Daniel Apken

Hendrik Landwehr

Marc Herrlich

Markus Krause

Dennis Paul

Rainer Malaka

Design and Evaluation of Parametrizable Multi-Genre Game Mechanics

Keywords: multi-genre games, genre blending, parametrizable game mechanics, game mashups

Designing digital games is primarily interaction design. This interaction manifests as a meaningful change in the game world. An aspect of a game can only change dynamically with a parametric model of this aspect available. One aspect of digital games is yet missing such a systematic description: the genre of a game is currently only determined by its designer. This paper introduces a new approach that allows for dynamic blending between genres. We describe a set of game mechanics that express the characteristics of different game genres. We extract a parametric model from these mechanics to allow dynamic blending. The paper illustrates the possibilities of this approach with an implementation of a multi-genre-game. It also provides empiric evidence that the described model successfully generates different game genres.

Introduction

The design of many computer games is based on common and very stereotypical genre patterns. The mechanics of different first-person shooters, role-playing games (RPG), or platform games are very similar in comparison. Exceptions are so-called "genre mash-ups", e.g., games combining puzzling with action or strategy with RPG. Not only does combining well-known game patterns in new ways give existing genres an interesting twist but this could also broaden the target audience of a game by providing a more personalized game experience. Imagine the player being able to tailor the specific mix of game mechanics to her taste and mood or the game automatically adapting to the player's preferred playing style over time.

However, currently it is exclusively the designer that decides on the specific mix, which is fixed after shipping the game. At the same time, it is important to not take all creative control away from the designer because this would clearly diminish the game experience as good game design is anything but random and arbitrary. The goal is to strike a balance between creative control and influence of the designer and customizability and flexibility regarding mechanics and user preferences. What is needed are fundamental building blocks that allow designers to incorporate dynamic genre mixing and switching in their games in a systematic, controlled, and understandable way. Such building blocks should be easily customizable, ideally using only a floating point variable to switch or blend between different game characteristics. They should facilitate clearly distinguishable play styles at an equal level of quality for each style. From an engineering perspective they should generalize to a wide variety of games.

In this paper we introduce our approach to customizable multi-genre game mechanics. We present the design and evaluation of three specific multi-genre game mechanics: movement metaphor, puzzle factor and AI factor. We show how our multi-genre game mechanics fulfill the requirements discussed above. We report on a conducted user study, providing empirical evidence that our mechanics successfully support different play styles while maintaining a near constant and high level of quality of the overall game experience. We discuss how our approach is generalizable to other games and mechanics.

Related Work

Numerous computer games already use procedural game elements. Automated map and asset creation are popular techniques. A very successful example of procedural world creation is Minecraft [START_REF] Handy | Markus 'Notch' Persson talks making Minecraft[END_REF]. It uses an algorithm that imitates nature by heavily relying on perlin-noise [START_REF] Perlin | Improving noise[END_REF] to create structures such as fields, hills, or lakes. Other games, e.g., the Diablo series3 , create procedural worlds from precreated interchangeable pieces to convey unpredictability. "Rogue-like" games in general often use similar techniques to create seemingly unique items by randomly selecting from a predetermined attribute range, e.g., a sword with a special attack type, damage value, or player class requirements [START_REF] Toy | Rogue by artificial intelligence design[END_REF]. Other systems rely on behavioral models such as "rhythm groups" [START_REF] Smith | A framework for analysis of 2d platformer levels[END_REF][START_REF] Sorenson | A generic approach to challenge modeling for the procedural creation of video game levels[END_REF]. Search-based content generation [START_REF] Togelius | Search-based procedural content generation: A taxonomy and survey[END_REF] or difficulty calculating algorithms [START_REF] Compton | Procedural level design for platform games[END_REF] are examples of yet another class of related methods. The appearance of assets can also be altered using the mentioned methods, applying slight differences to otherwise similar objects [START_REF] Watson | Procedural urban modeling in practice[END_REF]. Façade is an interactive drama [START_REF] Mateas | Facade: An experiment in building a fully-realized interactive drama[END_REF] employing different techniques, e.g., natural language understanding, to alternate the progress of the story depending on the player's choices. Lopes et al. [START_REF] Lopes | Adaptivity challenges in games and simulations: A survey[END_REF] describe adaptive games, in which parts of the game are altered according to the user's behavior. In some games, e.g., Mario Kart4 or Max Payne5 , the difficulty is altered based on the player's performance, e.g., providing increased aiming assistance if the player dies too often.

The mentioned works cover procedural content for game worlds, levels, assets, their graphics, and story. However, to our knowledge, there are no examples of games that allow to vary fundamental game mechanics such as the movement metaphor based on a continuous parametrization.

Multi-Genre Game Mechanics

A prototype has been developed that provides customizable fundamental game mechanics based on easily changeable numerical parameters. The main goal is to provide game mechanics that can be altered at any time, resulting in clearly distinct game types or genres while at the same time maintaining a high quality and comparable overall game experience. In effect that means that it should be possible to generate games of different genres or blends of such games at the same quality level, which would still work as self-contained games, including all the usual elements of games [START_REF] Salen | Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals[END_REF][START_REF] Schell | The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses[END_REF].

