Disorientation in first-person, screen-based 3D games breaks flow, yet most evidence comes from head-mounted display Virtual Reality or abstract tasks. We ask what minimal in-world information stabilizes orientation in visually repetitive worlds. In a within-participant mixed-methods study (N = 20), a symmetrical game environment orthogonally varied landmark geometry and featural polarity, plus a no-landmark baseline. In-situ pointing and orientation ratings during learning and subsequent relocation, together with trajectory analytics and interviews, show that coupling geometric structure with strong featural polarity is decisive: relative to baseline, localization error drops ≈ 79% and pointing accuracy rises ≈ 64%, whereas geometry alone helps less and smooth, featureless forms least. Players anchor on discontinuities (edges/corners; black–white boundary) and triangulate with distances and angles; without an anchor they revert to ground/light patterns and report symmetry-induced confusion. We establish a minimal-cue testbed for desktop play and derive actionable guidance: break rotational symmetry in a persistent landmark to enable legible, low head-up display environments.

Planned transience is increasingly built into contemporary games, yet its effects on player experience remain underexplored. We present an exploratory case study of non-repairable weapon durability in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, where most weapons eventually break and cannot be repaired. Using a mixed-methods survey of players (N = 120), we analyze how participants describe their strategies, emotions, and value judgments around transient weapons. Quantitative trends indicate systematic conservation of strong items, occasional encounter avoidance, and overall enjoyment ratings that lean positive while still reflecting meaningful dispersion. Qualitative accounts show that durability can scaffold improvisation and a sense of mastery for some players, but can also elicit frustration, anxiety, and perceived restrictions for others. Drawing on behavioral economics, Self-Determination Theory, and research on digital possessions/materiality as interpretive lenses, we characterize core tensions around spending versus saving, control versus uncertainty, and attachment versus disposability. From these tensions, we distill six case-grounded, context-dependent design strategies intended as starting points for shaping how durability-like mechanics are experienced, while explicitly delimiting transfer beyond this single-title case study.

Ensuring that players can orient themselves within 3D game worlds is critical for maintaining immersion and enjoyment.While prior research has examined spatial cues-such as landmarks, boundaries, and color gradients-no unifying reference guide tailored to level designers currently exists.We synthesize insights from psychology, environmental psychology and human-computer interaction (HCI) to propose a structured set of visual cues that enhance spatial orientation (SO).Based on studies classifying cues by properties like geometric appearance and their interrelations, we provide practical pointers for player guidance across small and large environmental scales.Our approach bridges theoretical models of spatial knowledge-such as Lynch's cognitive maps and Chan et al.'s landmark taxonomy-with actionable techniques for crafting navigable 3D spaces.By integrating design elements of different perspectives, designers can balance navigational clarity with opportunities for exploration.This work addresses the need for systematic, evidencebased guidance, while also laying groundwork for adaptive in-game assistance, inclusive design considerations, and deeper analytics in assessing SO across diverse game genres.

Due to the growing number of available games, game reviews provide a vital basis for decision-making when buying a game. Apart from that, these reviews could serve as a rich design resource and inspiration for game designers. In this paper, we analyze game reviews formulated by players via a large language model and ask GPT-3, an artificial intelligence, game design-related questions based on the Player Experience Inventory (PXI) questionnaire. The obtained results are evaluated in expert interviews, where we asked four indie game designers about the quality of the game review analyses. The experts were generally impressed by the AI-generated texts but also provided some recommendations regarding the game review analyses’ quality, structure, and setup.

Virtual reality (VR) devices have technically matured during the last few years. Apart from offering better resolutions and a wider field of view, these devices provide novel interaction forms that resemble real-world interactions. Players can explore the virtual environment and manipulate objects to reach game goals. Frequently, players need to be informed about what to do next or how a particular objective could be achieved. This is often done via texts placed in the virtual environment. However, these texts are frequently overlooked or ignored, resulting in player frustration due to a lack of guidance. This paper investigates various design strategies to guide the player’s attention to pay attention to the text in a virtual environment. To achieve this, we set up a comparative study to evaluate four different types of attention guidance. Results revealed that players prefer some guidance forms in particular.

Research has tried to link affective states to different eye-tracking measures with varying success. Although previous research has proposed that using live eye-tracking data for video games could considerably enhance adaptive gameplay techniques’ capabilities, little research has been done. The main goal of the current study was to link eye-tracking indicators to affective states (confusion, frustration). Thirty-nine participants were recruited to play a riddle game in virtual reality similar to the game “Portal”, with levels differently manipulating affective states in a within-study design. Participants did self-rate confusion and frustration retrospectively watching a recording of their gameplay. It was shown that different levels of frustration and confusion could be evoked. Hypotheses about the relationship between confusion/frustration and eye-tracking data could only be partially supported. Analyses revealed various possible reasons for contradictory results and several implications for future research, including aspects of eye-tracking indicators and the underlying eye-tracking technology.

This paper describes a virtual reality prototype’s game and level design that should serve as stimulus material to arouse confusion among players. In doing so, we will use the stimulus to create a system that analyzes the players’ gaze behavior and determine whether and when the player is confused or already frustrated. Consequently, this information can then be used by game and level designers to give the player appropriate assistance and guidance during gameplay. To reach our goal of creating a design that arouses confusion, we used guidelines for high-quality level design and did the exact opposite. We see the PLEY Workshop as a forum to identify and discuss the potentials and risks of the stimulus’ design and level structure. In general, the paper should provide insights into our design decisions for researchers interested in investigating gaze behavior in games.

