Combiform: a console for the new communal casual game genre

PDF

Download

Open document

Flip pages

Summarize

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content COMBIFORM: A CONSOLE FOR THE NEW COMMUNAL CASUAL GAME GENRE by Edmond C. Yee A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF FINE ARTS (INTERACTIVE MEDIA) May 2012 Copyright 2012 Edmond C. Yee ii DEDICATION A dedication to being jealous of my brother playing Strike Gunner S.T.G when I was 6 years old… iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my parents, William Yee and Sannifer Yee, and my brother, Darwin Yee, for constant financial supports. I also thank my girlfriend, Yannie Kwong, for giving me all the smiles and happiness. The project would not be possible without the love from all of you. I would also take this chance to acknowledge the rest of the team: Josh Joiner, Tai An, Andrew Dang, Jeff Ye, Mu-Fan Wu, Rasik Srinath, Sunil Venkatraman, Shuang Wu, Melinda Yep, Emory Irpan, Nathan David, Issac Tentenbaum, Harrison Lee, Chris Yanson, Michael Newman, and people who have contributed to make Combiform what it is today. I also appreciate Andy Uehara for being the first person believing in my concept and executing it with me. Special thanks to my thesis committee/consultants: Dr. Andreas Kratky, Mark Bolas, Dr. Michael Zyda, Laird Malamed, Scott Easley, Kurosh Valanejad, Bernie DeKoven, Andre Clark, Steve Boyer, Perry Hoberman, Dr. David Krum, Ben Cipollini & Joshua MS. Finally, I am acknowledging Dr. David Kirsh from UC San Diego for showing me how to think like a researcher. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii List of Figures v Abstract vi Chapter 1: Beyond Co-attentive Play, a Combinable Social Gaming Platform 1 Introduction 1 Co-located, Meditated, and Virtual co-play 3 Highest Social Richness: Co-located co-play 4 From Co-located to Tangible Co-attentive play 4 Tangible Co-attentive play 7 Hardware Design and the Affordances 7 Game Design: Enriching Co-attentive Play 9 Game Descriptions 10 Concluding Chapter 1 13 Chapter 2: Old Rules and New Play, Furthering the New Perspective of Digital Games 14 Chapter 2 Preface 14 Foundations of Fun: Physicality & Socialization 14 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 16 Flow in Games: Not the Full Story 17 Socialization and CoLiberation: Big WE and ME 19 Objectives and Winning: Do we really care about them? 20 The Full Picture: Relationships between Extrinsic Motivations, Flow and CoLiberation 23 Rules and Constraints: Don’t follow them, just cheat! 25 Performance Play 28 Physical Contact and Touch 30 A New Digital Game Genre: Communal Casual Game 32 Communal Casual Games: Not so new 35 Combiform: The Communal Casual Game Platform 36 Communal Casual Game Design Lesson 38 References 40 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Combiform with one controller detached 1 Figure 2. Tangible Co-attentive play ⊆ Co-attentive play ⊆ Co-located play 5 Figure 3. Two players combined, achieving joint movement and gesture (Game: 1. Blow-it up) 6 Figure 4. Two players combined, achieving joint movement and gesture (Game: 1. Blow-it up) 6 Figure 5. Players’ bodies are facing each other when all controllers combine (Game: 6. Agent Purple) 8 Figure 6. Flow theory, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) 17 Figure 7. The Lap Game 18 Figure 8. CoLiberation theory, DeKoven (1978, 2002, 2011) 19 Figure 9. Image as appeared in A Casual Revolution, Juul (2009) 22 Figure 10. Modified version of Juul’s figure 24 Figure 11. Communal Casual Game: General Placement in Digital Games 34 vi ABSTRACT Combiform is a novel digital gaming console featuring four combinable handheld controllers. It is a new and unique tangible gaming interface that stresses the importance of co-located, co-attentive social interactions among players. In particular, multiple players may freely combine and lock together their handheld game controllers, thereby creating a very flexible collective and transformable tangible interface. Combiform emphasizes social interaction through controller-to-controller contact. The platform and its 10 games introduce novel, tangible and physical co-attentive experiences that are not found in traditional co-located gaming platforms using mimetic interfaces (e.g. Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect). The project is the first game console especially designed for a new emerging digital game genre – Communal Casual Game. The new game genre captures a perspective of integrating classical folk game design approach with digital elements; a perspective that uses old form of rules to create new types of play. 1 CHAPTER 1: BEYOND CO-ATTENTIVE PLAY, A COMBINABLE SOCIAL GAMING PLATFORM Introduction Combiform [see Figure 1] [73] can be understood as an emerging gaming system attempting to expand the co-located social play experiences introduced by platforms such as Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Kinect, Hasbro Bop-it, and Twister [21, 19, 15, 16]. Rather than playing games against predictable non-player characters (NPCs), people often prefer to play with other human players. In fact, gamers reported that socializing is the most important goal of playing games [49]. While mediated setting is commonly acknowledged as a more popular model used for social play, studies have found that co-located play evokes stronger social engagement and higher overall level of fun [35, 36]. Co-located play is more engaging to most players because it is a complete multi-sensory social experience (e.g. visual, tactile, auditory, etc.). However, the causation is not simply between physical proximity and overall enjoyment. It is the enhancement of shared attention that increases the level of social presence but not merely co- existing in the same space [2].Therefore, although most co-located gaming allows Figure 1. Combiform with one controller detached 2 richer social interactions, being in the same space (co-located) does not by itself guarantee high social engagement and excitement in gaming [2]. Most co-located video games direct players’ attention to face the screen but not to other players. This arrangement counter-acts the natural affordances required for social interaction. It takes away many opportunities for complex interpersonal communication [2]. This stereotypical arrangement could be significantly improved through careful game and interface design. De Kort. et. al. [2] suggested that “[Game interface characteristics] influence how close others can get, and whether they can look at each other while playing.” Combiform is especially designed to drastically improve co-attentiveness during co-located play. These handheld controllers are designed to emphasize tangible body-to-body interaction via flexible combining and decombining mechanism. Based on observations [59], this new interactive technique affords an exceptionally strong re-enforcement for player to pay close attention to other players. In some games, participant needs to actively choose whom to combine with; thereby, transferring majority of attention to other players and not just to the screen [65]. While in other games, players need to work together through a tangible, strong-enough magnetic connection [71]. In addition to significantly improving focus attention, players could now feel and direct each other’s movements and gestures via these tangible links between controllers [58, 59]. The first chapter will be summarized by introducing the concept of tangible co-attentive co-play. These improvements of focus attentions are setup to further enhance a new type of emerging digital game experiences. Simply put, it is a type of digital 3 games that pull people’s focus more to each other rather than to the screen. Players were not just the “controllers”, but active components in the games. Chapter 2 will explain the core mission and significance of what the Combiform project is striving for based upon the introduction of tangible co-attentive play. The discussion will begin from presenting fun as an innate drive. I will then integrate classical extrinsic motivational theories [41], flow [1] and coLiberation [6] for a new model to illustrate an alternate social drive for digital play. Contrary to popular practice of playing digital games, bumping, pushing, cheating, breaking the rules, not following the game objectives, and acting silly could very well be part of the well-played-game as long as the play-community is having fun. [6] The chapter will put together all these elements and characteristics for describing this emerging digital game genre - Communal Casual Game. Lastly, I will conclude the paper by explaining how Combiform platform is especially designed to foster this new game genre. Co-located, Meditated, and Virtual co-play Social presence is defined