Prototype Genres

While our mechanics can in principle be varied "continuously" as they are represented by floating point parameters, for the prototype and the following user tests we developed three distinct parameter sets, each corresponding to a specific setup as listed below. We selected three popular and distinct genres we wanted to emulate by customizing our mechanics. The goal was to potentially appeal to a variety of player types [START_REF] Schell | The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses[END_REF].

Platformer setup. The primary aim of this game variant is to jump and collect items. The player is automatically moved to the bottom. With increasing height the items being collected are also increasing in value.

Shoot 'em up setup. The primary aim of this game variant is to shoot enemies while dodging obstacles. The player is automatically moved to the right. Enemies are getting stronger as the player progresses.

Puzzle setup. The primary aim of this game variant is to solve puzzles by changing the color of at least three hexagons. The player is not automatically moved. Puzzle difficulty increases with each one solved.

Static Mechanics

In addition to the customizable "dynamic" mechanics described below, all games (or game variants) include basic "static" mechanics that work similarly independent of any parametrization. This includes a collecting mechanic and a score system. Collecting items, killing enemies, and solving puzzles yields the player points, which provide a measurable outcome and goal to the player.

Additionally, we devised a simple interaction mechanic independent of the game variant. The player can click on game objects to make the game avatar launch box-shaped projectiles at these objects. This "shooting" mechanic is static across variants, however, the result is based on the respective target object type, which may vary. In effect this allows the player to remove obstacles, attack enemies, or solve puzzles using the same basic interaction method.

Dynamic Mechanics

The principle of dynamic mechanics, being controlled by parameters, has been applied to several core mechanics of the prototype. One of the most fundamental mechanics is movement. In principle, movement can be customized through the following parameters: direction, acceleration, speed, automatic or manual movement, linear or non-linear movement. Furthermore, movement possibilities are heavily dependent on the surrounding game world and objects, e.g., types of barriers, walls, or platforms. The specific type of movement and obstacles have a great impact on the perceived game genre and are not independent. In order to parametrize movement for different genres we investigated common movement patterns [START_REF] Bjork | Patterns in Game Design[END_REF]. We developed a special kind of barrier which is only passable from one side and which is automatically rotated according to the movement parametrization. Although other movement parameters (listed above) are also slightly adjusted according to the specific setup, the movement metaphor is mainly parametrized by a single floating point parameter -"gravity" -that determines the direction of forced or non-forced (by setting gravity to zero) player movement. The barriers as well as other movement parameters and player controls are adapted according to this parameter. In the platformer setup (figure 1, box 1), the gravity is directed downwards. As the desired direction in this setup is upwards, the player can use a jumping motion to get there. The platforms align according to the gravity, allowing the avatar to stand on top of them and jump through them from below. Additionally, movement to the left and right is not impeded. The gravity in the shoot 'em up setup (figure 1, box 2) draws the player rightwards. The goal is to shoot and avoid enemies, which is the easiest when moving with the gravity. The avatar can move up and down freely. The platforms serve as obstacles that impede the players progress, instead of supporting it. In the puzzle setup (figure 1, box 3), there is no gravity at all, which means the avatar can move freely in all directions.

In this case, it cannot be predicted where the player will navigate next, so the platforms "align" in random directions. Another fundamental mechanic is the type of non-player objects/agents the player can interact with. To customize objects to a wide variety of uses they should be of a simple shape, while still providing enough possibilities to give them an interesting appearance and functionality. Furthermore, they should work as individual objects but they should also be combinable into larger clusters. We found that simple hexagons fulfill these requirements. They can represent obstacles, enemies, or puzzle pieces (hexagons of different colors), depending on the intention of the player and/or goal of the game (figure 2). This is realized by providing a certain behavior when creating new hexagons in a level. Most hexagons being spawned are neutral and act as obstacles or platforms to stand or jump on. Two parameters called "puzzle" and "aggressiveness" factor, respectively, are used to alter this spawn rate, providing more objects of either kind. Additionally, the aggressiveness is used to determine the initial behavior of ene-mies, making them more passive or active and the puzzle factor determines the puzzle complexity as it influences the number of colors used.

Enemies that are being hit become more aggressive, approaching the player faster and stealing points when reaching her. All other hexagons that are hit (except for special puzzle hexagons) adopt the color of the projectile. When three or more hexagons of the same color are connected to each other, they explode and the player gains points but only a few. When a special puzzle hexagon (a hexagon showing a number) is connected to them, the points gained are multiplied by its number and the number itself increases, making it possible to gain even more points when destroying other hexagons connected to it. Enemies that are not aggressive at all will not approach the player and cost her no points when she touches them. However, they still push her off, making them ideal to be used as trampolines, supporting the jumping mechanic. Larger formations of neutral hexagons can often impede the player's way. The puzzle and shooting mechanics can be used to connect three of them, make them explode and clear the way.

User Study

An online user study was conducted to empirically confirm the suitability of the described approach. The main goals of the study were to confirm that the multi-genre game elements actually work for each genre and that at the same time each genre is still clearly distinguishable by the user.

