In open-world video games, navigational guidance plays an important role in shaping the player’s experience. There is a prevailing assumption in game design that diegetic guidance, which embeds navigational cues directly into the game world, produces stronger immersion than non-diegetic implementations such as a Heads-Up Display (HUD). However, this assumption is rarely tested empirically. To address this gap, we created a custom exploration game environment that incorporates both guidance types. We conducted a within-subjects study with ten participants, measuring perceived spatial immersion through two components of the Game Experience Questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Quantitative results show a non-significant trend favouring diegetic guidance on both Sensory and Imaginative Immersion and Flow, with large effect sizes suggesting the study was underpowered. Qualitative findings support this trend, with participants describing diegetic guidance as more immersive and exploratory, and HUD guidance as clearer and more task focused. Findings suggest that these systems function as complementary instruments, each covering gaps the other leaves open.

Procedural Content Generation (PCG) is increasingly common in game development, enabling automated creation of diverse environments. A related technique, Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA), is used to personalise challenges to individual players. However, despite the potential synergy between these approaches, 3D terrain generation is usually approached separately from player ability, relying instead on pre-determined difficulty curves that treat all players the same. This research investigates an Experience-Driven PCG (EDPCG) framework for adaptively modifying 3D terrain generation parameters, including slope, roughness, and obstacle density, based on player skill. Through a custom-built navigation game, we compared linear difficulty progression against adaptive terrain in a between-subjects study (n = 30). While both conditions produced high enjoyment scores, the adaptive system yielded a highly significant reduction in player tension, and players perceived the experience as more consistently well-matched to their ability. This work demonstrates that skill-based 3D terrain adaptation is a promising tool for creating inclusive, balanced gaming experiences.

We present Legend of the Lunchbox, an applied gaming task co-designed with psychology researchers for use in behavioral and neuroimaging studies of property verification. In this paper, we use its development as a design case to examine how tensions between game design goals and experimental validity surface in concrete decisions about aesthetics, feedback, pacing, and interaction. Rather than treating the game as a one-off intervention, we designed it as a configurable research instrument: psychology experimenters can adjust stimuli, timing, feedback, and presentation conditions without modifying the codebase. Drawing on an iterative collaboration across concept sketches, mock-ups, prototypes, and researcher feedback sessions, we analyze key design considerations that illustrate trade-offs between player engagement and experimental control, expressive aesthetics and neutral stimuli, and a fixed game experience and experimental flexibility. From these, we derive design principles for creating configurable applied gaming tasks that support both current and future studies in psychology and beyond.

We present a procedural content generation (PCG) pipeline for Celeste, a complex 2D platformer with horizontal and vertical movement and with limited prior AI framework development. Our approach utilizes a Markov Chain-based model to capture the game's unique structural and gameplay elements, generating playable levels that adhere to Celeste's design principles. We implemented post-processing steps to enhance playability and strategically place game elements. Our evaluation metrics focused on playability and interestingness, with results that indicate success in replicating the desired gameplay experience for beginner players. The evaluation involved 12 players of different skill levels, providing insight into the effectiveness of our generated content. Although some limitations were observed, such as occasional lack of creativity and difficulty in controlling challenge levels, our pipeline demonstrates promise as a foundation for a Celeste AI framework. This study contributes to the broader field of PCG for complex platformers and opens avenues for level generation in which agent-based evaluation is not feasible.

Advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and Affective Computing have created new possibilities in video game design, particularly in enhancing the interactivity and emotional depth of non-player characters (NPCs). This study explores the potential of AI-driven affective mirroring to enhance player attachment to non-player characters (NPCs) in video games by dynamically recognizing and responding to player emotions. Using a visual novel dating game prototype, the research employs facial expression analysis to recognize and match player emotions with NPC reactions, aiming to create emotionally responsive interactions. Ten participants, aged 21 to 24, including both gamers and non-gamers, were involved in the testing. Results show that while affective mirroring can strengthen player attachment, subtle and context-aware responses are key to maintaining immersion and believability. Ethical concerns are discussed in the context of privacy issues related to the collection and use of emotional data, with recommendations for transparent data practices and safeguards against emotional manipulation. The study suggests that, with further development, affective mirroring could improve player engagement in games and expand to other fields that involve virtual agents such as healthcare, education, or customer service.

Video games can provide controlled environments for the research and testing of stimuli in an engaging manner.In this pilot study, we present the development of De Weg Naar Boven, a serious video game that is designed to act as a hearing test that simulates challenging real-world sound conditions.In the game, participants are tasked with hiking up a mountain and encounter other travelers along the way who share mysterious messages that the player has to relay via an in-game walkie-talkie.Along the way, they encounter challenging listening conditions such as wind noise, as well as visual distractions that are part of real-world situations.The game was evaluated with 12 participants through observations, interviews, and a survey, receiving positive reactions while completing what is functionally the same hearing test as if no game was involved.We conclude with a summary of development recommendation for games that serve a research or clinical purpose.

