Digital Library Publication Forum Archives

DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

- 91 articles or papers

 

Chores Are Fun: Understanding Social Play in Board Games for Digital Tabletop Game Design

Xu Yan Barba Evan Radu Iulian Gandy Maribeth Macintyre Blair
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

When designing tabletop digital games, designers often draw inspiration from board games because of their similarities (e.g., spatial structure, social setting, and physical interaction). As part of our tabletop handheld augmented reality (THAR) games research, in which computer graphics content is rendered and registered on top of the players’ view of the physical world, we are motivated to understand how social play unfolds in board games with the purpose of informing design decisions for THAR games. In this paper we report an empirical study of recorded video from a series of board game play sessions. We present five categories of social interactions based on how each interaction is initiated, among which we believe that the category of “chores” (interactions arising from the bookkeeping activities required to maintain and update game state) provides opportunities and support for four other kinds of social interaction, namely, “Reflection on Gameplay” (reacting to and reflecting on gameplay after a move); “Strategies” (deciding how to play before a move); “Out-of-game” (reacting to and talking about out-of-game subjects); and “Game itself” (commenting on and reacting to the game as an artifact of interest). We note that “chores” in board games (e.g. waiting for a turn, rule learning and enforcement, maneuvering physical objects), which at first appear to be merely functional, are critical for supporting players’ engagement with each other. Although most of these chores can be automated using technology, we argue that this is often not the best choice when designing social interactions with digital media. Based on our experience with THAR games, we discuss several design choices related to “chores”. To understand the connection between game design elements and social experience, we apply Interaction Ritual (IR) theory from micro-sociology to interpret our data.

 

The Making of Nordic Larp: Documenting a Tradition of Ephemeral Co-Creative Play

Stenros Jaakko Montola Markus
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Research and documentation of live action role-playing games, or larps, must tackle problems of ephemerality, subjectivity, first person audience and co-creation, as well as the underlying question of what larps are. In this paper these challenges are outlined and solutions to handling them are proposed. This is done through the prism of producing a picture-heavy art book on Nordic larp. The paper also discussed the problems of writing about game cultures as an insider and makes a case for addressing normative choices in game descriptions head on.

 

Integrating Emergence and Progression

Dormans Joris
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

This paper investigates how structures of emergence and progression in games might be integrated. By leveraging the formalism of Machination diagrams, the shape of the mechanics that typically control progression in games are exposed. Two strategies to create mechanics that control progression but exhibit more emergent behavior by including feedback loops are presented and discussed.

 

Game reward systems: Gaming experiences and social meanings

Wang Hao Sun Chuen-Tsai
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

The authors give an overview of how various video game reward systems provide positive experiences to players, and propose classifications for rewards and reward characteristics for further analysis. We also discuss what reward systems encourage players to do, and describe how they provide fun even before players receive their rewards. Next, we describe how game reward systems can be used to motivate or change behaviors in the physical world. One of our main suggestions is that players can have fun with both rewards and reward mechanisms—enjoying rewards while reacting to the motivation that such rewards provide. Based on relevant psychological theories, we discuss how reward mechanisms foster intrinsic motivation while giving extrinsic rewards. We think that reward systems and mechanisms in modern digital games provide social meaning for players primarily through motivation, enhanced status within gaming societies, and the use of rewards as social tools.

 

Do We Need Real-Time Hermeneutics? Structures of Meaning in Games

Arjoranta Jonne
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Games differ from most other forms of media by being procedural and interactive. These qualities change how games create and transmit meaning to their players. The concept of “real-time hermeneutics” (Aarseth 2003) is analysed in order to understand how temporality affects the understanding of games. Temporal frames (Zagal and Mateas 2010) are introduced as an alternative way of understanding time in games.

 

Guidelines to Design Interactive Open-ended Play Installations for Children Placed in a Free Play Environment

Tiemstra Gordon van den Berg Renée Bekker Tilde de Graaf Mark
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

In this paper we describe a study in which we examine how children play with an interactive open-ended play installation. The idea behind open-ended play solutions is that children can create their own game goals and rules. However, what design parameters help children in being able to do this? Challenges include how to get children started with creating games, and develop rules as they play, and how an interactive open- ended installation can be flexible in including different amounts of children and play objects. We processed the observations of children playing with SmartGoals (an open ended play installation) into a series of guidelines that can be used as inspiration for the design of future open-ended play installations.

 

Game reviews as tools in the construction of game historical awareness in Finland, 1984-2010: Case MikroBitti Magazine

Suominen Jaakko
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

The paper introduces a case study on game journalistic practices and on the construction of historical self-understanding of game cultures. It presents results of the study of Finnish digital game reviews, retrieved from a major computer hobbyist magazine, MikroBitti. The results are based on a qualitative content analysis of 640 reviews from two magazine issues per year (1984–2010). The aim is to examine changes in the production of game reviews, in the work of individual reviewers, and then to focus on particular stylistic characteristics: to study how game journalists refer, on the one hand to other popular media cultural forms and products such as television series, cinema, comics, literature, sports, news, board games, and on the other hand, to other digital games, game genres, genre-hybrids, game producers, national game product styles as well as game designer auteurs. The paper argues that by using these references and allusions game journalists construct historical understanding of digital gaming as a particular popular media cultural form. The preliminary research hypothesis was that digital game cultural references increase and other media cultural references decline in reviews. This has proven to be partially incorrect. The content analysis of reviews hints that historical self-understanding of game cultural actors as well as the press and gaming industry has grown and been enriched since the 1980s.

 

Game Prototyping – The Negotiation of an Idea

Manker Jon
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

This is a study on the function of the prototyping process in game design. It is based on interviews with 27 game designers in leading positions at companies of various sizes. Prototyping is an important part of game design with which design ideas are explored. One central purpose of prototypes is to serve as a communicational tool. As such it is used to negotiate design problems. Rhetoric has a long tradition of analyzing communication and negotiation. In this paper a number of concepts from rhetoric, (topos, hodos, pistis, partes and to some extent synecdoche) are applied to game prototyping based on data collected as interviews. The results indicate that rhetoric concepts are useful when talking about the prototypes as they grasp the qualities of a prototyping in a good way. By applying the findings using negotiation theory to real practice the game prototyping process would likely become clearer without diminishing its creative qualities. As presented here negotiation theory could serve as a conceptual framework for game prototyping, which the design team can make use of in their design process.

 

Collaboration and Team Composition in Applied Game Creation Processes

van Roessel Lies van Mastrigt-Ide Jeroen
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

In this explorative study, the collaboration and team composition within applied game creation processes is investigated. Applied games are games that are deployed for purposes like training, education, persuasion, physical exercise etc., i.e. all games that bring about effects that are useful outside the context of the game itself. Ten Dutch applied game designers were interviewed and asked about the creation process of one recently finished applied game project. There are three tendencies that surfaced from these interviews: 1) a domain expert or Subject Matter Expert (SME) in the field one is making a game for is to be involved when creating an applied game, 2) this SME is typically the client - or working for the client - which can lead to unbalanced games and 3) although one could expect otherwise, there is usually no expert on transfer involved in the applied game creation process. In the final section, topics for further research are suggested.

 

Experiential Metaphors in Abstract Games

Begy Jason
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Despite their age and prevalence, abstract games are often overlooked in contemporary discussions of games and meaning. In this paper I offer experiential metaphors as a critical method applicable to all games, particularly abstract games. To do this I introduce structural metaphors, image schemata and experiential gestalts to explain how experiential metaphors function. I then compare this method with the simulation gap (Bogost 2006, 2007) and show how the two relate. I close with two examples of abstract games that function as experiential metaphors.