The game was implemented in Java and could be downloaded from our website. We invited users to participate by circulating the access link both over internal and external mailing lists and social network sites of our university. In the disclaimer, users were instructed that we wanted to test new game designs but no specifics on multi-genre or generative game design were provided. We used a within-subjects design with each user playing all three game variants (platform, shoot 'em up and puzzle setups as described in section 3.1). The order of game variants was randomized using a latin square across participants. Participants were asked to select the three most important concepts specific to each game variant from a list of 14 items (see below). They were asked to rank all variants in comparison and additionally to rate each individually on a 5-point Likert scale. We collected similar ratings on graphical quality, story, and game play for each version.

Overall 64 people participated in the study. After removing invalid data, we still retained 44 valid data sets for further analysis. Of these final 44 participants, 37 were male and 7 female with an average age of 25.66 (SD 4.2) years. Friedman tests revealed no significant differences between the three game variants regarding ranking, ratings (overall, graphical quality, story, gameplay), perceived fun, learnability of the controls, and clarity of the game goal. Mean values for perceived fun (5-point Likert scale; 1 = better; 5 = worse) were 2.52 (SD 1.0), 2.45 (SD 1.13), and 2.32 (SD 0.983). Overall rating mean values were 2.61 (SD 0.754), 2.55 (SD 0.761), and 2.45 (SD 0.820). Mean values for learnability of controls (5-point Likert scale; 1 = worse; 5 = better) were 4.75 (SD 0.534), 4.73 (SD 0.694), and 4.70 (SD 0.701). Mean values for clarity of gaming goal (5-point Likert; 1 = clear; 5 = unclear) were 1.52 (SD 0.628), 1.45 (SD 0.875), and 1.77 (SD 0.886). Application of Cochran's Q revealed significant or highly significant differences between the three game variants for the following concepts: logical thinking (χ 2 (2) = 33.583, p < 0.01), reaction speed (χ 2 (2) = 11.760, p < 0.01), collecting (χ 2 (2) = 29.727, p < 0.01), shooting (χ 2 (2) = 26.963, p < 0.01), jumping (χ 2 (2) = 70.205, p < 0.01), problem solving (χ 2 (2) = 17.077, p < 0.01), aiming (χ 2 (2) = 14.519, p < 0.01), dodging (χ 2 (2) = 8.667, p < 0.05), and attacking (χ 2 (2) = 24.4, p < 0.01). For maneuvering, tactical thinking, hand-eye coordination, concentration, and exploration the differences were found to be not significant, although the p-value for tactical thinking (p = 0.07) missed the 5% threshold very narrowly.

Discussion

As reported above, no significant differences have been found between the three game variants in relation to perceived quality and fun. All variants were comparable in terms of ranking, ratings and sub-ratings (such as graphical quality etc.). The absolute ratings reinforce the results of the relative rankings and they additionally show that all variants were not just rated equally, but equally good. This also pertains to the learnability of the controls. On the other hand nine of 14 concepts exhibited statistically significant differences. This shows that the participants were indeed very aware of differences in game play and that they very clearly attributed different concepts and core mechanics to each game instance.

In summary this shows that our approach successfully led to the creation of three very distinct and different games while maintaining a good quality and working game mechanics for each game individually. Switching between these games -or genres -is now just a matter of adjusting the three main parameters (gravity, puzzle, and aggressiveness), which are floating point variables and thereby also enable simple blending between different variants.

Our participant base was biased towards young, male, hard-core gamers. The results of the study are therefore limited to this audience at the moment. However, one could also interpret this audience as being an audience of computer game experts.

Conclusion and Future Work

With regard to our initial research question, the results of the reported user study show that we were able to successfully create three distinct gaming experiences the participants clearly related to three different game genres while maintaining a comparable level of high quality across all game variants.

Our approach currently rests on three main pillars: a variable motion mechanic, the puzzle factor, and the AI (or aggressiveness) factor. All games that feature the exploration of space could potentially benefit from dynamic motion mechanics. What is needed to implement genre-blending is a "natural" mapping of a floating point game attribute to a motion metaphor, such as gravity in our case. Examples could be other physical properties related to motion like friction, buoyancy, or permeability. Our puzzle factor can be generalized to dependencies between other game elements. Thus increased puzzle factor means more dependencies. Again a mapping function is needed that maps a floating point variable to more complex dependencies. The AI factor influences if the player perceives other objects as static object, neutral agents, or enemies. This maps rather directly to some sort of "aggressiveness" factor in most simple game AI systems.