as “the subjective counterpart of objective closeness in communication: ‘the sense of being with another’” [36]. There are three common configurations for digital games to achieve this sensation for players: 1) co-located co-play (playing in the same physical location), 2) meditated co-play (online play), and 3) virtual players co-play (playing against virtual opponents). [34, 36] 4 Highest Social Richness: Co-located co-play Gajadhar. et. al. [36] completed a comprehensive experiment to test player enjoyment in the three different settings: Co-located, virtual, and mediated. His group found that “co-located co-player settings significantly add to the fun, challenge, and perceived competence” in gaming compared to both meditated and virtual co-play [36]. While a co-located setting induces more positive play experiences, it does not add to the overall players’ frustration or aggression. His group suggested that these results are closely related to the opportunity for richer social interactions during co-located play. In particular, increasing affordances for communication through multi-modal social cues (e.g. facial expressions, body gestures, etc.) is the key for players to report higher levels of enjoyments while playing in a co-located space [36]. Other experiments yield similar results in both competitive and collaborative gaming through physiological arousal and subjective reporting in enjoyment levels. [46, 47, 52] From Co-located to Tangible Co-attentive play According to Venkatesh and Mukherjee, “Physical proximity offers multi-sensory immersion and provides users with avenues for spontaneously interacting with friends. In contrast, playing online games with the same user group of friends does not offer this rich multi-sensory engagement” [57] De Kort. et. al. added that “… in co-located settings we can also experience varying degrees of awareness, involvement and engagement, i.e., social presence.” [2] 5 There are many factors that could influence players’ excitement level even if playing against human players in the same confined space. Interpersonal distance, body orientation, physical interaction (sense of touch), gesture, verbal communications, facial expression, etc. are all important factors in determining the level of social engagement [2].These could be summarized as a form of attention between players, which I call “co-attentive” play (see Figure 2). There has been quite a few digital interfaces developed that attempt to achieve co-attentiveness during play. The Hasbro Bop-it [15] requires other players to pay close attention to the active player even if they are not currently interacting with the device. A recent study has shown that natural-mapping interfaces used in system such as Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect [21, 19] improve player co-attentiveness during play [56]. Acceleroto Air Hockey [9] is one of the many co-located social games on the Apple iPad/iPhone that encourage players to face each other during play. Figure 2. Tangible Co-attentive play ⊆ Co-attentive play ⊆ Co-located play 6 Most of these designs have effectively improved co-attention among players either through changing players’ body orientation and interpersonal distance [2] or exaggerating gestures and body movements using natural-mapping interfaces [8]. Combiform attempts to improve co-attentiveness via both means from an entirely new perspective. Players are required to actively choose to attach and detach their interfaces in some games; thus, they must pay close attention to others while playing. Since players have to move closer and away from each other for combining, interpersonal distances are dynamically and drastically changed during play, as illustrated in [63, 72]. They are completely eliminated in combined mode, merging engaged players’ attentions together. Players are required to move their arm (or even jump) together after they have combined, achieving a natural-mapping synchronized interface that draws face-to-face and body-to-body attentions among players (see Figure 3 & 4). It also amplifies players’ gestures which enhance social presence in gaming [18, 59]. Figure 3. Two players combined, achieving joint movement and gesture (Game: 1. Blow-it up) Figure 4. Two players combined, achieving joint movement and gesture (Game: 1. Blow-it up) 7 Tangible Co-attentive play One very unique aspect of Combiform not found in any other previous work is the ‘tangibility’ it possesses. Instead of funneling people’s attentions to the virtual world like most gaming interfaces, Combiform creates a physical link among players to directly feel each others’ gestures and movements. This opens up possibilities for directing other players’ movements during play. Communication during play can even be done via this tangible link in non-verbal form. For instance, a player could feel when the other player(s) is not doing quite well and subtly direct his/her movements with the established magnetic connection [59, 71]. The combining mechanic also affords players to tap into other people’s play space in competitive games. Attaching and detaching the controllers is a highly visible action for all players. This visibility of movements increases possibilities for immediate physical response from other players as seen in [71]. These emerging actions can be interpreted as tangible means of augmenting digital gaming through the introduction of flexible attaching and detaching interface. Similar experimental effort such as C.G.C. J.S. Joust! [11] does not offer this full-range of tangibility; particularly the joint gesture feedbacks. Hardware Design and the Affordances Combiform resembles the shape of a squared pie cut in four quarters (see Figure 1). This configuration is especially designed to encourage players to pay close attentions to others rather than to the screen. When all four controllers are combined, the players’ bodies face each other (see Figure 5). Each controller is 8 equipped with a motion sensor, one big button, one big knob, a multi-color light emitting diode (LED), and four pieces of magnets. The shells are constructed with break-resistant high quality ABS plastic. All controllers are communicating through Digi XBee® Wireless RF modules. The transformation can be summarized into five modes: 1) all separated, 2) all combined, 3) three combined, one separated, 4) two combined, two separated and 5) two separate pairs combined. The two sides of the controllers are equipped with two sets of neodymium magnets. They provide about 10lb of perpendicular pull force. As discussed in the previous section, this magnetic combining system encourages unique full body social interactions in digital play. In addition to the attaching mechanism, all assets of the controller are chosen to maximize direct visibility and transparency of in-game actions. Each Combiform controller has a LED that is capable of emitting any color in the visible spectrum. The LEDs are often used as important visual communication tools that are easily perceived in a co-located space. Hence, information communicated between players and the game becomes completely transparent to the public. This is demonstrated in one of our games called T.A.I. [63, 64]. The motion sensor (3 axial accelerometer), the big button and the big knob simplify play experiences and make it easy for other players to see and interrupt peers’ actions. It would be very difficult for Figure 3. Players’ bodies are facing each other when all controllers combine (Game: 6. Agent Purple) 9 players to see what button someone pressed in a traditional controller, but it would be obvious in a Combiform controller. It seems logical to hypothesize that enlarging tangible inputs (e.g. big buttons) has similar effect compared to naturally-mapped motion controls. Both of these designs enhance social presences through simplified, clearly visible actions. Game Design: Enriching Co-attentive Play I am presenting 10 different game experiences using the Combiform [58- 73]. Games that are in the ‘Competitive’ category result in only one player winning; all players are competing against each other. In ‘Cooperative’ games, all players must work together against the game. ‘Team Competitive’ games require players to pair up in teams and compete against each other. I am demonstrating a wide range of versatility in the Combiform platform. These games range from purely active social-fun (e.g. Blow-It Up), to board-game-like social experiences (e.g. Match!), to serious games for improving Mathematics skills (e.g. Pop Quiz), to beautifully rendered media art/musical hybrid piece (e.g. Unison). It is worthwhile to note that all of these games can be mapped in a continuum of social presence that could lay a foundation for later studies. I could use both objective and subjective methodologies