, 04/12/2007 - 06:49 | Curtis Conkey
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Educators and education advocates have recently acknowledged that the ability to think systemically is one of the necessary skills for success in the 21st century. Game-making is especially well-suited to encouraging meta-level reflection on the skills and processes that designer-players use in building such systems. Membership in a community of game producers means sharing thoughts and experiences with fellow players. This ability to gain fluency in specialist language and to translate thinking and talking about games into making and critiquing them (and vice versa) suggests that games not only teach literacy skills but support their ongoing use. Rather than imagining that education can be transformed by bringing games into the classroom, researchers should consider not only the effects of the thinking engendered by those who play, but also by those who design the play. This article offers an overview of the pedagogy and development process of Gamestar Mechanic, an RPG (Role Playing Game) style online game designed to teach players the fundamentals of game design. It will discuss some of the early results of the project, with an emphasis on the conceptual framework guiding the work, as well as the kinds of literacies and knowledge structures it is intended to support.
Add new comment | 583 reads | Tags: Cognition, DESIGN, Education, Education, Educational game, educational games, Electronic Games, Game design, Skill, Technology, Technology, Video game
Digiplay Bibliography Updates
- Political Internet games: Engaging an audience
- 'It's in the Game' and Above the Game: An Analysis of the Users of Sports Videogames
- Theoretical Consoles: Concepts for Gadget Analysis
- Avatar motion control by natural body movement via camera
- Adoption of Mobile Games as Entertainment Technology : A Test of Extended Technology Acceptance Model
Are you getting cited?
New references on the Digiplay games research bibliography usually get over 30 reads on their first day. Is your work getting that amount of attention?
Registered users can add their own publications to the Digiplay games research bibliography. Just add your info to this form.
You can link to the online version of your work or, if you own the copyright, even add the full text of your article for Digiplay readers to view.
Search
Navigation
User login
Follow Digiplay