So far we only tested three distinct game variants. In the future we plan to add additional variants to investigate further the scalability of our approach. The parametric approach in principle allows to blend game variants at runtime. When and how to blend has to be determined and evaluated to ensure a convincing gaming experience.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Three different movement and obstacle combinations controlled by "gravity" are used to model three different game genres.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Instruction screenshots for the three different game variants modeled in the prototype: Platformer (top left), Shoot 'em up (top right) and Puzzle (bottom).

http://www.blizzard.com/games/

http://www.mariokart.com/wii/launch/

http://www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne/


Martin Fischbach
email: martin.fischbach@uni-wuerzburg.de@www

Dennis Wiebusch

Marc Erich Latoschik

Gerd Bruder

Frank Steinicke

Blending Real and Virtual Worlds using Self-Reflection and Fiducials

Keywords: Mixed Reality, Self-Reflection, Fiducials, Fish Tank Virtual Reality, Interactive Virtual Art, Multi-Touch

This paper presents an enhanced version of a portable outof-the-box platform for semi-immersive interactive applications. The enhanced version combines stereoscopic visualization, marker-less user tracking, and multi-touch with self-reflection of users and tangible object interaction. A virtual fish tank simulation demonstrates how real and virtual worlds are seamlessly blended by providing a multi-modal interaction experience that utilizes a user-centric projection, body, and object tracking, as well as a consistent integration of physical and virtual properties like appearance and causality into a mixed real/virtual world.

Introduction

Milgram and Kishimo define Mixed Reality (MR) to be located on a continuum between Augmented Reality (AR) and Augmented Virtuality (AV) [START_REF] Milgram | A taxonomy of mixed reality visual displays[END_REF]. While AR superimposes the real world by computer-generated images, AV enhances virtual worlds using real-world data. The general idea blends real and virtual objects into a combined real/virtual space which shares certain perceptive attributes like consistency of geometry, time, or illumination [START_REF] Naemura | Virtual Shadows in Mixed Reality Environment Using Flashlight-like Devices[END_REF].

Merging real and virtual worlds using computer technology is challenging. One of the most important tasks concerns placements of superimposed objects to be consistent with the real world. Likewise, lighting effects like reflections and shadows have to match to obtain a consistent perception of a shared illumination space. In addition, movements of real/virtual objects have to be consistent and follow a plausible simulation of cause and effect between both worlds.

The combined synthetic and real illumination of objects to produce blended high quality images works only under specific limitations. Such limitations include renouncement of real-time performance, requirement of a geometric computer model of the real scene, light sources to be static [START_REF] Jacobs | Classification of illumination methods for mixed reality[END_REF], or special hardware usually not accessible in most MR system environments [START_REF] Naemura | Virtual Shadows in Mixed Reality Environment Using Flashlight-like Devices[END_REF]. This paper presents an enhanced version of the smARTbox [START_REF] Fischbach | smARTbox: Out-of-the-Box Technologies for Interactive Art and Exhibition[END_REF][START_REF] Fischbach | smartbox: A portable setup for intelligent interactive applications[END_REF], a portable out-of-the-box platform for semi-immersive interactive applications in promotional, artistic, or educational areas. The enhanced version blends real and virtual worlds using self-reflection of users and fiducial physical interaction objects to manipulate the virtual content. In addition to the stereoscopic visualization, marker-less user tracking and direct interscopic touch input of the smARTbox, the enhanced version provides two new key features demonstrated using a virtual fish tank simulation: (1) Interacting users perceive a self-reflection of their physical presence in the virtual world, i.e., on the simulated liquid surface of the fish tank and (2) real physical objects modify the simulation behavior, i.e., the virtual fishes react to objects placed in vicinity of the fish tank.

System Setup

The smARTbox's [START_REF] Fischbach | smARTbox: Out-of-the-Box Technologies for Interactive Art and Exhibition[END_REF] metal frame provides the skeleton for a 112 × 90 × 63 cm (w ×h×d) wooden box. The top side is a back-projection surface fed with stereoscopic 3D images at 720p by an Optoma GT720 DLP-projector via a wide-angle converter lens and a mirror mounted at the bottom of the box at a 45°angle. The demonstration uses an Intel Core i7 @3.40GHz processor with 8GB of main memory and an nVidia Quadro 4000 graphics card. One Microsoft Kinect multi sensor system is utilized in combination with a set of IR-lights and an IR-camera in order to track the user's body and the physical objects, respectively. The hardware setup (without the computer) was constructed at a total cost of less than e 2,500 during a students project. The smARTbox is driven by Simulator X [START_REF] Latoschik | Simulator X: A Scalable and Concurrent Software Platform for Intelligent Realtime Interactive Systems[END_REF], a Scala-based software framework for intelligent interactive applications.

Touch & Fiducial Marker Tracking

In recent years, multi-touch interaction in combination with stereoscopic display has received considerable attention [START_REF] Steinicke | Touching the 3rd dimension (T3D)[END_REF][START_REF] Valkov | Touching floating objects in projection-based virtual reality environments[END_REF][START_REF] Valkov | 2D touching of 3D stereoscopic objects[END_REF]. Hence, we constructed the smARTbox in such a way that the screen serves as a multi-touch-enabled surface using the Rear-DI principle [START_REF] Schöning | Building interactive multi-touch surfaces[END_REF]. Therefore, six clusters of IR-LEDs illuminate the screen from the inside with infrared light, which is reflected by objects in contact with the surface. The contact points are sensed by a Point Grey Dragonfly ® 2 digital video camera with a wide-angle lens and infrared band-pass filter. Touch positions and gestures are analyzed by a modified version of the NUI Group's CCV software [START_REF] Cetin | Multi-touch technologies[END_REF]. In addition to tracking multiple touch points, CCV supports tracking of small fiducials, which can be pre-registered with corresponding realworld objects. For instance, a fiducial marker can be placed at a can for fish feed (see Figure 1 right). When the can (respectively the fiducial) is in contact with the touch surface, it gets recognized and its touch area serves as attractor for the fish. Other fiducials may be associated to objects, which serve as detractors to the virtual fish such as predators.