to better quantify players’ engagement levels. Self reports on the Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ) and Social Presence Questionnaire (SPGQ) can be used as subjective measure of effectiveness for all games [42]. Players’ physiological data can be 10 captured via galvanic skin response (GSR) and electrocardiography (EKG) [8] for future data analysis and objective evaluations. Game Descriptions 1. Blow-It Up (Team Competitive) Timing and cooperation are the staples of Blow It Up. The game will ask players to form teams of 2, and then combine with their partner's controllers. They will then have to move their controllers up and down at the same rate to inflate their color coordinated balloons. The team blows up the balloon first wins. [58, 59] 2. Pop-Quiz (Serious Game, Cooperative) Pop-quiz is a math-based game. Each player has an avatar color coded to their controllers on screen. The teacher on screen will put a random number on the chalkboard, and players will each have a number in their avatars answer box. They will then have to find the proper combination of their numbers to equal the number on screen, and then press the button to submit their answer. Addition or multiplication modes are both available. [66] 3. Switch (Cooperative) Switch is a rendition on the classic Twister [16]. Played with 2 to 4 players, it doesn’t require the screen at all. The beginning of the game starts with all 4 controllers connected in the middle, 2 are lit blue and the other 2 are lit purple. Players must switch the position of the 2 purple controllers without separating the blue ones. It may seem easy at first, but soon you won’t be able to tell where your body stops, and your partners begin! (2-Players [71], 4-Players [72]) 11 4. For Here, To Go (Cooperative) One to four players test their service industry tray balancing skills in For Here, To Go. All Combiform controllers are combined and held at shoulder length to symbolize a waiter’s tray. As players walk to serve tables, their drinks will randomly slide around the tray. By counterbalancing the controllers, they can prevent the drinks from crashing to the floor. [69] 5. Tournament of Artificial Intelligence, T.A.I. (Competitive) T.A.I. is Combiform's rendition of Simon Says [22]. During the round, the computer will shout out commands such as "combine" or "press button". If the players’ controller is blinking, they must complete the command. However, if their controller is not blinking, they must not do the action. Players can force an action onto another players’ controller when they aren't paying attention as an offensive maneuver. [63, 64] 6. My Light, My Game (Competitive) My Light, My Game splits the teams into two, the green team, and the blue team. Each team can consist of any number of players, and the controllers must be placed on a table fully combined and not in the players hands. At the beginning of the round, the controllers will be lit up with 2 blue, and 2 green. Players can change the color of the controller by pressing its button. Teams will receive 1 point when all controllers are lit to their teams color. The first team to ten points wins! [60 - 62] 12 7. Match! (Competitive) Match! is a color matching game on the Combiform system. Players each have their own controller with lights turned off. Every round, all 4 controllers will light up to the same color, and then turn off after 5 seconds. Players must then use the dials on the controllers to change their color and match the first one. [68] 8. Agent Purple (Competitive) Hot Potato and musical chairs come together in Combiform's Secret Agent Purple. At the beginning of the game, all controllers light up to the corresponding avatar on screen as usual, except this time one of the controllers is purple. By combining with other players, the color purple can be transferred to their controller, and they will be awarded a Point. The winner of the round is the one who accumulates the most points, however the round will end randomly and the last player to hold the color purple will be eliminated from the game. Get as many points as you can, but don't be the last one holding the purple! [65] 9. Firewall (Cooperative) In Firewall, 4 hackers are trying to bypass security systems in a cybernetic world. Player each have a controller color coded to their player on screen. Waves of "firewalls" preventing your progression move down the screen. Players must match the tetris-like colored and shaped holes in the firewalls by combining with each other and moving into the correct position directly under the hole. [67] 13 10. Unison (Media Art Piece) Unison is a symphonic experience. Operated cooperatively with two players each holding two controllers, Unison introduces players to a euphoric, meditative scenario with a tranquil classical score playing in the background. By moving their controllers up and down, as well as rotation, players are able to dynamically affect the music by saturating and unsaturating certain instruments in the score, and ultimately taking part in a very peaceful and moving interaction. [70] Concluding Chapter 1 Studies have shown that co-located gaming is more fun and engaging than playing online or with virtual players. Nevertheless, simply having players in the same space will not guarantee involvement and social engagement. Combiform’s attaching and detaching mechanism is specifically designed to enhance co-located co-play experiences. The interface and the 10 games are designed to require players to not only be co-located in the same space, but more importantly, co- attentive to one another via physical and tangible means. It attempts to open up an entirely new level of collaborative and competitive play experiences where both body-to-body and body-to-screen interactions happen in parallel. This new play experiences will be further discussed in following chapter. 14 CHAPTER 2: OLD RULES AND NEW PLAY, FURTHERING THE NEW PERSPECTIVE OF DIGITAL GAMES Chapter 2 Preface In chapter 1, I have introduced the concept of tangible co-attentive play. The discussion is framed around literatures in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. This part of the paper attempts to include various game design and psychology theories to further systematize the concept. This chapter will conclude with introducing a new emerging game genre – Communal Casual Game by explaining the meaning of using old rules to create new play in Combiform. Foundations of Fun: Physicality & Socialization Fun is one of the innate drives of all human beings and mammals. Play is an activity for satisfying the drive; similar to the relationship between hunger and eating. But why do animals have the drive to play? It seems to be a costly, pointless and illogical instinct for all mammals. It consumes energy, thereby increasing food and water consumptions. It also puts the animals in greater risks of injuries and potentially attracting predators from play noises. Since the 19 th century, classical theories in Developmental Psychology have suggested the importance of play as preparations for later life. [38] Contrary to popular belief that play serves no constructive value to people, it is in fact, a very important instinct for learning important skills for survival. Children from all 15 around the world play chase games in one form or another. Young cats, dogs, tigers and bears enjoy chasing each other: taking turns to be the pursuer and the pursued. They also have fun by biting, wrestling, pawing and fighting as forms of play. According to Groos, play is an evolved instinct used to drive animals to learn about important skills for survival. These drives happen to be very much “species specific”, meaning that animals would play based on the “appropriate” skill sets of their own species. Young predators like lions and hyenas play by stalking, preying and hunting. [54] Zebras and horses play by escaping and dodging. [27] Therefore, it is no surprise that social and physical activities are most favorable for human beings to satisfy their drives to play. Humans are highly social animals; no one could survive by himself. Having innate drives and pleasurable feedbacks for socializing would maximize chances for survival as individuals and as a group. Since physically fit humans are more likely to survive in the wild, urge to engage in physical play can be seen as a residual of evolution. This serves as a widely accepted answer for why children engage in social and physical play across all cultures. [37] Based upon psychological research, it seems logical to hypothesize that games involving social and/or physical aspects are naturally pleasurable for fulfilling human beings’ innate drive for fun. The argument is debatable since older gamers tend not to play simple physical games (e.g. Tag). This happens due to many complex factors such as cultural influences, self-esteems, trust, familiarity, concerns of safety, etc. [3] 16 However, it would be difficult to dismiss the exceptionally pleasurable experiences that physical game brings to human being by simply referencing to the vast pool of different sports throughout the world. It is important to note that social and physical-based plays are two fundamental forms, but certainly not the only types of play people engaged in. Fun, motivation and play are very complex psychological subject matters. The discussion above merely serves as a foundation for addressing the natural playfulness [58-73] in Combiform games. That is, the emphases in having digitally meditated play occur along with the affordances in the physical world, and the importance of how this tangible play unifies and mixes with the social aspects of the games. