Designing brutal multiplayer video games

Non-digital forms of play that allow players to direct brute force directly upon each other, such as martial arts, boxing and full contact team sports,are very popular. However, inter-player brutality has largely been unexplored as a feature of digital gaming. In this paper, we describe the design and study of 2 multi-player games that encourage players to use brute force directly against other players. Balance of Poweris a tug-of-war style game implemented with Xbox Kinect, while Bundleis a playground-inspired chasing game implemented with smartphones. Two groups of five participants(n=10) played both games while being filmed, and were subsequently interviewed. A thematic analysis identified five keycomponents ofthe brutalmultiplayer video gameexperience, which informsa set of sevendesign considerations.This work aims to inspire the design of engaging game experiences based on awareness and enjoyment of our own and others’ physicality

Designing Sugaropolis:digital games as a medium for conveying transnational narratives

In this paper, the authors present a case study of ‘Sugaropolis’: a two-year practice-based project that involved interdisciplinary co-design and stakeholder evaluation of two digital game prototypes. Drawing on the diverse expertise of the research team (game design and development, human geography, and transnational narratives), the paper aims to contribute to debates about the use of digital games as a medium for representing the past. With an emphasis on design-as-research, we consider how digital games can be (co-)designed to communicate complex histories and geographies in which people, objects, and resources are connected through space and time

Just war? War games, war crimes, and game design

Military shooters have explored both historical and modern settings and remain one of the most popular game genres. While the violence of these games has been explored in multiple studies, the study of how war and the rules of war are represented is underexplored. The Red Cross has argued that as virtual war games are becoming closer to reality, the rules of war should be included. This article explores the argument put forward by the Red Cross and its reception by games media organizations, in order to consider how the concept of “just war” is represented within games. This article will focus on concerns over games adherence to the criteria of jus in bello (the right conduct in war) and will also consider the challenges that developers face in the creation of entertainment products in the face of publisher and press concerns

Information Milieu and Play in Lockdown: The Cute, the Ugly, and the…

his study is an investigation of young children’s information needs and their seeking and discovery behaviors in the context of playing the popular Nintendo Switch life simulation game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons (AC:NH). The children in this study perceived AC:NH as an ideal escape from the challenges of the COVID-19 lockdown, and effectively utilized the affordances of AC:NH and other related platforms to play, interact, and learn. The appealing AC:NH kawaii design, coupled with the anthropomorphized behaviors, minds, and emotions of the animal characters, encouraged the children to interweave perceptions and expectations, which led them to play out scenarios relevant to their own experiences and lives

Touchomatic: interpersonal touch gaming in the wild

Direct touch between people is a key element of social behaviour. Recently a number of researchers have explored games which sense aspects of such interpersonal touch to control interaction with a multiplayer computer game. In this paper, we describe a long term, in-the-wild study of a two-player arcade game which is controlled by gentle touching between the body parts of two players. We ran the game in a public videogame arcade for a year, and present a thematic analysis of 27 hours of gameplay session videos, organized under three top level themes: control of the system, interpersonal interaction within the game, and social interaction around the game. In addition, we provide a quantitative analysis of observed demographic differences in interpersonal touch behaviour. Finally, we use these results to present four design recommendations for use of interpersonal touch in games

Replayability of Video Games

Our project was carried out in an attempt to better understand replayability and to help develop a structured approach to game design with it in mind. Forming a basis from the game studies field, we carried out a survey, an interview and performed market research to determine opinions and reactions to replayability that can be grounded with sales information. We found that aspects such as difficulty, completion, social aspects, randomization and The Experience contributed to replayability and should be strongly considered within this approach. We also concluded that the while replayability is important; it is not the sole factor that should drive our structured approach. Other factors such as marketing and playability also strongly affect the sales of a video game

Why MDA? The pursuit of a Game Design Onthology

An ontology is a set of concepts and categories that represent a domain. There have been many attempts into creating a widely accepted ontology for the game domain. Most of them are defined based on an analytical perspective: few have found frequent use outside universities, as they are not easily translated to the development of games - a design perspective. There are some core aspects of the domain that harshen the achievement of this task. Not only this, game designers tends to refuse a methodology or a structured way of developing a game - the main concern is that it can impair creativity in a field that could not survive without it. A defined ontology would improve and mature the growing industry of digital games, both by improving the understanding of the domain and supporting a structured methodology for designing games. New ontologies improve problem solving within that domain. This thesis will describe the aspects of digital games and show how they make it difficult to create an ontology for the domain, specially when it comes to a designing perspective. It will follow by disentangling the closest to a unified ontology that there is for the game domain: the Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics framework, i.e. MDA. By reviewing the state of art surrounding this framework, this thesis identified gaps within MDA that impairs its use on a designing perspective, such as the lack of support to some of the described aspects of digital games and how the industry claims that a structured methodology would not support the creativity - a core characteristic of the game’s designing process. To reduce these gaps, changes in MDA’s taxonomies are proposed - providing better use for it within a designer’s perspective, achieved by embracing the designing aspects of the domain and supported by overcoming issues found in the current literature of game domain.Ontologia é um conjunto de conceitos e categorias que representam um domínio. Houve muitas tentativas de se criar uma ontologia amplamente aceita para o domínio de desenvolvimento de jogos. A maioria delas é definida com base em uma perspectiva analítica: poucas têm encontrado uso frequente fora das universidades, pois não são facilmente traduzidas para o desenvolvimento de jogos - numa perspectiva de design. Existem alguns aspectos centrais do domínio que dificultam a realização dessa tarefa. Além disso, os designers de jogos tendem a recusar uma metodologia ou uma forma estruturada de desenvolver um jogo - a principal preocupação é que isso pode prejudicar a criatividade num campo que não poderia sobreviver sem ela. Uma ontologia definida melhoraria e amadureceria a crescente indústria de jogos digitais, tanto melhorando a compreensão do domínio quanto apoiando uma metodologia estruturada para desenvolver jogos. Novas ontologias melhoram a resolução de problemas no domínio. Esta tese irá descrever aspectos de jogos digitais e mostrar como eles dificultam a criação de uma ontologia para o domínio, principalmente quando se trata de uma perspectiva de design. Seguirá analisando o mais próximo de uma ontologia unificada que existe para o domínio do jogo: a estrutura de Mecânicas, Dinâmicas e Estéticas, ou MDA. Ao revisar o estado da arte em torno desta framework, identificou-se lacunas dentro do MDA que prejudicam seu uso em uma perspectiva de design, como a falta de suporte para alguns dos aspectos descritos dos jogos digitais e como a indústria afirma que uma metodologia estruturada não suporta a criatividade - uma característica central do processo de design do jogo. Para reduzir essas lacunas, são propostas alterações nas taxonomias do MDA - proporcionando um melhor uso da mesma dentro da perspectiva de um designer, objetivo alcançado ao absorver os aspectos de design do domínio e ao superar as dificuldades encontradas na literatura atual do domínio de jogos

Game Design Feedback Collection Methods in Pre-Release Game Development

The development of games is secretive in nature due to its creative constraints, and a project can run over the course of a few years. With the advent of agile methodologies, software projects have involved customers in the development process to iterate on received feedback. By exploring the different methods game developers employ to involve customers or tackle issues that interfere with the value of the final product, this study offers an insight into what practitioners actually do to collect the feedback they deem useful. We find that there are two main categories of feedback methods, those that are internal to the company and those that involve potential customers. Within these categories, different mechanisms are employed with differing goals and targets at different stages of the development process. While there are clear patterns on what constitutes useful feedback to practitioners, the implementation of those feedback collection mechanisms differs across the industry