Pervasive games are computer games that build, to various extents, on social interaction as a driving force in the game play, on integration between physical and virtual worlds and on constant access to constantly ongoing games from virtually every existing context (anytime, anywhere gaming). This new genre of computer games presents many challenges for both researchers and industry; one of the most important is how to understand enjoyable player experiences in this new kind of computer gaming. The purpose of this thesis is to identify and explore the mechanisms in pervasive game designs that are of most importance for creating enjoyable Pervasive gaming experiences, and further to translate the findings of the exploration into a playability model for pervasive games. My empirical work focuses on the most important aspects for creating enjoyable player experiences when playing pervasive games. Evaluation methods from the usability and playability area have been deployed in order to identify what factors and aspects the players consider of most importance for their experience when they play pervasive games. Three specific pervasive games have been studied; SupaFly, Pervasive Treasure Hunt and Furiae. Theoretically, the thesis departs from existing knowledge about Playability, and the most prominent and accepted frameworks for understanding player experiences in computer gaming have been considered. Of the existing models and frameworks, the GameFlow model was selected as a theoretical point of departure. The main contribution of the thesis consists of a model for understanding player enjoyment in pervasive games - the Pervasive GameFlow model. Pervasive GameFlow elaborates the GameFlow model by adding 14 new criteria identified in the empirical evaluations of three pervasive games, criteria of great importance for enjoyable Player experiences in pervasive games. Further, the thesis answers questions concerning how the players are putting the anytime, anywhere and mobility aspects of pervasive games into practice - how they perceive and handle games that offer constantly ongoing game play. The results also provide insights into the reach or impact of the novel Pervasive aspects of pervasive games and their importance for the players and player experiences. Finally, the thesis provides notes on how evaluation of pervasive games should be performed.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Blake M. Belanger / Urban play is a type of play: it is an emotionally engaging act where players take part in fun within definable spatial parameters (Huizinga, 1944; Caillois, 1961). Urban play is unusual, though, because it occurs at the human scale, and uses the city fabric as the setting. As atypical reappropriations of space, urban play activities like parkour, flash mobs, and geocaching layer diverse experiences at specific city sites. This layering may ultimately develop place phenomena such as insideness. It is also possible that pre-existing concepts of place may influence where people choose to play. The subject of this investigation was to understand the relationship between urban play and place for players. Understanding this relationship can inform landscape architects and urban designers about urban play and how to design for playability. I used informed grounded theory (Thornberg, 2012) and autoethnography (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2012) to structure a mixed-methods study of urban play and place. I myself engaged in play and wrote field notes to gather data and inform my other data collection and analysis. I played with many other players, and conducted on-site, walk-along interviews with six of them. Recordings of the verbal exchanges, maps of the paths of the interviews, and photographs of landscape conditions identified as salient to play or place were collected during the interviews. This variety of data was understood through several memoing strategies, including note-taking, mapping, and sketching. Memoing and reflective “memoing-on-memos” abstracted the data enough for me to construct overarching themes, or findings (Thornberg, 2012; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Data collection and analysis were situated within an extensive literature review. Four primary findings resulted from my investigation. First, that the physical landscape influences play. Second, that play influences the social landscape. Third, that play develops sense of neighborhood. And fourth, that play relates to the physical and social landscapes at multiple scales. My findings can help designers understand what playability is and design for urban play.

Sociala digitala spel har ökat i popularitet sedan genren etablerades år 2007. Sociala spel är en vardag för många människor och återfinns på- eller runtomkring sociala nätverk, exempelvis Facebook. För att skapa kvalitativa sociala spel kan tydliga direktiv användas för hur design och utvärdering ska genomföras. En brist uppmärksammades av denna typ av direktiv i form av färdigutvecklade heuristiker för att designa och utvärdera sociala spel. För att undersöka hur sociala spel kan designas och utvärderas användes initiala heuristiker som kompletterades via en litteraturstudie. Dessa kompletterade heuristiker undersöktes sedan kvalitativt med hjälp av spelutvecklare och spelare. Denna studie resulterade i utvecklade heuristiker för design och utvärdering av sociala spel med spelbarhet och sociabilitet i fokus.Nyckelord: sociala spel, heuristiker, sociabilitet, spelbarhet / Social digital games have grown in popularity since the genre was established in 2007. Social games are an everyday reality for many people and can be found on- or around social networks such as Facebook. In order to create as qualitative social games as possible, clear directives can be used to know how these games should be designed and evaluated. This study highlights a lack of this type of directives in the form of fully developed heuristics for designing and evaluating social games. To examine how social games can be designed and evaluated initial heuristics were used and then supplemented by a literature review. These complementary heuristics were then examined qualitatively with help of game developers and players. This study resulted in developed heuristics for design and evaluation of social games with playability and sociability in focus.Keywords: social games, heuristics, sociability, playability

