Serious games have shown promise in mitigating cognitive biases, but existing designs differ in how they conceptualize debiasing and learning. To map this design space, we conducted a directed qualitative content analysis of 16 bias mitigation games across four dimensions: learning foundations, level of intervention, content integration, and content delivery. Our results reveal that despite substantial variation in how debiasing content is incorporated, games overwhelmingly frame debiasing as an individual cognitive task with sociocultural mechanisms largely absent or limited to multiplayer. These findings highlight a narrow conceptualization of debiasing and point to underexplored opportunities for incorporating social and systemic mechanisms such as accountability, observational learning, and collaborative play.

While video games show promise as tools for treating anxiety, the therapeutic strategies embedded in their designs remain underexplored. This paper presents an analysis of 13 academic and commercial games developed to address symptoms of Anxiety Disorders. We apply the Comparative Psychotherapy Process Scale to examine how therapeutic techniques are translated into the design of these games. Our findings reveal a strong emphasis on CBT aligned strategies, while PIT aligned strategies are comparatively underrepresented. This distinction also highlights two overarching design approaches (educational and emotional) that reflect different therapeutic paradigms.

As wildfires increasingly threaten communities worldwide, those at risk can benefit from community-centric approaches to designing interventions. A multi-layered approach can make members of the community powerful co-designers by incorporating their ideas alongside insights from experts and designers to successfully create and deploy an intervention. We took a community-centered Research through Design approach to develop a Serious Game to promote wildfire preparedness in two communities. Participatory Design workshops, interviews, and targeted user studies allowed us to leverage local knowledge of residents and expertise of stakeholders at distinct stages where their insight could be best utilized. Based on this work, we propose a process for designing Serious Games as interventions for complex societal challenges by utilizing community and expert involvement throughout iteration. Our findings suggest that the games we designed following this process lead to concrete learning and opportunities for discussion, and offer flexibility for integration with other community initiatives.

Multiplayer gaming research has most often been examined from a prosocial perspective due to its benefits in encouraging cooperative behaviors. Apart from online toxicity research, negatively-valenced dynamics are less studied. To explore these types of multiplayer experiences, we conducted an exploratory survey through the lens of what players considered “emotionally challenging” in their gaming experiences relating to the game’s social, narrative, and difficulty elements. We discovered interaction patterns in recounted multiplayer experiences that we named prosocial and anti-social dynamics, which helped us refine the definition of “social challenge” itself. We also found that it was common for multiplayer experiences to inspire reflection on one’s decisions, skill level, playstyles, and relationships. We also found support for tandem play experiences. We argue that these findings reveal venues for further research into those topics to expand our knowledge on social and emotional challenge in multiplayer experiences.

Idle games are a relatively recent genre, characterized by minimal player interaction. Due to its less interactive nature, there has been a research gap in our understanding of player engagement within idle games. In this paper, we present preliminary research examining the engaging aspects of idle game design in the form of two studies: 1) is a semi-structured group interview with idle game players, and 2) a $2 \times 2$ (idle game vs. casual game $\times$ PC vs. mobile) experimental diary study. Findings revealed that idle games are as engaging as casual games since there was no statistically significant difference in engagement and gameplay time. We also define key characteristics of favored idle games, highlighting notable gameplay patterns within idle games and exploring players’ motivation. Overall, this paper provides game designers and researchers with a more nuanced understanding of idle games, their relationship to casual games, and how they can be designed for more effective engagement across PC and mobile platforms.

Our demo showcases a choice-based interactive narrative game created to teach responsible conduct of research and research ethics. It re-imagines the experience of a game previously published in the literature, using a content-selection system that dynamically constructs dialogue choices during play. Our goal is to provide players with more opportunities to experience agency than they would have with the original game’s hand-authored branching narrative structure. Primarily, our system implements a conversation thread-switching mechanic that allows players to fluidly enter/exit conversation topics as one would in a real-life conversation.

