This article introduces a method for exploring liminal horror environments using a modified Wave Function Collapse algorithm. This approach employs real-time generated regions to create infinite, non-deterministic environments, removing the feeling of security due to familiarity. An eventdriven system further reinforces unpredictability by dynamically integrating horror experiences. While still in an exploratory stage, this method provides a foundation for future research on how architectural structures, unpredictability, and environmental cues contribute to unsettling experiences in games.

This paper explores the use of 2D cellular automata (CA) to generate 3D terrains through a simple additive approach. Experimenting with multiple CA transition rules produced aesthetically interesting, navigable landscapes, suggesting applicability for terrain generation in games.

This paper presents the iterative design of Druida, a virtual reality (VR) game for upper limb rehabilitation tailored for adults with intellectual disabilities. The game integrates therapeutic exercises into a fantasy-based narrative to enhance motivation and emotional engagement. Using a cocreation methodology involving therapists and clients, interviews, usability tests, and heuristic validation were conducted to identify usability barriers and redesign the game interface, instructions, and feedback mechanisms. Results revealed crucial usability barriers and opportunities for game design iteration to align with users' cognitive profiles, thereby enhancing engagement.

Horror games underwent a design revitalization around the year 2010, coinciding with the emergence of the walking simulator. These parallel developments occurred in independent games. Notable early games of both this ‘new wave’ of horror games and of the new genre of walking simulators subtract game design elements from established genres, suggesting that design revitalizations in game genres can happen through subtractive design practices. This article explores parallels between type-cases of the ‘new wave of indie horror’ in the 2010s and the originator of walking simulators, Dear Esther, to reflect on these design practices. The article first discusses how The Dark Descent’s design results from subtractive design practices similar to those attributed to Dear Esther. Then, the article compares the design traits of the influential, solo-developed, indie horror titles Slender and SCP-087 to a list of walking simulators’ most common traits, reflecting on how these similarities help the games scare players and how they might have originated from subtractive design practices - possibly associated with the nature of independent game development. Lastly, the article reflects on how different motivations for such experiments can be hypothesised from the examined titles. By exploring this element of ‘design rhyming’ at the genesis of walking simulators and the ‘new wave’ horror games of 2010, the article aims to describe one way of revitalizing game genres through design approaches.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in computer games can enhance the player experience by providing more realistic and dynamic interactions with non-player characters and/or the game environment and is, therefore, an essential skill for game development students to acquire. In this paper, we discuss ten active learning prototypes for undergraduate game development students focusing on AI for Games. The prototypes were implemented in the Unity game engine, and each prototype considers a particular technique or set of algorithms. Depending on the prototype, students are required to interact with it on two levels: 1) by running it within the Unity editor, manipulating the respective technique’s parameters, and experimenting and/or playing with the implemented demo or game; or, 2) in addition to the previous level, by actively changing and expanding the provided code to achieve the desired behavior or result. We performed a survey immediately after contact with the prototypes and found that they were easy for the students to manipulate and/or build upon, and most significantly, that they helped students understand the associated techniques and algorithms.

Use of games as a means of rehabilitation therapy is a concept that has been explored extensively in scholarly research. The promise of using game mechanics and gamified systems as a means to motivate rehabilitation clients for therapy has always been the core argument of exploring such concepts. However, the reality is that in different fields of applications these "serious games" are often superficial, constructing gamified systems around a simulated activity, falling short of leveraging the power of agency, choice and narrative. The Village Druid game is a VR game for upper-limb rehabilitation currently under development which is designed around a deeper, or expanded use of games. The game is being developed in collaboration with rehabilitation therapists and undergoing a series of iterative playtests with rehabilitation clients. This paper describes the development goals and design of the Village Druid game together with the prototype used for the first playtest of the game involving rehabilitation clients. This includes the goals for the prototype’s development in how they relate to constraints and goals for the project. The playtest and related semi-structured interviews and focus-groups are described at the level of data collection instruments and research protocol, as well as results. The paper concludes with lessons learned and aspects of developing expanded therapy games that are suggested by the playtest.

Video games are increasingly present and are currently a dominant vehicle not only for entertainment, but also for information. This position has generated a rapid growth and consequent increase in competitiveness in the game development industry, which has required the exploration of new techniques to engage users. Considering the crucial role of emotions in this domain, an increasingly appreciated approach is the integration of psychophysiology in this context. This project is thus included in the field of psychophysiological analysis, framed within the branch of video games, and consists of the study of different actions and how they can influence emotional intensity. To understand the emotional reactions of players, two versions of a horror game in virtual reality were created, which differ in the way users interact with doors along a virtual scenario. The objective of this work is to understand if more intricate interactions can increase the intensity of human bodily reactions. Thus, to observe this potential phenomenon physiological data was acquired: electrodermal activity, electrocardiogram and respiration; in addition to self-reported questionnaires. Results showed that the version that had a more positive global evaluation by the participants was also the one that presented a higher variation in some physiological indicators, such as heart rate and respiratory signal amplitude. Despite this, no significant differences were observed between both versions, indicating that further study is necessary for any in-depth conclusions.

This paper proposes an empirical framework that aims to classify difficulty according to the player’s physiological response. As part of the experimental protocol, a simple puzzle-based Virtual Reality (VR) videogame with three levels of difficulty was developed, each targeting a distinct region of the valence-arousal space. A study involving 32 participants was conducted, during which physiological responses (EDA, ECG, Respiration), were measured alongside emotional ratings, which were self-assessed using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) during gameplay. Statistical analysis of the self-reports verified the effectiveness of the three levels in eliciting different emotions. Furthermore, classification using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) was performed to predict difficulty considering the physiological responses associated with each level. Results report an overall F1-score of 74.05% in detecting the three levels of difficulty, which validates the adopted methodology and encourages further research with a larger dataset.