How to best develop educational computer games is an open question and an active area of research. It is clear that computer games are able to instill the desire for players to rise to challenges, learn new and complex skills, and most of all to be entertained. Researchers are now trying to identify the underlying motivational nature of computer gameplay to harness it for teaching and learning. This research explores the world of educational game design and development within the field of Serious Games, and presents the Structural Playability Process (SPP) for educational game design and implementation. Serious Games are games designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The development of the Structural Playability Process was undertaken through the design and production of two serious games; GeoThermal World, which provides a virtual geothermal field‐trip experience; and Ora – Save the Forest!, a simulation‐driven game for pest management in New Zealand forests. Using these games as case studies we describe the four SPP spaces of; education, translation, design, and engine, in support of research into the delivery of effective game design methods that facilitate engagement with educational topics. The main contributions of this research are in the development of a new, generalisable model of educational game design combined with a practical method for implementing the design into a game engine. The results infer that the SPP approach provides a means for ‘designing‐in’ conditions that can support motivation through ‘gameflow’ mapping, and provide support for the impact of serious games on learning; the games designed with the new model increased learning gains post‐play and supported knowledge retention. Finally, this research contributes empirical evidence to the field, as the SPP allows for the measurement of learning outcomes which are tracked throughout the design and development process.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:22:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fabricio Mario Maia Fava.pdf: 17540766 bytes, checksum: dbdc481a71a11cbb7c042f4b6f5eee16 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-09-13 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Evaluating the quality of interaction with digital games has been a hard task. This is due mainly to the unawareness of proper tools and criteria or to its inappropriate application. The usability methods, for instance, are often used for the analysis of applications aiming productivity. Nevertheless, they are not established regarding the evaluation of interaction with videogames, which are developed to help players to have fun. Another tool adopted to measure the quality of interaction with other digital games is the playability. However, the unawareness of its evaluation criteria makes this method even less explored. So, we propose on this work to discuss the relations between playability and usability in digital games, trying to identify characteristics and concerns in every technique regarding design and evaluation of videogames. To cover up such questions, we weaved dialogues with game researchers as Jesper Juul, Katie Salen and Erick Zimmerman; scholars of topics related to fun and entertainment, as Nicole Lazzaro, Donald Norman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; besides researchers in the field of playability, as Carlo Fabricattore and Aki Jarvinen; and of the usability, like Katherine Isbister, Noah Schaffer and Sauli Laitinen. The knowledge of the topics discussed by these authors led us to adopt the application of usability and playability heuristics as research methodology, with the first person shooting games for computers as gender and study platform. Through this approach it was possible tot identify the observation needs concerning kinds of interaction problems before choosing the evaluation method (playability and usability) that will be used. By doing so, the measurement of the interaction quality will be more accurate and will contribute to the project of games able to keep players emotionally evolved. Considering the few literature about playability and usability in digital games, it is expected that this work help professionals and researchers in the designing and evaluating processes of videogames / Avaliar a qualidade da interação com os jogos digitais tem sido uma tarefa complexa. Isso se deve principalmente ao desconhecimento de ferramentas e critérios adequados ou à sua aplicação de forma inapropriada. Os métodos de usabilidade, por exemplo, são bastante utilizados para a análise de aplicações com Rns de produtividade. No entanto, não estão estabelecidos quanto à avaliação da interação com os videogames, que são desenvolvidos pensando em ajudar os jogadores a terem diversão. Outra ferramenta adotada para mensurar a qualidade da interação com os jogos digitais é a jogabilidade. Todavia, o desconhecimento de seus critérios de avaliação torna esse método ainda pouco explorado. Nesse sentido, propomos com este trabalho discutir as relações entre jogabilidade e usabilidade em jogos digitais, buscando identificar as características e preocupações de cada técnica no que diz respeito ao design e avaliação de videogames. Para dar conta dessas questões, traçamos diálogos com pesquisadores de jogos como Jesper Juul, Katie Salen e Erick Zimmerman; estudiosos das questões relacionadas à diversão e ao entretenimento, como Nicole Lazzaro, Donald Norman e Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; além de pesquisadores do campo da jogabilidade, como Carlo Fabricattore e Aki Jarvinen; e da usabilidade, como Katherine Isbister, Noah Schaffer e Sauli Laitinen. O conhecimento das questões discutidas por esses autores nos conduziu a adotar a aplicação de heuristicas de jogabilidade e usabilidade como metodologia de pesquisa, tendo os jogos de tiro em primeira pessoa para computador como gênero e plataforma de estudo. Com essa abordagem, foi possivel identificar a necessidade da observação dos tipos de problemas de interação antes da escolha do método de avaliação (jogabilidade e usabilidade) que será utilizado. Dessa forma, a mensuração da qualidade da interação será mais precisa e contribuirá no projeto de jogos capazes de manter os jogadores envolvidos emocionalmente. Considerando a pouca literatura pertinente à jogabilidade e usabilidade nos jogos digitais, espera-se que esse trabalho auxilie profissionais e pesquisadores no processo de design e avaliação de videogames