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Motivation is a key for understanding how to design games that people would enjoy. It is not a simple issue since people are motivated by different reasons to “do” (or play) different things. Basic theories of motivation give us a good overview of what makes people do what they want and what they don’t want. The concept of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation [41] provides a basic taxonomy to categorize different motivations. Intrinsic motivations roughly refer to the internal desires generated by the process of doing a task. In contrast, extrinsic motivations are driving forces external and unrelated to performing the task or process. A cat is intrinsically motivated to play with a ball of yarn, and 17 extrinsically motivated to “sit up” for a piece of treat. The piece of treat is an external reward unrelated to the process of performing the task. Flow in Games: Not the Full Story Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi proposed an influential model in the 1990s, extending the concept of intrinsic motivation. He called it the “flow” theory. [1] Simply put, the flow state is the strongest intrinsic motivational state that one can have while performing a task. (see Figure 6) His flow model is frequently borrowed from game studies and game theories because getting players intrinsically motivated to play is what every game designer should do. In Game Design Workshop, Tracy Fullerton stated that “[Flow theory] is very interesting for game designers because this balance between challenge and ability is exactly what we are trying to achieve with gameplay.” [32] The claim is true, especially when one is engaging with single-player mode in digital games. However, it doesn’t seem to capture every essence of why people play games. The question to ask is, “Do people really look for the challenges and enjoyments of executing their skills every time they play games?” A simple scenario to consider is The Lap Game, described in The New Games Book: Figure 4. Flow theory, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) 18 Everyone available stand in a circle, shoulder-to-shoulder. Now turn to the right. Then, very gently, everybody sit down on the lap of the person behind them… The crucial moment comes when the person on his back is hoisted up onto the lap of the person behind him. And there you have it – a sitting circle. [28] In The Lap Game (see Figure 7), people that are engaging in it don’t seem to be motivated to play the game more when it is “more challenging”. One might argue that this game will be more challenging when there are more people playing it, i.e. more people sitting onto the lap of others to form a bigger circle. However, the difficulty level doesn’t seem to go up. Each player is only sitting on and being sat on by one person at a time regardless of how many people are playing the game. The challenge of this game stays more or less constant for individual player throughout the game. Besides, there is minimal skill level to improve on by simply sitting on one or another. Thus, both the challenge and skill level are considerably linear variables. The Lap Game is undeniably a game, not only a playful act because it consists of all the elements that a game should have: Clear objectives, constraints, conflicts, rules, etc. What is it that keeps motivating people to play then? Based on personal observations, people seem to get more excited and motivated to play this game when more people chose to engage in the activity. Since challenge and skill level for each player remain fairly constant, socialization Figure 5. The Lap Game 19 or simply “playing together” appears to be the strongest factor governing people’s intrinsic motivation to play. Bernie DeKoven, in his talk, Playing Well Together, observed that this game was fun when all the people achieved the sitting circle, but “much fun when people fell down as it was when [the objective was reached]”. [51] He continued by saying that the fun came from the silliness and the strangeness of being together. It becomes apparent that the relationship between challenge and skill doesn’t exactly describe the intrinsic motivations for people to engage in gaming; there is something more to it. Socialization and CoLiberation: Big WE and ME The concept of playing with others is not a new one. “I am not going to play if you are not playing” is a familiar sounding line that most of us have heard before. It is no surprise that socializing is a core motivation for playing games since it is a fundamental need for human survival. In DeKoven’s book, The Well-Played Game, he introduced the concept of coLiberation (see Figure 8). It is a model of fun with socializing as a motivation for playing games. CoLiberation can be understood as a flow state of having others to engage in an activity together. The ‘WE’ spectrum illustrates the experience of multiple people “sharing in something bigger than any one present”. Figure 6. CoLiberation theory, DeKoven (1978, 2002, 2011) 20 The ‘ME’ experience is a form of “self-transcendence”, a reference to self- engagement influenced by having others present. [6] CoLiberation reaches its peak when people work extraordinarily well together - an empowering feeling that drives the activity with others. The WE and the ME in this model are very abstract and subjective, impossible to be measured just like flow because of the “intrinsic” nature. DeKoven puts it: It’s the experience of ME empowering the WE empowering the ME. ME and the Other freeing each other. Me and the Harmonic creating the music, ME and the Group Mind, the Team Spirit creating each other. Depending on how we create it, the WE creates us. [6] DeKoven’s values in play, fun and games overlapped a large portion of Combiform’s core mission -- using technology to bring people together for creating an environment or a community for well-played social fun. Combiform has games that promote cheating and silliness such as Blow-it up, My Light, My Game and T.A.I. [58 - 64] I have also designed Switch, a game emphasizing on collaborative performance play. [71, 72] Most of these games are not designed to engage players in the classical flow state. They are designed to get people to enjoy the games and have fun together as a small community. Combiform simply could not work out its magic if it is not played by two or more person at a time. I will continue this discussion later in the paper. Objectives and Winning: Do we really care about them? Having a clear goal or an objective is one of the core fundamental factors for having a game. Winning is usually considered as the final or “ultimate” objective. Game designers generally think that objectives must be carefully 21 chosen for good game design since “objective is a key element without which the experience loses much of its structure, and [the] need to work toward the objective is a measure of [players’] involvement in the game.” [29] Objective is definitely an important element. After all, one could ask herself, why do I want to engage when I don’t want to win? DeKoven has once again given us insights on this. He wrote, Winning, though the goal of a game, can’t be the purpose for playing. Winning serves the purpose of helping us focus, of allowing us to create the challenge that lets us manifest our powers through the game. Winning ends the game, but not our purpose. [7] Although there is no scientific study addressing DeKoven’s claims, these observations and interpretations are extremely well-written. It is logical to guess that the introduction of the Wii social gaming console in 2006 is based largely on the coLiberation theory mentioned in the previous section as Nintendo called their system the Wii and virtual characters Mii (pronounced ‘We’ and ‘Me’ respectively). It might be a coincidence, but it also could be true. However, what we learned is that some people are motivated to play just because