The Role of Micronarrative in the Design and Experience of Digital Games


Bizzocchi Jim Nixon Michael DiPaola Steve Funk Natalie
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

Designing robust narrative experience in games is a complex and demanding task. The need to balance authorial control with player interactivity necessitates structurally flexible storytelling tools. One such tool is the micronarrative - an internal unit of narrative progression and coherence. This paper explicates relationships between the size, form, and experience of narrative units within electronic games. It identifies three design properties that enhance the utility and effectiveness of micronarratives within game experience: micronarratives are hierarchical, modular, and accumulative. The analysis is based on close readings of two commercial game titles, NHL 12 (Electronic Arts Canada 2012) and Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal 2011).

 

Press X for Meaning: Interaction Leads to Identification in Heavy Rain


Nixon Michael Bizzocchi Jim
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

Our phenomenological study of Heavy Rain reveals the pleasure found in the discovery of the game’s interaction schema and the immersion into each character that this somewhat paradoxically enables. This schema is presented through diegetic quick time events presented in a way that is faithful to the conditions the game characters find themselves in. The match between player action and character action contributes to the process of identification and serves to make the choices feel more real to the player. A new type of “interaction-image” is theorized as a hybrid of game action and controller options that invites the contemplation of the virtual, further reinforcing the process of identification with the game’s characters. The interaction-image evolves from Deleuze’s categorization of cinema images and their relationship to space and time.

 

socio-ec(h)o: Ambient Intelligence and Gameplay


Wakkary Ron Hatala Marek Lovell Robb Droumeva Milena Antle Alissa Evernden Dale Bizzocchi Jim
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper describes the preliminary research of an ambient intelligent system known as socio-ec(h)o. socio-ec(h)o explores the design and implementation of an ambient intelligent system for sensing and display, user modeling, and interaction models based on game structures. Our interaction model is based on a game structure including levels, body states, goals and game skills. Body states are the body movements and positions that players must discover in order to complete a level and in turn represent a learned game skill. The paper provides an overview of background concepts and related research. We describe the game structure and prototype of our environment. We discuss games research concepts we utilized and our approach to group user models based on Richard Bartle’s game types. We explain the role of embodied cognition within our design and elaborate on what we chose to encode as embodied actions, cognition and communication. We describe how we utilized selective responses that were real-time, gradient, provided rewards and were unique to different group user models. We introduce our approach to designing ambient intelligent systems that is ecologically inspired. We stress the empirical nature of the design work and the role of participatory design in developing our system.

 

Game, Motivation, and Effective Learning: An Integrated Model for Educational Game Design


Paras Brad Bizzocchi Jim
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

As new technologies enable increasingly sophisticated game experiences, the potential for the integration of games and learning becomes ever more significant. Motivation has long been considered as an important step in learning. Researchers suggest Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory as a method for understanding and implementing motivation. This bears significance since games foster play, which produces a state of flow, which increases motivation, which supports the learning process. However, this relationship is not as straightforward as it first seems. Research also shows that reflection is an important part of the learning process and while in the state of flow, players rarely reflect on the learning that is taking place. This paper explains how games can act as effective learning environments by integrating reflection into the process of play, producing an endogenous learning experience that is intrinsically motivating.