Visual novels are a popular game genre for educational games. However, they often feature pre-authored plot structures that cannot dynamically adjust to the player’s progression through learning objectives. Employing procedural storytelling techniques boosts plot dynamism, but this comes at the cost of needing a larger repository of content (dialogue and images) to support different learning progressions and objectives. In this paper, we present postmortem-style case studies describing the lessons we learned from attempting to integrate large-language models (LLMs) and text-to-image models into the development of an educational visual novel about responsible conduct of research. Specifically, we discuss our experiences employing generative AI in our dialogue, character sprite, and background image creation processes.

Today, many modern gaming platforms use a reward system where players actively collect rewards and form communities around these rewards. Reward systems in games are used to celebrate players when they accomplish specific tasks, levels, or objectives within and beyond standard gameplay. Players can choose what they want to complete and will be rewarded for their efforts accordingly. While these have become commonplace, we know little about the preferences and engagement with reward systems from the players’ perspective. In this work, we conducted a qualitative analysis of 2,803 comments from a popular subreddit, r/Trophies, where PlayStation (PS) players share their experiences in completing games and obtaining digital trophies. Our findings show the preference for the PS trophy reward system over other reward systems through the following themes: 1) Incentivizing Player Engagement, 2) Enabling Greater Player Choice for Trophy List Completion, and 3) Connecting Through Personal History. This work is relevant to game researchers and developers as it expands existing knowledge of the player experience around reward system design.

Emotional challenge contrasts with the common perspective of challenge in games. The latter focuses on performance, while the former focuses on presenting players with heavy themes that induce complex emotions. To explore how emotional challenge impacts the player experience, we examined the relationship between player reflection and affective game design patterns—conducting a survey with 53 respondents that prompted recalling an emotionally challenging situation in a video game. We then scored perceived emotional challenge ratings and coded the responses according to referenced affective game design patterns to categorize levels of reflection achieved. We found a significant difference (p < 0.011) in emotional challenge ratings and mean ranks increased across the five reflection groups, from lowest reflective level (non-reflective description) to highest (critical reflection). This demonstrates that the more emotionally challenged participants felt, the greater the depth of their reflection was. We also discovered the following design patterns to be prominently referenced in respective reflection levels: emotional decision-making, identification, and negative/uncomfortable feelings such as guilt.

Research suggests there is a perception that females and underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities have worse gameplay skills and produce less engaging video game streaming content. This bias might impact streamers’ audience size, viewers’ financial patronage of a streamer, streamers’ sponsorship offers, etc. However, few studies on this topic use experimental methods. To fill this gap, we conducted a between-subjects survey experiment to examine if viewers are biased against video game streamers based on the streamer's gender or race/ethnicity. 200 survey participants rated the gameplay skill and viewer engagement of an identical gameplay recording. The only change between experimental conditions was the streamer's name who purportedly created the recording. The Dunnett's test found no statistically significant differences in viewer engagement ratings when comparing White male streamers to either White female (p = 0.37), Latino male (p = 0.66), or Asian male (p = 0.09) streamers. Similarly, there were no statistically significant differences in gameplay skill ratings when comparing White male streamers to either White female (p = 0.10), Latino male (p = 1.00), or Asian male (p = 0.59) streamers. Potential contributors to statistically non-significant results and counter-intuitive results (i.e., White females received non-significantly higher ratings than White males) are discussed.

Player challenge is core to the player experience in video games. While research on challenge and failure is on the rise, the granular components of failure in games are relatively understudied. While there are existing taxonomies outlining failure and its underlying conditions within games, these do not account for games without respawning mechanics, game genres outside of platformers, or interaction modalities beyond traditional 2D/3D digital video games. To address this, we observed and coded 50 virtual reality (VR) games across various genres to expand upon previously developed taxonomies towards identifying a more generalized set of design patterns for player failure and retries. VR game genres included shooters, rhythm games, MMOs, story-driven puzzles, and simulations. This ensured that the new expanded taxonomy would uncover as many challenge and failure design patterns across most games.Through the process of observation and coding, we found that there are three main components of the failure process in games: (1) Player Challenges, (2) Mini Failure Loop, and (3) Critical Failure State. Using this taxonomy with its detailed subcomponents could help determine how the overall structure of failure affects the player experience, as well as provide a new design language to describe challenge and the various levels of failure.