others are playing. Socializing is their real objective despite what the games tell them to do or achieve. Jesper Juul’s very recent book, A Casual Revolution, discussed why he thinks games that use mimetic interfaces such as Wii Sports [25] and alike became such a success. [44] He explained a simple taxonomy for the relationship between game objectives and players’ purposes: 1) The goal orientation consideration, 2) the game experience consideration, and 3) the social management consideration. (see Figure 9) 22 The “three considerations” model gives DeKoven’s claims more structure. The appealing point to make about Juul’s argument is that desire of winning and achieving objectives in a game are subsets of the desire for an interesting game experience and the desire for social interactions. Here, socialization is the underlying core of desire or motivation when playing with others. Juul furthered his discussions by saying that “the nominal description of a game will tell you to focus on the first consideration, but the other two repeatedly come into play.” In other words, winning or achieving objectives in games is never our focus of playing. It is a complete alignment to DeKoven’s point of view of why winning is not our true purpose in playing games. Figure 7. Image as appeared in A Casual Revolution, Juul (2009) 23 The Full Picture: Relationships between Extrinsic Motivations, Flow and CoLiberation Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are usually used in game design. Typical scoring system is one of the simplest extrinsic motivations. SuperLotto Plus and alike [24] could be seen as a “game” that uses extremely strong extrinsic motivation to attract people to play. Without the external reward in lottery, people would hardly enjoy the process of seeing how many numbers they could correctly guess in a completely arbitrary play. Attempting to use a well-designed fun process as a drive (flow) is more effective for the type of game design we are talking about. Contrary to the lottery, which I think is also a game, extrinsic motivation is simply not what we are striving for since we want players to voluntarily play the game and enjoy the process while engaging in it. Besides, it seems unreasonable for game designers to offer money as rewards whenever one reaches an objective in the game. 24 There are minimal reasons to fight for invaluable rewards in most games. It is bizarre for anyone to be happy about being given the title of a winner in a Tag game when she hasn’t even started playing. In fact, people enjoy playing games because of the process. We enjoy being a hero slaughtering bad guys in a video game not because we really have to kill the bad guys to finish an objective. We play because we enjoy slaughtering them in this virtual world; the performance, the joy, the effect and the graphics of slaughtering. No one truly cares about the objectives when they are irrelevant to our life goals: they are just excuses for focusing and getting through an enjoyable process. Furthering this argument, I could draw a direct relationship to put the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, the theory of flow, and the theory of coLiberation all together in Juul’s map (see Figure 10). [44] Objectives in games can be seen as Figure 8. Modified version of Juul’s figure 25 extrinsic motivation for players. Getting high scores, earning special weapons, and winning in a game are examples of this type of motivation or the “Frame 1” desire. Frame 2 is the famous flow state in games – desire for an interesting game or an interesting experience. Recalling earlier discussions, it is also an intrinsic motivational state in which the player is motivated by the actual play process but not by any external factor. The third frame which happens only in social play captures DeKoven’s coLiberation theory – the game as a social event. The “size” and importance of these frames appear not to be constant since desires and motivations are internal factors subjective to different players. They could even be changing on the same game played by the same players since people have different mental state (mood). These theories serve as a general but not an absolute framework for describing people’s motivations to play games. Rules and Constraints: Don’t follow them, just cheat! Everything in this world and possibly the universe follows a certain set of constraints. Time is the strongest constraint in our physical world. All matters visible to the naked eye follow time constraint. Game is a system that often has lots of constraints. Most of them are made up, and some are taken advantages of from the physical world. Rules and constraints enforce conflicts and challenges within a game; they are very important formal elements according to Fullerton. [31] Digital games do particularly well in enforcing constraints and rules because they are absolute logical gates. Computers simply won’t make mistakes, and will do exactly what they are programmed. Whitson wrote, “[T]he rules [of digital 26 games] are embedded in the hardware and the software of the game, thus freeing players from having to enforce the rules themselves.” [74] Following the rules appears to be a requirement for engaging in a game. Fullerton claims that “[i]f you don’t follow the rules, in a very real way, you are no longer playing the game.” [30] However, this view is fairly limited since breaking the rule can very well be part of the game. DeKoven observed something more profound about cheating which he called the-well-timed-cheat. [4] In his book, he described a scenario where people were happily playing musical chairs [20] together and having fun while some of them were consistently cheating. One player took a chair with him before the music stopped. Another person just stopped the music by himself without getting permissions from the rest. The-well- timed-cheat is “a kind of cheating which –even though it can be considered unfair, even though it helps somebody win or keeps somebody from losing – was good, was right, which led us all to a game we could play well together.” [4] The important lesson to learn here is that rules and constraints could be broken when it is for increasing coLiberation. Games such as Blow-it up, T.A.I., and My Light, My Game [58 - 64] require players to cheat in order to maximize coLiberation. However, cheating must be done correctly and openly with the community’s consent. Some rules are designed to be broken, but some are not. Breaking undesirable rules too often not only won’t increase social fun, it could potentially damage it. Breaking rules is not the same as having no rules. For instance, even though Blow-it up encourages people to break the other team’s controller connection, it is not okay to punch others for some people. In rare 27 occasions, punching and kicking might be acceptable cheats. It certainly depends on the people that make up the “play community”. Thus, rules and constraints in games can be seen more or less as “social contracts”, which could only be broken when the game is no longer fun. According to DeKoven, “[players] must know ahead of time that the intended violation of the game will be experienced as a reaffirmation of everyone’s access to play.” [4] Other examples that are designed to have breakable rules as part of the game would be B.U.T.T.O.N – Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now, J.S. Joust by Copenhagen Game Collective and DrawSomething by Omgpop. [10, 11, 13] DeKoven is not alone on this perspective. In Rules of Play, Salen and Zimmerman suggested rule-breaking “as an attitude toward playing and designing games”. [53] They have admitted that “breaking rules is part of the game itself” and “can enhance meaningful play”. They even go as far as encouraging game designers as rule breakers: If the conventions and genres of game design are the rules by which most designers ‘play’, then the innovators are those designers that manage to break the rules. Games hold great promise, but only if we are bold enough to truly break the rules of our field. [53] Combiform is exactly aiming for this type of “boldness”. This paper not only describes the literal rule-breaking games such as Blow-it up, T.A.I., My Light, My Game, J.S. Joust; but a rule breaking concept: a game console that cheats on almost every aspects of traditional video game design practice, a console that relies on old rules to create new play! 28 Performance Play In 2010, we formulated Combiform around the concept of performance play. At the time I called it “the performative aspect of play”. In the poster for Meaningful Play 2010, I wrote, Playing games with the physical presence of others is simply an extremely fun and rewarding social performance. Combiform is the very first attempt to further enhance this social performance by