Horror games represent a very specific genre specifically designed to elicit fear. These games provide a tremendous emotional experience balanced between stress and satisfaction. Yet, over time, the player acquires further insight of the mechanisms of the game, dissipating the creepy climate that reduces the emotional impact intended. This article hypothesises that exploring existing facets within a game such as visuals and sounds might establish a good approach to renew the gaming experience. To understand the players' emotional reactions toward context alteration, an adaptation of a published game (P.T. by Konami 2014) was used. This context refers mainly to light effects, sounds, and in-game events. To learn which game effects induce the strongest physiological reactions, an experiment was conducted, and correlation between the physiological data, collected through the measure of the galvanic skin response, and that of the perceived emotion provided by participants, was investigated. Results show that the order in which effects are arranged can produce extensive emotional responses. They also suggest that psychological impact can be increased not only by the visual horror itself, but also through the process that slowly builds up to it, in particular the usage of sounds.

Cybersickness is still an inevitable adverse effect when using VR systems, resulting in different levels of discomfort, and potentially breaking the immersive experience. To date, few studies have focused on exploring VR experience in the supine posture. Recent research indicated that simple adoption of VR game initially designed for a seated posture (by rotating 90 degrees) could lead to more severe cybersickness, even to experienced users. Following the insights from previous literature and the widely-accepted sensory conflict theory, we proposed an assumption that might explain such a phenomenon. The hypothesis is that when the perceived virtual coordinate system contradicts the received real-world coordinate through our vestibular system, the conflict appears, which can lead to a sense of discomfort. Hence, the primary goal of the study is to evaluate whether such conflict has an impact on cybersickness. Furthermore, we explored methods of mitigating this conflict through different game designs so as to improve the experience for the supine posture. The final results show that the design that aligned with the real vertical axis is effective in mitigating cybersickness, especially for games that present an acceleration sensation.

Over the past few years scientific research has opened up to the idea of using digital games for human-based studies. Fields such as Neuroscience, Medical and Affective Computing are currently using games to study human-based phenomena. Even though a vast amount of work exists within the field, rarely is the subject of designing such games ever touched upon. In fact a common problem within the field is that the games themselves are often an afterthought, where certain gameplay limitations are never truly acknowledged and tend to be mostly ignored. Thus, this paper intends to provide some game design guidelines to the most common problems found in literature from work specifically using games for human physiological data-collection purposes. Furthermore, a brief description of the most popular physiological recording methods: Skin Conductance (SC), Heart-Rate Variability (HRV), Electromyogram (EMG), Electroencephalogram (EEG) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI); are provided as the game-play “limitations” of using such devices are an important factor to take into consideration in the game design process. As such, the objective of this paper is to provide awareness of specific game design limitations found in literature and analyse them from a game design perspective.

Cybersickness induced through Virtual Reality (VR) applications is still one of its main barriers as it can induce unwanted side-effects in players, significantly hindering the overall experience. Despite the wealth of research available on this topic, it is still an unsolved problem. Although previous studies have explored methods of cybersickness mitigation in addition to correlating physiological factors, there has been little research on the potential correlation of eye behavior and cybersickness. Thanks to advances in eye-tracking technology within HMDs, detecting eye behavior has become a much easier process. This paper explores the differences of pupil position and blink rate in relation to cybersickness intensity. The latter is measured through the standard and a customized version of the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ). A total of 34 participant data was collected from two separate playing sessions of a VR maze game, where each session presented a unique control scheme.

Virtual Reality (VR) has the capability of fully immersing users into a wide variety of gaming experiences where the sole focus of the user is on that experience itself. One problem that often occurs when it comes to VR experiences is that of simulation sickness (SS), which is particularly prevalent when the user is forced to play at an abnormal posture due to physical limitations or specific treatment procedures. In this paper we report on a between group study comparing the effect of SS mitigating factors for two postures: seated and lying-down on one's back (known as the supine pose). A 3D recreation of the popular game Pacman (Namco, 1980) was developed specifically for VR. Each subject participated a total of six sessions of six minutes each taking place over the course of two to three weeks with a two to five day minimum and maximum between each session, respectively. At the start and end of each session participants were asked to fill-in the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ), allowing to effectively rate the intensity of SS per session. Results show a lack of significant differences when examining participants as a whole regarding the SS decrease in relation with the field of view (FOV) and the rest frame factors. However, when considering the participant experience in VR, it appears that the lying-down pose does trigger simulation sickness symptoms for more proficient participants whereas they do not report such symptoms for the seated posture.

The feeling of horror within movies or games relies on the audience's perception of a tense atmosphere-often achieved through sound accompanied by the on-screen drama-guiding its emotional experience throughout the scene or game-play sequence. These progressions are often crafted through an a priori knowledge of how a scene or game-play sequence will playout, and the intended emotional patterns a game director wants to transmit. The appropriate design of sound becomes even more challenging once the scenery and the general context is autonomously generated by an algorithm. Towards realizing sound-based affective interaction in games this paper explores the creation of computational models capable of ranking short audio pieces based on crowdsourced annotations of tension, arousal and valence. Affect models are trained via preference learning on over a thousand annotations with the use of support vector machines, whose inputs are low-level features extracted from the audio assets of a comprehensive sound library. The models constructed in this work are able to predict the tension, arousal and valence elicited by sound, respectively, with an accuracy of approximately 65%, 66% and 72%.