Avatar customization is known to positively affect crucial outcomes in numerous domains. However, it is unknown whether audial customization can confer the same benefits as visual customization. We conducted a preregistered 2 x 2 (visual choice vs. visual assignment x audial choice vs. audial assignment) study in a Java programming game. Participants with visual choice experienced higher avatar identification and autonomy. Participants with audial choice experienced higher avatar identification and autonomy, but only within the group of participants who had visual choice available. Visual choice led to an increase in time spent, and indirectly led to increases in intrinsic motivation, immersion, time spent, future play motivation, and likelihood of game recommendation. Audial choice moderated the majority of these effects. Our results suggest that audial customization plays an important enhancing role vis-à-vis visual customization. However, audial customization appears to have a weaker effect compared to visual customization. We discuss the implications for avatar customization more generally across digital applications.

Mastering thousands of logographic characters, such as the Chinese hanzi or Japanese kanji, is a unique and daunting obstacle for many students of those languages. In this paper, we investigate the efficacy of our component-focused hanzi learning game, Zen Hanzi, in addressing this issue. Zen Hanzi aims to assist Chinese as Foreign Language (CFL) learners in getting over some of the trickier aspects of hanzi, such as differentiating between similar-looking components. We describe our experimental game and provide a comparison study where 63 participants learned 10 complex hanzi using either our game or Quizlet, a flashcard app frequently used in Chinese courses. Results found that both groups had similar improvement on the hanzi recognition test, but the treatment group showed significantly better scores on the hanzi composition test (p<0.004). Our work extends prior findings on the benefits of component awareness to beginner hanzi learners, as well as contributes a scalable design for component-focused logographic learning tools.

In games, failure that leads to death is a trope that players are all too familiar with. We were motivated by this to explore how altering the consequences of death on player progress affected aspects of the player experience. Specifically, our research investigated the relationship of death and respawning mechanics - precisely the location of respawn points - to player experience (PX) constructs, such as mastery, challenge, autonomy, curiosity, and immersion. We developed a simple 2D platformer game that only differed in respawn point locations: the start of the game (permadeath), the start of a level, the last reached checkpoint, and the last manually saved point. We report findings from a study with 72 participants that indicated modifying a respawn mechanic can lead to varying effects on PX and that different mechanics may be more effective for specific types of players (challenge- and goal-oriented). We then discuss the implications for targeted game design and opportunities for further research into death and respawning mechanics.

Tangible games afford an engaging and often unique form of hybrid play (i.e., physical-digital elements), but there is currently limited work explicitly exploring how these games can be designed to provide spatial affordances that implicitly encourage collaboration. In this paper, we present a novel collaborative tangible game, titled Mad Mixologist, and investigate how making a simple change in the location of game objects within the tangible play space can lead to significantly different collaborative interaction strategies. The results from our group comparison study indicate that 1) players with exclusively direct access to multiple relevant resources (i.e., a digital instruction and a physical object) were more likely to assume responsibility for completing tasks in a shared play space and 2) distributing these same task-relevant resources across multiple players created ambiguity over whether the player with the digital or physical resource should engage with the shared play space. This study demonstrates one possible way in which the physical design of a tangible game can be arranged to implicitly encourage players to develop more collaborative interaction strategies, specifically by distributing exclusive resources across players. Overall, this study highlights and reinforces the connection between spatial affordances and social interactions via embodied facilitation within the context of collaborative tangible games.

Visual Novel (VN) is a widely recognizable genre of narrative-focused games that has grown in popularity over the past decade. Surprisingly, despite being so widely recognizable, there is not a singular definition to help guide the design and analysis of such games---with academic definitions and implementations ranging from "interactive textbooks" to "adventure games with multi-ending stories". In this paper, we present a unified definition of VNs drawn from an analysis of 30 prior academic definitions. We also examined 54 existing VNs to further refine our definition and employ a deeper analysis of the interactivity within VNs. We highlight key features of VNs that arise in our definition, and discuss resulting implications for the design of VNs. This work is relevant for narrative game designers and researchers, affording a more unified structure and clearer guidelines to identify, analyze, and design future VN games.

Interactive narratives are widely used to frame and contextualize education in games. However, the specifics of how their designs aid the learning process and outcomes remains relatively unexplored. To better understand this space, a study was conducted that focused on one sub-genre of interactive narrative, Visual Novels. Specifically, in this paper we conducted a survey of thirty-one existing educational Visual Novels, analyzing design elements that fostered learning and delivered educational content. The resulting taxonomy consists of five key dimensions for educational design and teaching strategies within Visual Novels: 1) Teaching Through Choice, 2) Teaching Through Scripted Sequences, 3) Teaching Through Mini-games, 4) Teaching Through Exploration and 5) Non-interactive Teaching. These dimensions demonstrate that there are a number of design considerations for supporting learning through Visual Novels. This work has implications for designers of educational games by classifying the different designs a Visual Novel can employ to teach—ultimately informing how to better present educational subject matter in interactive narrative games.

Concepts utilizing applied ethics, such as responsible conduct of research (RCR), can prove difficult to teach due to the complexity of problems faced by researchers and the many underlying perspectives involved in such dilemmas. To address this issue, we created Academical, a choice-based interactive storytelling game for RCR education that enables players to experience a story from multiple perspectives. In this paper, we describe the design rationale of Academical, and present results from an initial study comparing it with traditional web-based educational materials from an existing university RCR course. The results highlight that utilizing a choice-based interactive story game is more effective for RCR education, with learners developing significantly higher engagement, stronger overall moral reasoning skills, and better knowledge scores for certain RCR topics.

Music and rhythm are powerful tools that can be employed to enhance learning and memory. While games are commonly utilized to aid in second language acquisition, few have explored the implications of sound on learner's ability to draw and remember logographic characters (such as those in Chinese hanzi, Japanese kanji and Korean hanja). We created Radical Tunes, a kanji drawing music game, to explore the impacts of incorporating music on players' ability to retain meaning and stoke order of several kanji. In this paper, we describe the design rationale for Radical Tunes, and present results from a pilot study comparing a music focused version of the game with one that uses non-musical sound effects. Results show that while both conditions improved players' short-term ability to remember/draw kanji, there were no significant differences in improvement between the conditions. However, the use of music did improve immersion---an important factor related to learning. This work has implications for designers of second language acquisition games, and how they can incorporate rhythm and music into their games to increase player engagement.

In this paper we propose that game design strategies and theories can be useful tools for supporting the design of innovative socio-technical systems aimed at supporting social co-presence. We support this proposal with an annotated portfolio of a series of research prototype games that investigate sensor affordances and configurations to sustain and enhance social co-presence. We introduce relevant theory from game studies (the magic circle; the MDA (mechanics/dynamics/aesthetics framework)) to help ground and guide the use of game design in HCI practice. We conclude with recommendations for adopting game design as a supplementary research technique, with caveats about the limits of the approach.

While recent work has begun to evaluate the efficacy of educational programming games, many common design decisions in these games (e.g., single player gameplay using touchpad or mouse) have not been explored for learning outcomes. For instance, alternative design approaches such as collaborative play and embodied interaction with tangibles may also provide important benefits to learners. To better understand how these design decisions impact learning and related factors, we created an educational programming game that allows for systematically varying input method and mode of play. In this paper, we describe design rationale for mouse and tangible versions of our game, and report a 2x2 factorial experiment comparing efficacy of mouse and tangible input methods with individual and collaborative modes of play. Results indicate tangibles have a greater positive impact on learning, situational interest, enjoyment, and programming self-beliefs. We also found collaborative play helps further reduce programming anxiety over individual play.