incorporating a novel gaming interface with the combine mechanics that emphasize compelling collaborative physical interactions. [48] Today this is still one of the core values of the Combiform project. I am certainly not the pioneer of this concept. One could imagine these types of play happen in games like the Wii Sport, Kinect Adventures, Guitar Hero, Karaoke Revolution, etc. [25, 18, 14, 17] What I come to realize is that there are two types of performance in play. Fullerton in her book suggested that there are many different types of players. Among them, the joker and the performer are the two that could be categorized as “performers”. The joker “doesn’t take the game seriously – plays for the fun of playing… jokers can make the game more social than competitive”. The performer simply “[l]oves to put on a show for others”. [33] I would change the two phrases to silly performer and serious performer respectively. Silly performing is simply what jokers would do. They want to trigger a big laugh by performing a certain action during play. This concept might be trivial but it is more powerful than it seems. Silliness in play is an immediate factor for triggering joyfulness in play. DeKoven once again suggested that “a play community would not have the freedom to play as well as we do if we ever took 29 anything – our game, our community – too seriously. We need the humor. We need the foolishness.” [5] Indeed, the initiative for play is the drive for fun as discussed in earlier section, Foundations of Fun. This provides a parallel perspective to the importance of humor in games – simply because they could provide a fun atmosphere. One can be a silly performer in any game they play, but those that are particularly designed to set off players’ silliness are predominantly successful in creating truly fun experiences. To a certain degree, a good design trick for promoting silly performance in social games is to incorporate a rule breaking window, so that people could act legitimately silly with the game and for the play. Wii Sport, Kinect Adventures, Karaoke Revolution and B.U.T.T.O.N are good examples. [25, 18, 17, 10] Combiform games such as Blow-it up, Agent Purple, T.A.I, and My Light, My Game are examples which promote silly performance through design. [58, 65, 63, 60] One doesn’t have to be silly in order to be performing in play. Serious performers in games are people that try to put on a good show for others. The concept is pretty similar to what we typically think of when we hear the word, “performance”. Dancing, figure skating, diving, singing, playing the violin, etc. are all performance that people do. Desire to put on a good show for others could be one of the intrinsic drives that pushes one forward, reaching the flow state, and coLiberation if there are multiple performers. Nonetheless, a serious performer in a game is different from a real performer most of the time. Games that are designed for serious performers tend to have a set of mastery that is easy to reach but very bold in form for the audiences and observers. For instance, in Switch, 30 players feel like they have to put on a good show for others by carrying out as many continuous “switching steps” as possible while twisting their own bodies as fast as they can. [71, 72] It is a simple mastery that one could pick up in a very short time with very elegant performanative value. Karaoke Revolution, Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero are other game examples [12, 14] that take advantages of the desire for putting on a show for others as motivations to play. Physical Contact and Touch This section captures one of the most distinctive and powerful features of Combiform – tangible contact. In part 1 of this paper, I have introduced a new concept called tangible co-attentive play. I described it as tangible co-directed gestures in play, meaning that you can feel and direct each other’s gestures through the physical magnetic links. However, the importance of having such an interaction remains obscure. The design of the controller is in fact resembles a sense of touch, a sense of very important interaction that is not only missing but “unwelcomed” in typical video game design practice. It could be a stereotype that the physical world is irrelevant to digital play; it could be something more complicated. Very recent social gaming consoles like the Wii U, Microsoft Kinect and Sony Move [26, 19, 23] did not attempt to address this issue in their design. Microsoft even go as far as instructing players to stand back to “have enough room to move without bumping into each other.” [45] What’s wrong with bumping into each other? The New Games Book [28] described more than 50 non-digital based physical games. 31 Much to our surprise, almost all of these games require to “bump” into other players or to touch other players; without which, those games are not playable at all. Why is it that almost all video games designed to avoid this seemingly fundamental aspect in classical play? The reasons are not important but the realization is because it allows designers to integrate this aspect with digital games. According to psychologist Matthew Hertenstein, “touch communicates more than the hedonic tone and intensity of emotions”. [40] In Understanding Emotions, Oatley, Keltner and Jenkins suggested that the right kind of touch soothes, reinforces reciprocity (roughly defined as cooperation), signal safety and provide pleasurable experiences. [50] Although the controllers’ magnetic connections are not necessary direct contacts between the skins among players, they serve as a resemblance of such. They also promote direct full body contacts as demonstrated in video [62]. The attaching and detaching mechanism of the controller provides an interesting mean and structure for direct physical contact in play. Its design embraces all players as interactive elements, transforming their physical bodies not only as “controllers”, but actual conflicts and potential supports in the game. Other players are supportive elements to reach a goal if the game is cooperative, and conflicts when it is competitive. Tangible co-attentive play is an old but important element we seem to forget in designing digital games. Combiform is attempting to bring this old element of direct physical contact to our attention, and merge it with digital games to create new play. 32 A New Digital Game Genre: Communal Casual Game Our discussion comes all the way from the innate drives of playing to the integrations of the three motivation theories, to the rule breaking principles, to a description of performance play and the significance of physical contacts. It is interesting to note that almost all of these elements are theories opposing classical digital game design practice. They are not revolutionary in a sense that they are fundamentals of what games and play should be before the digital game era. However, the integration of these old-school gaming elements to digital play is a rather new one. It is difficult to use common digital game theories to describe or categorize these types of emergent digital game practice. Therefore, I would suggest classifying them into a new digital game genre, which I called Communal Casual Game (CCG). (see Figure 11, page 35) My discussion of this game genre might not capture every aspects of this new perspective but should be enough to lay a good foundation. CCG describes games that draw player’s attentions more to others rather than to the virtual world. It is an assimilation of social physical play in the play community with elements of digital games. Games that are in this category rely on coLiberation rather than flow for maximizing players’ intrinsic motivations. Players should not care about the game objectives or game experiences as much as creating a fun oriented community. Most of the time they involve physically touching but this is not a requirement. In fact, cheating, performing, touching, physical contacts, etc are common practice in CCG. Note that the figure merely confined a very general placement of each games and the new genre in relation to purely virtual game 33 experiences and purely physical games such as Tag. The “Median Line of Focus” described a type of design focus that attempts to trigger a half mix of flow and coLiberation to motivate people playing the game. As I have mentioned earlier, having a game’s design focusing on either the game experience or the social aspect will not make an absolute justice of how the game will be played. Players’ motivations to play are subjective to what they feel and think at the moment, a very complex psychological process that is impossible to accurately predict. 