This study examines academic game development as a collaborative and practical process, investigating the use of games as research tools through interviews with eight researchers and developers across multiple countries. Participants employed games to enhance motivation, immersion, or as necessary experimental contexts. Through a thematic analysis we identified nine key challenges and opportunities, including collaboration difficulties, communication barriers, and disparities in gaming experience. We highlight the need for improved documentation, structured collaboration strategies, and critical consideration of how game elements influence research validity. Additionally, we reflect on the potential role of an 'academic game developer' specialization to bridge the gap between research objectives and game design, supporting more effective interdisciplinary collaboration. This study serves as an initial exploration of the complexities of integrating game development into research, laying the groundwork for future studies to investigate these challenges in greater depth.

Developers face a time-consuming task when creating quests in video games. To ease this burden, Procedural Content Generation (PCG) techniques can be used to automatically generate quests. While PCG has been applied to various areas of game development, it can be difficult to create meaningful narratives for quests. This paper presents a new method for generating engaging quests by combining PCG with Natural Language Processing (NLP) using the models BERT and GPT-2 in a case study game called QuestVille. The paper details the implementation of these models and the challenges encountered. The results suggest that the use of BERT and GPT-2 has potential for creating compelling narrative content. Advancements in AI research may improve on the limitations discussed.

Video games and game-like experiment tasks are increasingly used to study human behavior. Prior work used such video games to study foraging behavior, including stressors such as hostile entities (i.e. predators). For this study we adapted a 3D video game to assess its potential for studying the impact of hostile environments on human foraging behavior. Two versions of the game were created that varied in terms of hostility, with the hostile condition including predatory non-player characters (NPCs). This pilot aimed to assess the suitability of the modified game for inducing and evaluating stress-related foraging patterns and pinpoint needed modifications for a large-scale study. Participants (n = 18) reported higher levels of stress in the hostile compared to the non-hostile environment. Results of the pilot indicate that modifications are needed to induce more pronounced behavioral effects, as the currently used measures of exploration (e.g., distance traveled; number of gathered items) were not affected by the hostility manipulation. We aim to further develop the game to improve effectiveness of the hostility manipulation and to investigate the effects with more elaborate exploration analyses (e.g., including measures of entropy).

Procedural Content Generation (PCG) in games has become more common in recent years. Procedural narrative, however, is still tricky, as designers fear that applying PCG to narrative means that they lose control over the system. In this paper, we attempt to tackle procedural generation of quests, a specific type of narrative, like in the Role Playing Games genre. To this end, we present StoryWorld, an Event-driven simulation of Items, Locations, Characters, and their Memories and Desires. Its modularity makes it easy to add new items and events. Future work could see its memory system made more realistic.

Video games have been used as tools for non-entertainment purposes, including research contexts. This paper defines ‘academic games’ as games that are used and developed within academic institutions for the generation, evaluation, or dissemination of knowledge. Broad intentions related to this unique use of games are rarely explicitly discussed. When they are mentioned, they tend to be specific to an individual game’s implementation, or the field of study in which it is situated. This article maps the different fundamental purposes that motivate the use of games in research contexts: involvement as stimulus, intervention, incentive, or as modeling platform. A compact review of existing literature is provided, complemented by a discussion of different facets shaping the use of games in research contexts: the flow of information, the dependency between academic effort and game artifact, and the specificity that is required. This discussion is informed by the analysis of various example games from previous work. A research agenda for the future professionalization of academic game development and its discourse concludes the article.

Validation of serious games tends to focus on evaluating their design as a whole. While this helps to assess whether a particular combination of game mechanics is successful, it provides little insight into how individual mechanics contribute or detract from a serious game's purpose or a player's game experience. This study analyses the effect of game mechanics commonly used in casual games for engagement, measured as a combination of player behaviour and reported game experience. Secondly, it examines the role of a serious game's purpose on those same measures. An experimental study was conducted with 204 participants playing several versions of a serious game to explore these points. The results show that adding additional game mechanics to a core gameplay loop did not lead to participants playing more or longer, nor did it improve their game experience. Players who were aware of the game's purpose, however, perceived the game as more beneficial, scored their game experience higher, and progressed further. The results show that game mechanics on their own do not necessarily improve engagement, while the effect of perceived value deserves further study.

