A short presentation summarising the activities of BUas in the Greening Games project, primarily focused on the ideas of 'systemic' or 'theming' of pro-environmental content in video games.
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In the face of a global ecological crisis, culturally dominant framings of subjective experience as separate from living ecologies are no longer sufficient. Games might offer ways to break down these divisions. Alenda Chang has proposed bringing game ecologies to life. To complement her position, in this paper, we aim to inspire game designers and researchers to explore ways in which video games can remodel the perceived player subject as a pathway to ecological entanglement. We investigate four strategies for decentering and deconstructing the subject. These are: (1) deconstructing the subject to foreground internal sources of entanglement; (2) dismantling, distorting, ignoring, and/or invading the visual perspective; (3) conceptual deconstruction and reframing of a sense of self; and (4) decentering the subject through shifting contexts. For each of these, we introduce relevant examples of narrative and gameplay design in existing video games and suggest steps for further development in each direction.
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When we make games, we have many implicit understandings of what constitutes an interaction from a player and what constitutes their goal for playing; however, in trying to build a method of understanding a simple interaction (such as finding a key to open a gate) numerous limitations of our understanding were revealed. This talk presents Prof. Mata Haggis-Burridge’s and Thomas Buijtenweg’s development of a new model for understanding video games and interactive media: the Journey to Content. The approach looks at core structural elements of digital games and breaks them down into constituents that help us to understand the player, content, gates, and keys. This model presents an unusual and revealing insight into both the structure of existing games and the assumptions that are usually sublimated by creators. Unlike high-level analysis models, such as the MDA Framework and Bartle’s Taxonomy of Players, the Journey to Content model examines the moment-to-moment interactions of players within both the system of the game and their wider societal context. Early application of the concepts from the model have shown that it has practical use for designers, and that it has potential for stimulating new game concepts. The model also has implications for metrics analysis and study/development of interactive systems beyond games. The talk also contains information about four types of ‘immersion’ in video games: systems immersion, spatial immersion, social/empathic immersion, and narrative immersion. It is discussed how these four types can be impacted in a variety of positive and negative ways by an individual change to a game. These four types of immersion are then compared and combined with the Journey To Content model to reveal new research questions.
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Physical rehabilitation programs revolve around the repetitive execution of exercises since it has been proven to lead to better rehabilitation results. Although beginning the motor (re)learning process early is paramount to obtain good recovery outcomes, patients do not normally see/experience any short-term improvement, which has a toll on their motivation. Therefore, patients find it difficult to stay engaged in seemingly mundane exercises, not only in terms of adhering to the rehabilitation program, but also in terms of proper execution of the movements. One way in which this motivation problem has been tackled is to employ games in the rehabilitation process. These games are designed to reward patients for performing the exercises correctly or regularly. The rewards can take many forms, for instance providing an experience that is engaging (fun), one that is aesthetically pleasing (appealing visual and aural feedback), or one that employs gamification elements such as points, badges, or achievements. However, even though some of these serious game systems are designed together with physiotherapists and with the patients’ needs in mind, many of them end up not being used consistently during physical rehabilitation past the first few sessions (i.e. novelty effect). Thus, in this project, we aim to 1) Identify, by means of literature reviews, focus groups, and interviews with the involved stakeholders, why this is happening, 2) Develop a set of guidelines for the successful deployment of serious games for rehabilitation, and 3) Develop an initial implementation process and ideas for potential serious games. In a follow-up application, we intend to build on this knowledge and apply it in the design of a (set of) serious game for rehabilitation to be deployed at one of the partners centers and conduct a longitudinal evaluation to measure the success of the application of the deployment guidelines.
Evaluating player game experiences through biometric measurementsThe BD4CG (Biometric Design for Casual Games project) worked in a highly interdisciplinary context with several international partners. The aim of our project was to popularize the biometric method, which is a neuro-scientific approach to evaluating the player experience. We specifically aimed at the casual games sector, where casual games can be defined as video or web-based games with simple and accessible game mechanics, non threatening themes and generally short play sessions. Popular examples of casual games are Angry Birds and FarmVille. We focussed on this sector because it is growing fast, but its methodologies have not grown with it yet. Especially the biometrics method has so far been almost exclusively used domain by the very large game developers (such as Valve and EA). The insights and scientific output of this project have been enthusiastically embraced by the international academic arena. The aim of the grant was to focus on game producers in the casual sector, and we have done so but we also established further contacts with the game sector in general. Thirty-one outputs were generated, in the form of presentations, workshops, and accepted papers in prominent academic and industry journals in the field of game studies and game user research. Partners: University of Antwerpen, RANJ, Forward Games, Double Jungle, Realgames, Dreams of Danu, Codemasters, Dezzel, Truimph Studios, Golabi Studios
A research theme examining diversity and inclusion in video games, using an intersectional perspective and typically addressing issues related to the representation of gender, race, and LGBTQ+ people, but also touching broader topics such as class, age, geographic privilege, physical and neurodiversity, the (unevenly distributed) impacts of the climate crisis, and other aspects of identity.