The purpose of this study has been to investigate if the Pervasive GameFlow Model is suitable for evaluating Player Experience in Augmented Reality games. The work has described a definition of Augmented Reality, how it generally operates and reviewed common challenges when developing Augmented Reality applications. A prototype game has been developed, based on a previous concept of merging board games with computer games using Augmented Reality. After development, the game has been tested with a method based on the Pervasive GameFlow Model. Results showed the model to be suitable for future tests and evaluations, but did not produce data for evolving the game design. Generating such data would require execution of additional testing methods. / Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka om Pervasive GameFlow Modellen är lämplig för att utvärdera spelarupplevelse i Augmented Reality-spel. Arbetet har beskrivit en definition av Augmented Reality, hur det generellt fungerar och granskat vanliga utmaningar vid utveckling av Augmented Reality-applikationer. Ett prototypspel har utvecklats, baserat på ett tidigare koncept för att slå samman brädspel med datorspel med hjälp av Augmented Reality. Efter utveckling har spelet testats med en metod baserad på Pervasive GameFlow Modellen. Resultat visade att modellen var lämplig för framtida tester och utvärderingar, men producerade inte data för att utveckla speldesignen. Generering av sådan data skulle kräva utförande av ytterligare testmetoder.

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / O objetivo desta pesquisa é, a partir do estudo sobre as abordagens de diversos autores para o conceito de jogabilidade, propor uma definição do termo por meio de teorias de comunicação. A palavra jogabilidade é frequentemente utilizada em matérias jornalísticas especializadas, trabalhos científicos e conversas de jogadores de videogame, tendo sido criada sobre ela uma falsa impressão de clareza conceitual. Por meio de uma revisão bibliográfica foram analisadas as principais propostas de autores para o conceito de jogabilidade, sem que houvesse unanimidade sobre ele. Além da análise da literatura relacionada à jogabilidade,foram também utilizados vídeos de gameplay e experimentação direta de alguns jogos que compuseram o corpus desta pesquisa. Por fim, através da relação teórica entre os conceitos de agência, interface e interação, esta pesquisa define a jogabilidade sob três grupos de interesse: o controle do jogador, o design e a experiência de jogar. Com isso, a pesquisa pretende auxiliar a compreensão e utilização do termo em futuros trabalhos acadêmicos da área de comunicação relacionada com o estudo dos jogos eletrônicos. / The objective of this research is, starting from a study about different authors' perspectives on the concept of playability, to propose a definition of the term through theories of communication. The word playability is frequently used in specialized newspaper articles, scientific papers and the conversations of videogame players, having been cast upon it a false impression of conceptual clarity. By way of a bibliographical revision, many authors' main proposals for the concept of playability have been analyzed, without reaching a consensus. Besides the analysis of the literature related to playability, gameplay videos and direct experimentation of certain games were key to composing the body of this research. At last, through the theoretical relationship between the concepts of agency, interface and interaction, this research defines playability under three different interest groups: the player's control, the design and the gaming experience. With this, this research intends to help the comprehension and usage of the term in future academic papers of the communication field related to the study of electronic games

