Metareferentiality through in-game images in immersive simulation games

Digital games have a tenuous relationship to reality; in most cases, they are rather simulacra than simulations, offering a simulation-like situation that does not relate to any preceding reality but creates a virtual world precedented only in other fictional or virtual works. The visuals of mainstream, Triple-A games counteract this ontological disconnect through an overabundance of detail and flourish in a perennial struggle for verisimilitude. This paper discusses two examples which, while generally adhering to this convention, introduce elements of subversion into their visual logic. It will show that there are various metaleptic ludic devices - such as virtual reality environments within virtual worlds and reality-changing paintings - with which contemporary digital games reflect subtly upon their own relationship to reality, and upon the player's oscillation between agency and powerlessness

Player Character Engagement in Computer Games

This article argues how players can control a player character influence interpretation and facilitate engagement within a game. Engagement with player characters can be goal-related or empathic, where goal-related engagement depends on affects elicited by goal-status evaluations whereas characters facilitate empathic engagement. The concepts of recognition, alignment, and allegiance are used to describe how engagement is structured in games. Recognition describes aspects of character interpretation. Alignment describes what kind of access players have to a character's actions, knowledge, and affects. Allegiance describes how characters elicit sympathy or antipathy through positive or negative evaluation of the character.</p

Rigidity sensing and adaptation through regulation of integrin types

Tissue rigidity regulates processes in development, cancer and wound healing. However, how cells detect rigidity, and thereby modulate their behaviour, remains unknown. Here, we show that sensing and adaptation to matrix rigidity in breast myoepithelial cells is determined by the bond dynamics of different integrin types. Cell binding to fibronectin through either α5β1 integrins (constitutively expressed) or αvβ6 integrins (selectively expressed in cancer and development) adapts force generation, actin flow and integrin recruitment to rigidities associated with healthy or malignant tissue, respectively. In vitro experiments and theoretical modelling further demonstrate that this behaviour is explained by the different binding and unbinding rates of both integrin types to fibronectin. Moreover, rigidity sensing through differences in integrin bond dynamics applies both when integrins bind separately and when they compete for binding to fibronectin