34 Figure 9. Communal Casual Game: General Placement in Digital Games 35 Communal Casual Games: Not So New Communal Casual Games may appear to be a new game genre, but it is in fact, not so new. Hasbro Bop-it [15] is a very well-known “toy” developed in the 1990s that is better classified in this category. It is a hand-held device much like a game controller. The basic configuration consists of one big button, a pull handle, and a twistable crank. The device will shout out sequential audio commands in increasing speed, such as, “Bop-it, twist-it, pull-it, pass-it…” Players will then have to do the actions according to the commands; whoever fails to do the correct action will lose the game. Although Bop-it could be played by 1 player, it is designed to be a group game. Study [55] has shown that strong social engagement is a major cause leading to the game’s commercial success. The silliness of attempting incredibly quick motions and the inclusion of having other players as game components (pass-it) strongly enhance the fun in the “play community”. Karaoke Revolution [17] is an interesting CCG. People have to match the pitch and tempo of a song in order to win the game. However, matching the pitch and tempo is not the same as singing a song well. The loosely defined objective makes the game easier to master and opens up a well designed window for social interaction. In particular, it is intended to promote both silly performance play and serious performance play. One could sing a song really well for putting up a good show for others or they could yell at the microphone for the purpose of creating a good laugh within the “play community”. Copenhagen Game Collective, Johann Sebastian Joust (2011) [11] is a very new experimental effort aiming for a design practice very similar to 36 Combiform games. I would not say they are “prior art” since Combiform was started in 2010. Their game takes advantages of the motion sensor and the multi- colored LED on the Sony Move [23] controller. It is a well-balanced game encouraging body to body contact, co-attentiveness and a small well-timed cheat window. They have also used the tempo of a music track by Johann Sebastian Bach to signal sensitivity change of the motion sensor which directs the speed of players’ movements. It is one of the latest efforts in the Communal Casual Game design movement and certainly an important one. B.U.T.T.O.N [10] is yet another game designed by Copenhagen Game Collective in 2010. This game is focusing on well-timed-cheat. The constraints and rules are very loose just to encourage players to initialize silly play in the community. However, this could also be the game’s greatest downfall since not everyone in the play community would be in the mood to act silly and play silly. I have personally observed some players do not understand the fun and unwilling to perform the action asked by the game simply because their mindset is not aligned with the game. Combiform: The Communal Casual Game Platform Combiform is the first digital game platform that is especially designed for communal casual game practice. As mentioned in chapter 1 under the section, Hardware Design and the Affordances, Combiform controller is designed to promote a sense of “togetherness”. The controller layout forces players to focus on other players when combined, embracing their physical bodies as part of the 37 game to enhance the big WE in coLiberation. The LEDs are designed to make the game’s feedbacks apparent not just to individual players but to the play community as well. Motion sensor is a classic mimetic control choice which “emphasize[s] the events in player space” but not “screen space”. [43] Having only 1 big button and 1 big knob would encourage well-timed cheats. The enlargement in size of the buttons and the knobs would make individual’s actions very visible to the rest of the group; allowing easy interruptions of those actions during play as seen in T.A.I. [63, 64] This structure and design remained largely the same in the past two years partially due to the limited access to more advanced CNC prototyping technologies. This project is also completely self-funded which restricts the possibilities of freely experimenting with the design. Another more important reason is because I simply don't think adding or pulling out anything would be a good move due to reasons that I have mentioned in the end of section two as I go further along with the project. The design seems to be just about right for carrying out the fundamentals of CCG. However, I haven't actually tried to change anything physically, since I have yet to discover new aspect that could convince me to do so. I think the situation is somewhat similar to replacing the driving wheel with a set of left and right buttons – “it just doesn’t feel right”. At some point in time, there must be enlightenment in the design process. No results or observations could tell one exactly what to implement to perfect a system. I think design is more of a creative process but less of a scientific one. Nevertheless, 38 there are definitely rooms for improvement. I am looking forward to further develop the platform as a better system fostering Communal Casual Games. Combiform is a very unique project in a sense that it is not merely promoting new forms of interactions during play using novel technologies. The project is endorsing a movement - an emergent change that is happening in the game design community. Combiform takes advantages of its unique hardware design to further this new perspective of digital game, a perspective that use old form of rules to create new types of play. Communal Casual Game Design Lesson Game design is always a very difficult skill to teach. It is not like teaching someone to program in which there is a very strong logic and a step by step process of executing a job. Everything is possible in the world of design. A very complex game like World of Warcraft would be very fun to play with but a simple game such as Bop-it could be equally as fun. Some people think that designing games with the playcentric approach [28-33] would be the most effective way for designing an interesting game. However, a step by step design methodology is often time too rigid. My past experiences as a researcher in the field of Human Computer Interaction combined with the 2 years I have spent developing Combiform have taught me valuable lessons. Design seems not to be a step by step process but more of a spontaneous one. In psychology terms, “top down” rather than “bottom up”. Iteration process in design frequently formalized one’s thinking, which kills creativity. Scientific approaches to design based too 39 much on observations and results. These practices are lagging a sense of imagination. Scientific design processes such as playcentric design and contextual design are very good practice for designing “user-friendly system”, one that simplifies and smoothen a working or playing process. However, not every experience goal we set is equally compelling. If we started off with a dull concept, it will most likely be a “perfectly” dull game in the end. Experience certainly would improve, but cannot go far. In contrast, we should try to imagine or find a small “broken” system that is naturally very fun, and work down the ladder to sort out and perfect the structure. This is the secret philosophy for designing well- played Communal Casual Games. 40 REFERENCES [1] Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Perennial. [2] de Kort, Y.A.W., IJesselsteijn, W.A., & Gajadhar, B.J. (2007). People, places and play: A research framework for digital game experience in a socio-spatial context. DiGRA 2007 Proceedings "Situated Play", pp. 823- 830. [3] DeKoven, B. (1978). The Well-Played Game: A Playful Path to Wholeness, 3rd Edition. San Jose: Writers Club Press, 2002., 12-13 [4] DeKoven, B. (1978). The Well-Played Game: A Playful Path to Wholeness, 3rd Edition. San Jose: Writers Club Press, 2002., 30-32 [5] DeKoven, B. (1978). The Well-Played Game: A Playful Path to Wholeness, 3rd Edition. San Jose: Writers Club Press, 2002., 121 [6] DeKoven, B. (1978). The Well-Played Game: A Playful Path to Wholeness, 3rd Edition. San Jose: Writers Club Press, 2002., 149-150 [7] DeKoven, B. (1978). The Well-Played Game: A Playful Path to Wholeness, 3rd Edition. San Jose: Writers Club Press, 2002., 153 [8] Dourish, P. (2001). Where the action is: The foundations of embodied interaction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Example Projects [9] Acceleroto Air Hockey http://www.acceleroto.com/airhockey/ [10] C.G.C B.U.T.T.O.N http://brutallyunfairtactics.com/ [11] C.G.C Johann Sebastian Joust! http://gutefabrik.com/joust.html [12] Dance Dance Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Revolution [13] DrawSomething http://www.omgpop.com/drawsomething?ref=omgnav02dst 41 [14] Guitar Hero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_Hero [15] Hasbro™ Bop it!