This paper examines different gaze-based cue visualization techniques in a Virtual Reality (VR) exploration game. It is argued that gaze could be a valuable design tool for providing cues to players. However, little is known about how these elements could be visually presented and integrated to inform players and fit into the game world. An exploratory study was carried out to investigate four different design approaches (subtle, overlaid-virtual, integrated, emphasized) and their effects on aspects such as clarity, usefulness, and curiosity. In general, the visualizations led to different player impressions on all scales. While players perceived the subtle and emphasized variants as more aesthetically appealing, integrated and virtual-overlaid solutions received more positive ratings regarding tool-related aspects such as ease of extraction and accurateness. We anticipate future work could employ gaze-based cues in various application contexts based on their utility as eye input in VR games continues developing.

Gaze interaction has been growing fast as a compelling tool for control and immersion for gameplay. Here, we present a conceptual framework focusing on the aesthetic player experience and the potential interpretation (meaning) players could give to playing with gaze interaction capabilities. The framework is illustrated by a survey of state of the art research-based and commercial games. We complement existing frameworks by reflecting on gaze interaction in games as the attention relationship between the player (the subject) and the game (the object) with four dimensions: Identity; Mapping; Attention; and Direction. The framework serves as a design and inquiry toolbox to analyse and communicate gaze mechanics in games, reflect on the complexity of gaze interaction, and formulate new research questions. We visualise the resulting design space, highlighting future opportunities for gaze interaction design and HCI gaze research through the framework's lens. We deem, this novel approach advocates for the design of gaze-based interactions revealing the richness of gaze input in future meaningful game experiences.

Playtesting of games often relies on a mixed-methods approach to obtain more holistic insights about and, in turn, improve the player experience. However, triangulating the different data sources and visualizing them in an integrated manner such that they contextualize each other still proves challenging. Despite its potential value for gauging player behaviour, this area of research continues to be underexplored. In this paper, we propose a visualization approach that combines commonly tracked movement data with - from a visualization perspective rarely considered - gaze behaviour and emotional responses. We evaluated our approach through a qualitative expert study with five professional game developers. Our results show that both the individual visualization of gaze, emotions, and movement but especially their combination are valuable to understand and form hypotheses about player behaviour. At the same time, our results stress that careful attention needs to be paid to ensure that the visualization remains legible and does not obfuscate information.

This paper examines the effects of social gaze regarding social presence in an on-line collaborative game setting. We propose a novel approach of integrating gaze-based interactions in social settings by augmenting social gaze-based behaviors (e.g., joint attention, mutual gaze, etc.) through interaction mechanics and visualizations. In detail, we want to find out if players experience a higher degree of social presence (co-presence, psycho-behavioral interactions) in our social gaze-supported approach in comparison to settings that either only include basic (i.e., gaze is integrated without taking any social behavior into account) or no gaze features. To get answers, we conducted an experiment consisting of a collaborative 3D game prototype for two players with three different conditions (gaze, social gaze, no gaze). Furthermore, players were confronted with three construction challenges that had to be solved cooperatively. Our study findings highlight the positive influence of social gaze on the perceived social presence. The inclusion of social gaze features received better ratings on both social presence sub-scales. With the gathered results we want to provide insights for game designers and researchers regarding the inclusion of social gaze-based interaction in remote and cooperative gaming settings.

This paper investigates the effects of a shared gaze visualization regarding social presence in an online competitive game setting. We investigate if the incorporation of gaze interaction among different competitive game genres would influence the perceived social presence for the players. To find answers to our research question we created an experimental setting that is based on two game genres that require strategic skills (i.e., a turn-based strategy game) and motoric skills (i.e., a real-time first person shooter). Our study findings highlight the positive influence of a shared gaze visualization on competitive play. Further, the studied game genres have a significant influence on the perceived social presence. With our findings we want to provide insights for game designers and researchers regarding the inclusion of gaze-based interaction in remote gaming settings.

Effective collaboration between robots and humans is not only a question of interface design and usability, but also of user experience and social acceptance. To investigate these aspects for Human-Robot Collaboration with the HRP-2 robot, two video-based focus groups enhanced with creative stimuli were conducted. The following research question was addressed: Is the HRP-2 robot perceived differently in an autonomous collaboration condition compared to a tele-operated collaboration condition, in terms of social acceptance and user experience?The results show that participants in general are open to a humanoid robot as working partner as long as there is a clear distinction between a human and a robot, in terms of tasks and working procedures. Furthermore, participants stated a positive attitude toward the remotely-controlled HRP-2 robot.

This article investigates the prototypical implementation of a dynamic map of a retail store and the results of an empirical study in the shopping environment. Due to the distinct characteristics of the context of shopping (e.g. openness to the public, preexisting technologies), this context is particularly fruitful for UbiComp technologies. The prototype consists of a display showing an enhanced store map, which combines the dynamic visualization of customer activity (e.g. hot-spots, sales ranks) with conventional map elements (e.g. product locations, promotions). The results of our three-day in-situ study indicate the relevance and the usefulness of UbiComp technologies for shopping environments.