Self-Reflection

The augmentation of the virtual scene with real world information additionally enhances the sense of presence for mixed reality environments [START_REF] Steinicke | Virtual reflections and virtual shadows in mixed reality environments[END_REF]. Continuing this approach, the smARTbox setup utilizes 2.5D models of the real scene obtained from the Kinect to realize virtual self-refections of the user:

A triangulated 2.5D mesh with corresponding normals, faces, and texture coordinates is processed using the nestk library [START_REF] Burrus | NESTK Library[END_REF]. The related texture, a 640×480 pixel color image, is captured from the Kinect's RGB-camera. The communication between the native library-based image processing and the Scala-based Simulator X is handled by the Scala Native Access (SNA) framework. Simulator X' built-in renderer is used to appropriately position the textured mesh data in the virtual scene. The mesh contains the necessary spatial (geometric) data which is used to calculate a reflection at a virtual surface aligned with the water surface. The result is blended by a custom water shader with the interactive water surface (see Figure 1 left).

Conclusion

The smARTbox has great potential for presentations and exhibitions, since it is less expensive, easier to set up and transport than typical virtual reality installations. For this demo we have enhanced the smARTbox by an advanced blending of virtual and mixed reality concepts, which considerably increases realism of virtual objects. The lack of obtrusive instrumentation in combination with presence-enhancing visual and tangible interaction improves the engagement with users, e. g., in exhibition scenarios. The utilized software platform Simulator X provides a state-of-the-art simulation engine with an integrated AIcore and several multimodal interaction components. Its scalable architecture provides an ideal platform, e. g., to experiment with alternate sensors, possibly enhancing accuracy or precision. An evaluation that we plan during the demo session will show in how far the usage of virtual reflections and tangible object interaction increases the users sense of presence and improves object interaction.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Reflections on water surface (left) and interaction with a fiducial marker (right).

Acknowledgements

The authors want to thank Christian Treffs, Alexander Strehler and Anke Giebler-Schubert for supporting the implementation and realization of the presented work.


Christopher Blake
email: christopher.blake@ijk.hmtm-hannover.de

Dorothée Hefner

Christian Roth

Christoph Klimmt

Peter Vorderer

Cognitive Processes Involved in Video Game Identification

Keywords: Video games, entertainment, identification, priming, experiment, lexical decision task

des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Many contemporary video games contain rich narratives and offer a specific character (e.g., a war hero) or a certain role (e.g., military commander) to players. In the scientific discussion of the remarkable fascination and enjoyment of video games, such narrative elements have been suggested to facilitate emotional player responses because of processes of identification [START_REF] Klimmt | The video game experience as 'true' identification: A theory of enjoyable alterations of players' self-perception[END_REF][START_REF] Lewis | They may be pixels, but they're MY Pixels": Developing a metric of character attachment in role-playing video games[END_REF][START_REF] Peng | The mediational role of identification in the relationship between experience mode and self-efficacy: Enactive role-playing versus passive observation[END_REF]. While the term identification has been used quite differently across studies, media types (e.g., novels versus TV), most scholars would agree that identification refers to cognitive and emotional bonds media users (such as gamers) develop with a target media character such as their avatar in a video game. Oatley has proposed a simulation metaphor of identification which suggests that media users imagine the story events 'through the character's eyes', which leads to cognitive and affective responses in media users that are similar to what the character her-/himself is experiencing [START_REF] Oatley | A taxonomy of the emotions of literary response and a theory of identification in fictional narrative[END_REF]. In a similar fashion, Cohen has defined identification as strong empathetic response to a media character combined with a loss of selfawareness in media users [START_REF] Cohen | Defining identification: A theoretical look at the identification of audiences with media characters[END_REF]. Metaphorically speaking, video game players who are identifying with their game character or role 'become one' with the character.

A recent theoretical account of video game identification by Klimmt, Hefner & Vorderer has translated the notion of users 'melting' with their game character into a social-psychological process of transformed self-perception [START_REF] Klimmt | The video game experience as 'true' identification: A theory of enjoyable alterations of players' self-perception[END_REF]. Based on basic research by Goldstein and Cialdini, they argue that identifying with a game character becomes manifest in a modified self-perception so that the player sees (some of) the attributes of the character also as element of her/his current self [START_REF] Goldstein | The spyglass self: A model of vicarious self-perception[END_REF]. Identification, in this sense, would thus mean transformed self-perception. Because many game characters display extreme attributes, such as great physical strength or moral superiority, it is likely that adopting character attributes into one's self-perception (e.g., perceiving oneself as more courageous than in everyday situations) reduces self-discrepancies [START_REF] Higgins | Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect[END_REF]. Players who experience reduced self-discrepancies, that is, who perceive themselves to get closer to their preferred, "ideal" self, typically respond with positive emotions that feed into overall game enjoyment [START_REF] Klimmt | The video game experience as 'true' identification: A theory of enjoyable alterations of players' self-perception[END_REF]. Bessiere, Seay, and Kiesler found, for instance, that many MMO players design their avatars in a way that represents (parts of) their ideal selves; an empirical observation that directly supports the present theoretical account of video game identification [START_REF] Bessiere | The ideal elf: Identity exploration in World of Warcraft[END_REF].

