Modeling and Designing for Key Elements of Curiosity: Risking Failure, Valuing Questions

---

To Alexandra Holmes Jarrek Fath Elaine Zhang Eda Kaufmann Geoff Hammer Jessica
2017 DiGRA '17 - Proceedings of the 2017 DiGRA International Conference

In this paper, we present a design model of curiosity that articulates the relationship between uncertainty and curiosity and defines the role of failure and question-asking within that relationship. We explore ways to instantiate failure and question-asking within a cooperative tabletop game, share data from multiple playtests both in the field and lab, and investigate the impact of design decisions on players’ affective experiences of failure and their ability to use questions to close information gaps. In designing for comfort with failure we find that risk can be more frightening than failure and affective responses to failure can be modified by aesthetic decisions as well as group norms. In designing for comfort with questions we find that empowering quieter players supports the entire group, flexibility in enforcing rules fosters curiosity, and questions can serve multiple simultaneous roles. Our findings can be used in other games to support curiosity in play.

 

Integrating Curiosity and Uncertainty in Game Design

---

To Alexandra Ali Safinah Kaufman Geoff Hammer Jessica
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

Curiosity as a psychological state or trait is characterized by a preference for uncertainty that motivates responses such as exploring, manipulating, and questioning. Given the established link between curiosity and player engagement levels, game designers can thus induce curiosity by creating or increasing the salience of information gaps. To this end, a thorough understanding of curiosity - its varieties, antecedents, and consequences - is an essential addition to the designer’s toolbox. This paper reviews five key types of curiosity: perceptual curiosity, manipulatory curiosity, curiosity about the complex or ambiguous, conceptual curiosity, and adjustive-reactive curiosity. It further examines a variety of game examples to show how each form can manifest during play. In addition, the present analysis ties established understandings of curiosity to Costikyan’s well-known theory of uncertainty in games, proposing that designers can employ uncertainty to motivate, manipulate, and accommodate players’ curiosity levels.

 

Creativity in the Game Design Classroom

---

Hammer Jessica
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

The way we educate new game designers has profound implications for their later creativity and productivity – and for the health of the game industry as a whole. Will we turn out a generation of students who are comfortable with innovation in game design? Or will we teach them to make safe, conventional, predictable choices?