® http://www.hasbro.com/games/en_us/bopit/ [16] Hasbro™ Twister® http://www.hasbro.com/games/en_US/twister/ [17] Karaoke Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaoke_Revolution [18] Kinect Adventures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect_Adventures [19] Microsoft® Kinect™ http://www.xbox.com/en-US/kinect [20] Musical Chair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_chairs [21] Nintendo® Wii™ http://www.nintendo.com/wii [22] Simon Says (game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_says [23] Sony Move http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Move [24] SuperLotto Plus http://www.calottery.com/play/draw-games/superlotto- plus [25] Wii Sport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Sports [26] Wii U http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U [27] Fontaine, R. P. (1994). Play as physical flexibility training in five ceboid primates. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108, 203-212. [28] Fluegelman, A. edited (1976). The New Games Book. GardenCity, NY: The Headlands Press, 171-172 [29] Fullerton, T. (2008). Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. Burlington, Mass.: Morgan Kaufmann, 29 [30] Fullerton, T. (2008). Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. Burlington, Mass.: Morgan Kaufmann, 30 42 [31] Fullerton, T. (2008). Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. Burlington, Mass.: Morgan Kaufmann, 68-71 [32] Fullerton, T. (2008). Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. Burlington, Mass.: Morgan Kaufmann, 88 [33] Fullerton, T. (2008). Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. Burlington, Mass.: Morgan Kaufmann, 92 [34] Gajadhar, B.J., de Kort, Y.A.W., and IJsselsteijn, W.A. (2008). Influence of Social Setting on Player Experience of Digital Games, CHI 2008 Proceedings - Works In Progress(Florence, Italy, 5-10 April 2008), pp. 3099-3104. [35] Gajadhar, B. J, de Kort, Y. A. W., & IJsselsteijn, W. A. (2009). Rules of Engagement: Influence of Co-Player Presence on Player Involvement in Digital Games. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 1(3), 14-27. [36] Gajadhar, B., de Kort, Y.A.W., and IJsselsteijn, W.A. (2008). Shared fun is doubled fun: player enjoyment as a function of social setting. In P. Markopoulos, B. de Ruyter, W. IJsselsteijn, & D. Rowland (Eds.), Fun and Games (pp. 106-117). New York: Springer. [37] Gray, P. (2007). Psychology 5th Edition. New York: Worth Publishers. [38] Groos, K. (1898). The play of animals. New York: Appleton. [39] Harper, T. (2010). The Art of War: Fighting Games, Performativity, and Social Game Play. PhD Dissertation, Ohio University. [40] Hertenstein, M. J., Keltner, D., App, B., Bulleit, B. A., Jaskolka, A. R. (2006). Touch communicates distinct emotions. Emotion, 6, 528-533. [41] Hunt, J. M. V. (1965). Intrinsic motivation and its role in psychological development. In D. Levine (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation(Vol. 13, pp. 189–282). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. 43 [42] IJsselsteijn, W.A., deKort, Y.A.W., & Poels, K.: The Game Experience Questionnaire: Development of a self-report measure to assess the psychological impact of ditital games (2008) [43] Juul, J. (2010). A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 103 [44] Juul, J. (2010). A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 126-127 [45] Kinect game tips, Tips for two-player games, Retrieved from <http://support.xbox.com/en-US/games/xbox-games/kinect-games> [46] Lombard, M., Reich, R.D., Grabe, M.E., Bracken, C.C., & Ditton, T.B. (2000). Presence and television: The role of screen size. Human Communication Research, 26, 75-98. [47] Mandryk, R.L., & Inkpen, K.M. (2006). Physiological indicators for the evaluation of co-located collaborative play. CSCW’04, 2004, Chicago, IL, USA. [48] Meaningful Play 2010, Game Information – Combiform, Retrieved from <http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/2010/program.php?presentation=43&type =game>, Oct. 2010 [49] Nielsen Interactive Entertainment (2005). Video gamers in Europe – 2005. Research Report Prepared for the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE). [50] Oatley, K., Keltner, D. & Jenkins, J. (2006) Understanding Emotions. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 105-106 [51] Playing Well Together, keynote by Bernie DeKoven. Think Design Play, 5th DiGRA conference. Utrecht School of Arts. Video Recording, Sep. 2011 <http://vimeo.com/30905280> @ 29:40 [52] Ravaja, N., Saari, T., Turpeinen, M., Laarni, J., Slaminen, M., & Kivikangas, M. (2006). Spatial presence and emotions during video game playing: Does it matter with whom you play? Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 15, 381-392. [53] Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004, 281 44 [54] Schaller, George B. (1972). The Serengeti lion: A study of predator-prey relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [55] Szymanski, Marianne. "THE USE OF FOCUS GROUPS IN TOY TESTING", Advertising & Marketing to Children. Vol.1. No.2. Winthrop Publications. p.162. 25 May 1999. [56] Vanden Abeele, V., Gajadhar, B.J., & de Schutter, B. (2009). Gaming Naturally is more Fun Together: the Influence of Controller Type on Player Experience. ACE 2009. [57] Venkatesh, A., & Mukherjee, S. (2006). Video Games as Nurturing Technology: Relational and Bonding Issues. In: A. Elliott, S. D. Mainwaring, P. Sengers, & A. Woodruff: Nurturing Technologies in the Domestic Environment: Feeling Comforted, Cared for, and Connected at Home. UbiComp 2006 Workshop Videos [58] Blow-it up http://youtu.be/aGZG5hGJuDw [59] Blow-it up http://youtu.be/AVaH5_MyWOw?hd=1 [60] My Light, My Game http://youtu.be/hRSbLvX2XA8 [61] My Light, My Game http://youtu.be/x7Kq0Ubazo4 [62] My Light, My Game http://youtu.be/tH1CfjEav5k (Hard Play) [63] T.A.I http://youtu.be/yKuzPV_J8-A [64] T.A.I http://youtu.be/c9U413om9HA?hd=1 [65] Agent Purple http://youtu.be/a7nXlfVrgLM [66] Pop Quiz http://youtu.be/7kpB32bsosc?hd=1 [67] Firewall http://youtu.be/7a8BfBYBNWU?hd=1 [68] Match! http://youtu.be/Gen72As4rqI 45 [69] For Here, To Go http://youtu.be/ej7ZZ0rmWC0?hd=1 [70] Unison http://youtu.be/eCjvmu6xw1o [71] Switch http://youtu.be/1MmbDTTRtCo (2 Players version) [72] Switch http://youtu.be/ytZ5ttFE7xw (4 Players version) [73] Promotional Video http://youtu.be/r92cDygrDiM?hd=1 [74] Whitson, J.R. (2010). Rule Making and Rule Breaking: Game Development and the Goverance of Emergent Behaviour, Fibreculture Journal, Issue 16, Special Issue on Counterplay.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Combiform is a novel digital gaming console featuring four combinable handheld controllers. It is a new and unique tangible gaming interface that stresses the importance of co-located, co-attentive social interactions among players. In particular, multiple players may freely combine and lock together their handheld game controllers, thereby creating a very flexible collective and transformable tangible interface. Combiform emphasizes social interaction through controller-to-controller contact. The platform and its 10 games introduce novel, tangible and physical co-attentive experiences that are not found in traditional co-located gaming platforms using mimetic interfaces (e.g. Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect). The project is the first game console especially designed for a new emerging digital game genre – Communal Casual Game. The new game genre captures a perspective of integrating classical folk game design approach with digital elements

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Toward a theory of gesture design

PDF

Seymour Deeply: exploring stereoscopic 3D as a storytelling tool in interactive media

Asset Metadata

Creator Yee, Edmond C. (author)

Core Title Combiform: a console for the new communal casual game genre

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 05/10/2012

Defense Date 05/09/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag co-attentive,coliberation,co-located,communal casual game,folk game,funology,game controller,joint gesture,mimetic interfaces,OAI-PMH Harvest,social gaming,social presence,tangible user interface

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Kratky, Andreas (committee chair), Bolas, Mark T. (committee member), Clark, Andre (committee member), Hoberman, Perry (committee member), Valanejad, Kurosh (committee member)

Creator Email ectyecty@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-38683

Unique identifier UC11290312

Identifier usctheses-c3-38683 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-YeeEdmondC-843.pdf

Dmrecord 38683

Document Type Thesis

Rights Yee, Edmond C.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA