Game feel design is the intentional design of the affective impact of moment-to-moment interaction with games. In this article, we survey academic research and publications by practitioners to give a complete overview of the state of research concerning this aspect of game design. We analyzed over 200 sources and categorized their content according to design purposes. This resulted in three different domains of intended player experiences: 1) physicality; 2) amplification; and 3) support. In these domains, the act of polishing, which determines game feel, takes the shape of tuning, juicing, and streamlining, respectively. Tuning the physicality of game objects creates cohesion and predictability, and the resulting movement informs level design. Juicing is the act of polishing amplification and it results in empowerment and provides clarity of feedback. Streamlining allows a game to act on the intention of the player, supporting the execution of actions in the game. These three design intents are the main means through which designers control minute details of interactivity and inform the player’s reaction. The presented framework and its nuanced vocabulary can lead to an understanding of game feel that is shared between practitioners and researchers as highlighted in the concluding future research section.

This paper presents a Mixed-Initiative version of Squeezer, a tool for designing juice effects in the Unity game engine. Drawing upon sound synthesizers and game description languages, Squeezer can synthesize common types of juice effects by combining simple building blocks into sequences. Additionally, Squeezer offers effect generation based on predefined recipes as well as an interface for interactively evolving effect sequences. We conducted a user study with five experts to verify the functionality and interest among game designers. By applying generative and evolutionary strategies to juice effect design, Squeezer allows game designers and researchers using games in their work to explore adding juice effects to their games and frameworks.

This paper presents a series of experiments that map the expressive space of specific procedural generation techniques with playful aleatory interventions. They are tools for inspiration based on divinatory practices. This paper connects these ancient procedural techniques to contemporary technologies like Twitter bots. We challenge the limits of these technologies in order to playfully explore the role they can play in everyday life. The first experiment, Nostrandomus, remixes ancient prophecies. The second one, Five Sparrows on a Vampire, generates proposals for dining experiences featuring recipes and accompanying eating instructions. The third tool, Haikookies, is a self-help inspired twitter bot that shares fortune cookie-style wisdom in haiku form. The final experiment, Tiphareth, is a set of partially procedurally generated tarot cards. Additionally, Ephemerald, a tool for streamlined Tracery-based [6] procedural content generation is introduced. The takeaway of this paper is that data curation is a fundamental component of working with generative systems. In other words, the human aspect needs to be present in order to create meaningful results.

This paper introduces UnityVGDL, a port of the Video Game Description Language (VGDL) to the widely used Unity game engine. Our framework is based on the General Video Game AI (GVGAI) competition framework and implements its core ontology, including a forward model. It integrates the Unity Machine Learning Agents (ML-Agents) toolkit with VGDL to train and run agents in VGDL-described games. We compare baseline learning results between GVGAI and UnityVGDL across four different games and conclude that the Unity port is comparable to the GVGAI framework. UnityVGDL is available at: https://github.com/pyjamads/UnityVGDL

This paper is concerned with designing for immediate play, the experience that a player has when joining a game designed for being played without particular preparation. Museum games, urban games, casual sports, and ad-hoc multiplayer video games are kinds of games that facilitate immediate play situations. After a detailed explanation of immediate play, we analyze the context of the immediate play situation, which is mostly characterized by an overlap between different realities of the experience. The article continues by describing various design dimensions and outlining the design space those offer using examples and expert opinions. While most practices and game examples mentioned in this paper are from non-digital games, a special focus is put on the role of technology in immediately playable experiences. Still, the examined design dimensions are independent of the technological foundation of the game. This paper provides a starting point for designing better immediate play situations.

With seven-league boots through the Internet - when you take a stroll through the physical world in this wireless LAN footwear, you might meet people who happen to be spending some time in a chat-room. Their virtual conversations are made audible as spoken text coming out of the boots. The piece Seven Mile Boots augments reality by introducing a new layer of communication to an everyday task: spoken chat. Virtual crowds are met equipped with an intentionally basic interface.

With seven-league boots through the Internet - when you take a stroll through the physical world in this wireless LAN footwear, you just might meet people who happen to be spending some time in a chat-room. Their virtual conversations are made audible as spoken text coming out of the boots.