Video Game Identification and Cognition

The purpose of this study was to explore the cognitive processes involved in video game identification as transformed self-perception. One mode of cognition that should occur as a consequence of the theorized identification phenomenon is an increased accessibility of character-related concepts as implicit cognitive prerequisite of identification. Close identification with, for instance, a soldier role in a first-person shooter should come along with 'thinking in a soldier's categories', such as friend or foe, attack and withdraw, weapons, tactics, camouflage, tanks, explosions, et cetera. To the extent that a player identifies with a character or role, concepts that are related to the character or role should thus be activated frequently in the player's mind during game play. As a consequence, these concepts should be more salient and more accessible for automatic processing during and immediately after game play. Implicit measures addressing accessibility of concepts should thus reveal cognitive traces of identification. Accordingly, we hypothesize that players of a military first-person shooter video game display greater cognitive accessibility of soldier-related concepts than players of a non-military video game (H1).

From the perspective of Klimmt et al.'s model, such cognitive accessibility of character-related concepts should be considered as necessary, but not sufficient condition of identification [START_REF] Klimmt | The video game experience as 'true' identification: A theory of enjoyable alterations of players' self-perception[END_REF], because strong involvement [START_REF] Wirth | Involvement[END_REF] without identification could also result in higher accessibility of concepts related to the character or game world. Still, concept accessibility is theoretically linked to identification, and its empirical occurrence would be interpretable as a milestone on the way towards full video game identification.

In addition to concept accessibility, residuals of changed self-experiences through video game identification should be observable in players' self-descriptions after game play. Goldstein and Cialdini (study 1) found that people who read an interview with a target person and were instructed to empathize with that person described themselves as more similar to that target person afterwards than a control group [START_REF] Goldstein | The spyglass self: A model of vicarious self-perception[END_REF]. Klimmt et al. interpret this finding as a result of merged identities between observer and target person [START_REF] Klimmt | The video game experience as 'true' identification: A theory of enjoyable alterations of players' self-perception[END_REF]. In the video game context, then, we assume that players who identify with a video game character during game play should describe themselves as more similar to the game character than a control group, due to the merger of their own and the character's identity, which is a change of players' 'normal' self-image. For instance, players of military first-person shooters who identify with a soldier character should describe themselves as braver, more courageous, loyal etc. than a control group. Accordingly, we assume that players of a military first-person shooter video game describe themselves as more similar to a soldier immediately after playing than players of a non-military video game (H2).

The identification process that leads to such changes in self-description may be automatic and not accessible or noticeable for players; the altered self-description may thus serve as an implicit measure of a cognitive residual of video game identification. This means that while players explicitly describe themselves, they are not necessarily aware of the reason why they assign certain attributes to themselves (i.e., prior identification with a game character).

Method

An experiment with 60 voluntary university students aged between 20 and 34 years (M = 24.97, SD = 3.32) was conducted to test the hypotheses. All respondents played videogames at least sometimes ("2" on a scale from "1" = never to "5" = very often), 72% of them even played videogames often or very often. For two reasons only male students were recruited: First, male students are more likely to be familiar with first person shooter games and second, the limitation leads to a more homogenous sample. This is beneficial with regard to the internal validity of our experimental approach. Participants were randomly assigned to either play a military first person shooter (Call of Duty 2™, a popular World War II shooting game), which was intended to facilitate identification with an infantry soldier, or the popular puzzling game Tetris that did not include any military content at all, and certainly no soldier character to identify with. Randomization procedure was only partly successful. While participants in the two conditions did not differ concerning their use of video games, World War II shooting games or Call of Duty 2™, there was a significant difference concerning participants' age (M CoD = 24.0, SD = 2.4; M Tetris = 26.0, SD = 3.8). In order to account for the unequally distributed age, this variable was used as a covariate in each of the following statistical tests.