Video games frequently feature 'open world' environments, designed to motivate exploration. Level design patterns are implemented to invoke curiosity and to guide player behavior. However, evidence of the efficacy of such patterns has remained theoretical. This study presents an empirical study of how level design patterns impact curiosity-driven exploration in a 3D open-world video game. 254 participants played a game in an empirical study using a between-subjects factorial design, testing 4 variables: presence or absence of patterns, goal or open-ended, nature and alien aesthetic, and assured or unassured compensation. Data collection consisted of in-game metrics and emotion word prompts as well as post-game questionnaires. Results show that design patterns invoke heightened exploration, but this effect is influenced by the presence of an explicit goal or monetary compensation. There appear to be many motivations behind exploratory behavior in games, with patterns raising expectations in players. A disposition for curiosity (i.e. 'trait curiosity') was not found to influence exploration. We interpret and discuss the impact of the conditions, individual patterns, and player motivations.

Prior research has explored potential applications of video games in programming education to elicit computational thinking skills. However, existing approaches are often either too general, not taking into account the diversity of genres and mechanisms between video games, or too narrow, selecting tools that were specifically designed for educational purposes. In this paper we propose a more fundamental approach, defining beneficial connections between individual design patterns present in video games and computational thinking skills. We argue that video games have the capacity to elicit these skills and even to potentially train them. This could be an effective method to solidify a conceptual base which would make programming education more effective.

With hybrid board games rising in popularity and game AI algorithms becoming more sophisticated, there is potential in involving AI to create novel game experiences and tools that can support developers. However, examples of hybrid board games that involve AI remain relatively sparse. In this work, we propose that creating a taxonomy of AI in hybrid board games can help the development of games that occupy as-of-yet unexplored areas of the design space. By mapping out different dimensions through which the involvement of AI in such games can be understood, we seek to encourage further academic discussions and applied explorations.

Research has found that successful game-based learning (GBL) is dependent on several factors, e.g. students, parents, teachers and educational setting. Nevertheless, many existing GBL solutions primarily consider the student. Similarly, they focus on imparting and assessing content-specific knowledge rather than encouraging students to become intrinsically motivated learners. This paper presents CURIO, an educational game kit that involves teachers as ‘game masters’. It encourages inquisitive mindsets in students and helps to structure discussions when introducing a new topic in class. It informs the teacher of students’ pre-existing knowledge so that they can better shape upcoming classes to their needs. A pilot study with a class of 25 primary school students and their homeroom teacher evaluated a prototype of CURIO. The paper concludes with guidelines learned from creating and testing CURIO that can help with the development of tools for teachers using the same design philosophy.

In this work we discuss the self-transformative effects that can be elicited through the practice of videogame design. We focus on the problems and limitations that we encountered in trying to quantitatively capture psychological changes in videogame designers. Our work involved two experiments, each of them observing a group of M.Sc. students in a digital games course working on small, serious videogame projects. In these experiments, we attempted to identify and track transformations that the students themselves underwent while trying to stimulate psychological changes in their players by means of gameplay. The results of our case study suggest that the research setup we designed could not rigorously measure the quantitative kinds of self-transformation we were after. Even so, our work takes some important, initial steps in the direction of understanding and exploring the practice of videogame design as offering novel possibilities and advantages in the contexts of self-transformation.

Curiosity is an important motivator to facilitate learning in all aspects of life, including formal education. Digital games stand out among the methods that can be used to invoke curiosity by providing an interactive, yet controlled environment. In this paper we present the conceptual design for CURIO, a multi-user classroom game that seeks to invoke curiosity through its gameplay. We describe a series of three focus groups with educators, conducted with the purpose of determining what requirements such a game needs to fulfill. On this basis we have developed a conceptual game design that will be further evaluated and modified through future test sessions.

Subliminal priming is an extensively researched technique in cognitive psychology. Research often focuses on highly controlled lab-environments, with only a few studies attempting to translate it to applications outside the laboratory. In this study, visual affect priming was deployed in the complex environment of a horror computer game, while maintaining strict standards in regard to subliminal thresholds. Fear-inducing images of one prime-type were shown repeatedly to players (N=60) during 5-minute playing sessions, using sandwich masking and a prime-duration of 33.3 ms. Three types of images were compared to an empty control-image: text, faces and spiders. Players were monitored with heart-rate and galvanic skin response (GSR) sensors to determine effects on a physiological level and were interviewed directly after playing. Results show no significant differences in affective self-report. GSR measures show an increase of relaxation between the start and finish of the game for players who were primed with face images, which we attribute to a result of our relative small player sample. We conclude that in a perceptually complex environment such as a video-game, subliminal visual priming does not noticeably influence player affect. However, measures directly around prime-windows coinciding with in-game sounds showed a significantly effect on GSR. This suggests that GSR is a suitable tool to gauge the affective impact of game elements.