The Implied Participants: Reflections on Prototype Design for Experimental Player Studies

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Jacevic Milan
2020 DiGRA ’20 – Proceedings of the 2020 DiGRA International Conference: Play Everywhere

 

A Typology of Rumble

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Willumsen Ea Christina Jacevic Milan
2019 DiGRA '19 - Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix

Rumble is a feature of most modern games published for home consoles, yet no existing studies on rumble and haptic feedback consider its various manifestations and functions in digital games. Likewise, analytical frameworks for understanding digital games tend to overlook rumble as a significant component of the game object or experience. Building on analyses of nine games from the PlayStation family of home consoles, this paper explores rumble as a two-level semiotic structure, consisting of a feedback source and (a) level(s) of operation. The two components are suggested as the base for a typology that accounts for the specific feedback source – environment, object, interface, or body – and its specific levels of operation as ludic, dramatic, technical, or an overlap of any of these. We present examples of each type to discuss the uses, applications, and limitations of the framework in relation to both analysis and design.

 

Avatar-Kinaesthetics as Characterisation Statements in Horizon: Zero Dawn

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Willumsen Ea Christina Jacevic Milan
2018 DiGRA ’18 – Abstract Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message

 

Indie Game: The Movie: The Paper – Documentary Films and the Subfield of Independent Games

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Jacevic Milan
2018 DiGRA '18 - Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message

This paper examines documentary films about independent games and game developers, focusing on their rhetorical and ideological potential with regards to the subfield of independent digital games and the figures and works operating therein. I employ the conceptual framework developed by Bourdieu and analyze the documentary films using critical discourse analysis method of Fairclough, moving from micro-level descriptions of stylistic elements of the documentary films towards their macro-level discursive and sociocultural contextualizations. While all the films analyzed as part of the corpus exhibit stylistic similarities and predominantly positively highlight the practice of independent game development, they also feature stylistic, ideological and rhetorical differences which could be explained by taking into account the different primary focus of each of the films, the contrasting socio-cultural factors related to their chosen subject matter, as well as the time of their release and the state of the corresponding independent games scene at the time.