One prominent aspect of programming skills/expertise is that it requires the use of many creative processes such as problem-solving, visualization, reflection, motivation and handling failure. While there have been a variety of puzzle-based educational programming games created to help teach learners these skills, few have been evaluated to assess their efficacy in developing programming and problem-solving skills or improving learners' positive emotional responses. Furthermore, most games are designed for a single player touchpad/mouse experience. This is problematic when trying to understand the validity of these designs, and whether there are alternative physically embodied design approaches that may prove more effective. My dissertation work helps address this problem. After creating a framework based on a meta-review that carefully dissects embodiment strategies in learning games, I am creating and evaluating tangible and augmented reality versions of a programming game. I plan to examine how these different forms of physical interaction help to facilitate and enhance meaning-making, problem-solving, and positive emotions.

Recent work has highlighted a notable divide in communication and collaboration between technical and social science/humanities disciplines within games research. In order to provide deeper insight around this apparent separation and underlying difference in epistemic cultures, we interviewed experts from various communities within games research. Our findings highlight some fundamental differences in research methodologies, publication practices, and epistemic cultures that need consideration in the larger discussion around future directions of games research. We in turn utilize these differing viewpoints to consider an assortment of approaches that could potentially better address the needs of technical, social science, and humanities sub-communities within games research.

While there are common design decisions in existing games for teaching Computer Science (single player puzzle based games for the touchpad/keyboard and mouse), recent work has suggested that alternative approaches such as collaborative play and physically embodied designs may also provide important benefits to learners. In order to explore how making interactions with an educational programming game more physically embodied could impact collaborative play, we created an educational programming game called Bots & (Main)Frames. We then conducted a preliminary study to examine if the level designs achieved desired challenge and explore how two versions of the game with different forms of physical embodiment/input (e.g., mouse vs. tangible programming blocks) impacted player interactions underlying collaboration. We found that game levels seem to provide desired increasing challenge, and that players often used the mouse and tangible programming blocks to aid communication/collaboration in distinctly different ways.

Secondhand fashion is a rapidly growing, lucrative market with both off- and online outlets. Studies of secondhand consumption have focused primarily on people's motivations for secondhand shopping, highlighting sustainability and/or thrift. We extend this work by looking at the motivations and practices of secondhand shoppers who are driven instead by style, playfulness and treasure-hunting. We present findings from ethnographic observation and interviews with 13 secondhand shoppers. Three secondhand shopping orientations emerged. Perfection Seeking involves seeking items that fit with an individual look or personal brand. These items are seen as unique, and demonstrate an alternative to mainstream fashion and consumption. Casual curiosity is less focused, more engaged in browsing, and driven by both secondhand objects and the secondhand experience itself. Digging involves the focused pursuit of hidden "gems" or treasures, following the belief that unusual items are waiting to be found. We offer ideas for designing secondhand shopping experiences to support the needs for storytelling, experiential pleasure, and negotiation around durable value.

Self-representation online can be difficult for those who are in life transitions that involve exploring new identity facets and changes in personal style. Many desire to tailor their online representations for different audiences. Social media site profiles and sharing settings offer varying levels of anonymity, privacy, and thus safety, but these settings are often opaque and poorly understood. To understand the complex relationship between identity, personal style and online self-representation, we examine how people explore and experiment with new styles in public and in private online settings during gender transition. We present the results of interviews with transgender people who have recently reinvented their personal style, or are planning to do so in the near future. We find that people explore new styles in online settings to craft possible or ideal future selves. When involving others, people engage intimate and unknown others, but often avoid weak ties. Our results indicate that to account for changing identities, social media sites must be designed to support finding inspiration and advice from strangers and style experimentation with close friends.