To examine the accessibility of soldier-related concepts (H1), players were confronted with a Lexical Decision Task after ten minutes of game play [START_REF] Macrae | The dissection of selection in social perception: Inhibitory processes in social stereotyping[END_REF][START_REF] Meyer | Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: Evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations[END_REF]. This implicit procedure presents letter sequences on a screen and requires participants to decide whether the letters make a real word or not as fast as possible. Letter sequences that do not make real words (non-words) could be a word at first sight. They are made up of a real word with one letter exchanged (e.g., "Morch" instead of "March"). Concept accessibility is measured by the time participants need to identify words semantically related to the concepts under study in comparison to words unrelated to that concept. For instance, strong accessibility of the concept 'soldier' should result in very fast decision times for words such as rifle, mine or tank but not speed up decision times for unrelated words such as elephant, coffee or cake. Following the procedure described by Macrae et al., a lexical decision task was implemented to measure cognitive accessibility of soldier-related concepts [START_REF] Macrae | The dissection of selection in social perception: Inhibitory processes in social stereotyping[END_REF]. It presents words that reflect soldier-related contexts or are unrelated to that context (for the purpose of comparison). Specifically, a set of 14 words with connection to the soldier role and 14 words unrelated to that role were presented to participants in random order. 1 The same number of 28 non-words was added to the list of target words appearing on screen. Each word / non-word was visible on screen for 75 milliseconds. Participants were requested to press either 'd' on a computer keyboard if the presented word was a real word or to press 'k' if the word was a non-word. Response times between target word onset and press of the key was measured in milliseconds (with the Inquisit 2 software by Millisecond, Inc.). H1 was thus translated into the prediction that players of the shooter game will display greater cognitive accessibility and thus faster decision times if words related to the soldier role appear on screen (compared to words unrelated to the solider role and in comparison to players in the Tetris control group).

Following standard procedures for LDT measures [START_REF] Perea | Sequential effects in the lexical decision task: The role of the itemfrequency of the previous trial[END_REF], we eliminated five participants from the data set due to their performance (they had assorted more than 25% of the words incorrectly, too fast (<300 ms) or too slowly ( >1400 ms ≈ 2 standard deviations above the mean).

To test H2, the self-description procedure applied by Goldstein and Cialdini (study 1) was adapted to the present context [START_REF] Goldstein | The spyglass self: A model of vicarious self-perception[END_REF]. Participants were given an attribute list and asked to rate each attribute concerning the extent to which it was true for themselves. Ratings were made on an 11-point scale with 1 meaning "the attribute describes me much less than the average person" and 11 meaning "the attribute describes me much more than the average person". The scale mid-point 6 was labeled "the attribute describes me about the same as the average person." Half of the attributes were soldier-related (e.g., brave, patriotic, assertive), the other half was semantically distal to the soldier concept (e.g., warm-hearted). Following H2, it was predicted that identification with the infantry soldier should lead to higher ratings of soldierrelated attributes and lower ratings of distal attributes in players of Call of Duty 2™ than in Tetris players.

Upon entering the laboratory, participants first played the game that was randomly assigned to them (Call of Duty 2™ or Tetris) on a laptop computer with a 17 inch display, headphones, and external mouse device. After ten minutes of game play, the experimenter kindly interrupted game play by pausing the game and invited the participant to perform the LDT on a second laptop computer. After completion of the LDT, participants were asked to resume game play for another ten minutes (to reestablish identification). Afterwards, the experimenter finished the game and handed a questionnaire to participants that included the self-description task as described above, an item to measure prior use of world war games similar to Call of Duty 2 ™, various other brief questions and some demography items. Finally, participants were thanked, offered information on study results, and received 10 EUR as financial compensation.

Results

To test H1, experimental groups were compared in LDT performance. Specifically, the average response times for those target words were analyzed that had a semantic connection to the soldier role. Following H1, the prediction was tested that players of Call of Duty 2 ™ would display greater cognitive accessibility and thus faster decision times (compared to Tetris-players) for this kind of target words. In reverse, words unrelated to the soldier role (neutral words) should not produce significant differences in the mean reaction time between the two experimental groups.

A repeated measure ANCOVA with the word category (soldier-related vs. neutral) as within-subjects factor and the experimental condition (Game played: Call of Duty 2 ™ or Tetris) as between-subjects factor was conducted (see figure 1). Age was included as a covariate due to its unequal distribution between the two experimental groups. The hypothesized interaction effect for word category and game occurred (F(1,52) = 12.97; p<.01; η² = .20). There was no main effect for the withinsubjects factor word category (F(1,52) = 0.20; ns).

The interaction of game and word category occurred because reaction times to soldier-related words were significantly faster in players of the shooter game than in Tetris players while there was only a marginal difference concerning the neutral words between the two groups. H1 thus received empirical support: Players of the military shooter game displayed substantially greater accessibility of soldier-related concepts compared to the control group of Tetris players. In order to test H2, the items of the self-description scale were submitted to a factor analysis first (principal component analysis with VARIMAX rotation). For various reasons, 11 of the 26 items were removed step-by-step (because of factor loadings < 0.5, bad interpretability along with other items in a factor, and/or lack of semantic clarity). The final factor solution was based on 15 items and comprised four dimensions explaining 58.68% of the variance (see table 1). All factors had an eigenvalue of at least 1.7 after rotation and 1.4 before rotation. Three factors reflected typical soldier-attribute dimensions (factor 1: tenacity and discipline; factor 3: aggressiveness, and factor 4: courage) and one attribute-dimension contrasted typical soldier attributes (factor 2: gentleness).