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / O objetivo desta pesquisa é, a partir do estudo sobre as abordagens de diversos autores para o conceito de jogabilidade, propor uma definição do termo por meio de teorias de comunicação. A palavra jogabilidade é frequentemente utilizada em matérias jornalísticas especializadas, trabalhos científicos e conversas de jogadores de videogame, tendo sido criada sobre ela uma falsa impressão de clareza conceitual. Por meio de uma revisão bibliográfica foram analisadas as principais propostas de autores para o conceito de jogabilidade, sem que houvesse unanimidade sobre ele. Além da análise da literatura relacionada à jogabilidade,foram também utilizados vídeos de gameplay e experimentação direta de alguns jogos que compuseram o corpus desta pesquisa. Por fim, através da relação teórica entre os conceitos de agência, interface e interação, esta pesquisa define a jogabilidade sob três grupos de interesse: o controle do jogador, o design e a experiência de jogar. Com isso, a pesquisa pretende auxiliar a compreensão e utilização do termo em futuros trabalhos acadêmicos da área de comunicação relacionada com o estudo dos jogos eletrônicos. / The objective of this research is, starting from a study about different authors' perspectives on the concept of playability, to propose a definition of the term through theories of communication. The word playability is frequently used in specialized newspaper articles, scientific papers and the conversations of videogame players, having been cast upon it a false impression of conceptual clarity. By way of a bibliographical revision, many authors' main proposals for the concept of playability have been analyzed, without reaching a consensus. Besides the analysis of the literature related to playability, gameplay videos and direct experimentation of certain games were key to composing the body of this research. At last, through the theoretical relationship between the concepts of agency, interface and interaction, this research defines playability under three different interest groups: the player's control, the design and the gaming experience. With this, this research intends to help the comprehension and usage of the term in future academic papers of the communication field related to the study of electronic games

Orientador: Hermes Renato Hildebrand / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-13T04:23:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cuperschmid_AnaReginaMizrahy_M.pdf: 3728417 bytes, checksum: 119719713ed847d7e7e4bdd5ed4b5816 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: Os jogos de computador suscitam uma série de considerações, por apresentarem problemas diferentes dos outros tipos de softwares. Neles, os fatores chave para o sucesso são o entretenimento, o prazer e a diversão, que dependem de uma boa usabilidade, fatores esses totalmente vinculados e intimamente relacionados. Este trabalho apresenta uma listagem de heurísticas que permitem avaliações de usabilidade e entretenimento, aqui denominadas de jogabilidade. Esta pesquisa teve, como objetivo, investigar, através da literatura e de estudos de casos, os jogos de computador e elaborar uma lista compreensível de heurísticas de jogabilidade. Para isso foi necessária uma vasta exploração da bibliografia sobre jogos, ergonomia e usabilidade, para, em seguida, realizar avaliações heurísticas de jogabilidade. A análise dos resultados obtidos nos leva a crer que as heurísticas de jogabilidade podem servir como um ponto de partida para uma avaliação de jogos e como uma contribuição para a massa de conhecimentos existentes sobre o assunto. Enxergamos a necessidade de continuar validando as heurísticas levantadas por meio de avaliações de mais jogos, alterando-as, se necessário. / Abstract: Computer games have a series of problems and considerations that differ from other kinds of software. Their key factors for success are: entertainment, fun and pleasure, which depend on good usability. These factors are totally linked and intimately related. This work presents a heuristics list that permits an evaluation of usability and entertainment, here called playability. The objective of this research was to investigate computer games through literature and case studies and elaborate a comprehensive heuristics list of playability. It was necessary a vast exploration of the bibliography of game, ergonomic criteria for the evaluation of human-computer interfaces and usability, and then, perform a heuristic evaluation of playability. The analyses of the final results makes us believe that playability heuristics may be used as a starting point for assessing games and as contribution for the amount of knowledge available about the subject study. We see the need to keep validating the heuristics brought up in this study by assessing more games and updating them if necessary. / Mestrado / Mestre em Artes

Detta arbete undersöker huruvida "think aloud"-tekniken som den används i användbarhetstestning är lämplig i samband med spelbarhetstestning samt hur uppmaningar att tänka högt påverkar en speltestares immersion i spelupplevelsen. Forskningsområdet valdes främst då tekniken think aloud rekommenderas till spelbarhetstestning från många håll utan vetenskaplig motivering. En frågeställning togs fram med denna bakgrund i åtanke. För att utvärdera frågeställningen genomfördes en kvantitativ undersökning där en serie respondenter fick spela en artefakt i form av en för ändamålet konstruerad nivå till spelet Rising Islands (Mindblown 2016) för att sedan fylla i en enkät som mätte deras upplevda nivå av "immersion". Hälften av respondenterna uppmanades att tänka högt under speltillfället, övriga respondenter genomförde spelsessionen utan störande moment. Gruppernas genomsnittliga enkätresultat ställdes mot varandra i ett T-test. Resultatet visade att uppmaningar att tänka högt inte hade någon märkbar inverkan på upplevd immersion, men vidare forskning är nödvändig då det finns osäkerheter i datamängden. / <p>Det finns övrigt digitalt material (t.ex. film-, bild- eller ljudfiler) eller modeller/artefakter tillhörande examensarbetet som ska skickas till arkivet.</p><p>There are other digital material (eg film, image or audio files) or models/artifacts that belongs to the thesis and need to be archived.</p>