A MANCOVA with "game played" as between-subjects factor, age as covariate and the factor values of the four dimensions as dependent variables was then conducted to test H2 (table 2). Results lend partial support to H2: While those participants who played Tetris display higher values for the factor "gentleness", respondents who played the shooter game held higher values on the dimensions "tenacity-anddiscipline" and "aggression", which implies a greater tendency to ascribe soldierrelated attributes to themselves. A marginally significant multivariate group differ- ence across all four dimensions was observed. Factor-wise analysis revealed that the experimental group difference was only significant for the second factor "gentleness" (table 2). Thus, H2 received modest empirical support. An explanation for the observed moderate effect might be that not only the experimental stimulus but also prior experience with similar world war games affects participants' self-perception. This could result in within group variance that suppresses the experimental effect on the three soldier-attribute dimensions. In order to check this, another MANCOVA including prior use of world war games (yes / no) as a second factor besides the experimental manipulation was conducted. Age was controlled by including it as a covariate. Results neither yielded a main of prior use of war games on the four personality dimensions, nor an interaction effect between "game played" and prior experience with war games.

586

Discussion

The experiment was designed to search for traces of video game identification manifest in players' cognitive accessibility of role-related concepts and in post-game selfdescriptions. Findings from the Lexical Decision Task suggest that playing a soldier role indeed increases cognitive accessibility of soldier-related concepts. In the context of the model of video game identification (see above), the cognitive salience of words connected to the protagonist or role that a player is identifying with is an empirical confirmation of automatic processing of character-related information as part of the identification process during game play. The LDT cannot reveal automatic shifts in self-perceptions (as expected by the model), but already demonstrates that video games affect players' cognitive processing in a way that prepares actual identification by increasing salience of character-relevant concepts. Players 'think in the categories of' or 'from the perspective of' the game character or role they are adopting during game play, and we suggest interpreting concept salience as measured by the LDT as a cognitive prerequisite of this pre-stage of video game identification. The self-description task used to test H2 revealed only limited experimental support for our assumptions. Identifying with a video game character seems to affect players' self-rating in a post-game questionnaire only marginally. However, we suggest an optimistic interpretation of this result, because in the situation of inquiry, participants were likely to take some time to reflect about themselves, which renders (implicit) effects of the prior game experience less relevant. Therefore, no strong effect of the prior video game identification should be expected. In the foundational study by Goldstein and Cialdini (study 1, see above) [START_REF] Goldstein | The spyglass self: A model of vicarious self-perception[END_REF], a very similar measure also produced rather small group differences (with η² = .03). From this perspective, we consider the occurrence of even small experimental differences as indication that the contention of identification as change of self-perception holds empirical relevance.

While there is a need to continue empirical testing of the theoretical account of video game identification as transformed self-perception, the present results suggest that basic cognitive processes, priming and transformation of self-perceptions, are involved in players' responses to character-based video games. Of course, the generalizability of our results is limited due to the specific group of respondents (male university students) and the chosen stimulus genre (a first-person shooter). Nevertheless, related work applying the Implicit Association Test recently found automatic associations between character attributes and players' self-concept for a racing game as well [START_REF] Klimmt | Identification with video game characters as automatic shift of self-perceptions[END_REF]. The mentioned study compared players of Need for Speed: Carbon with Call of Duty 2 ™ players concerning the associations between racing-vs. militaryrelated concepts and players' self: While associations between self-concept and military words were stronger compared to those between self-concept and racing-related words in players of the military game, the opposite pattern emerged for players of the car-racing game. Thus, there is empirical evidence suggesting the applicability of the theoretical approach to a greater variety of genres than the one that was chosen in this study.

In line with similar lines of research [START_REF] Bessiere | The ideal elf: Identity exploration in World of Warcraft[END_REF][START_REF] Yee | The Proteus effect: The effect of transformed self-representation on behavior[END_REF], the self-relevance of digital characters emerges as an important aspect of the video game experience. Further research is needed to explore the implications for game enjoyment [START_REF] Klimmt | The video game experience as 'true' identification: A theory of enjoyable alterations of players' self-perception[END_REF] as well as the long-term implications of game players' transformed self-perceptions. It is, e.g., highly plausible that identification with self-selected favorable roles in digital games facilitates game enjoyment via mitigating self-discrepancy at least during gaming. A relevant follow-up question would of course be if resp. how long this reduced selfdiscrepancy persists. Does it -in the long run -foster self-esteem of, e.g., adolescent males striving for the feeling of strength and masculinity? Or does it -contrary to that -even lead to a reduced self-esteem after playing, because players then 'return' to their own life and self?

Another effect could be the long-term incorporation of role-attributes into one's self-construal, e.g. of more aggressive concepts [START_REF] Uhlmann | Exposure to violent video games increases automatic aggressiveness[END_REF] or the adoption of high moral standards of a favorite policeman game character. For the moment, video games emerge as machines of effective temporary self-alteration, with potentially interesting implications for short-term fun and long-term (self-)development.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Effect of the stimulus game (Shooter: Call of Duty 2™ versus Tetris) on reaction times for military words and neutral words (N=55).

Table 1 .

 1 Extracted personality trait dimensions

		Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4
	disciplined	.772
	tough	.735
	persevering	.604
	proactive	.587
	persistent	.523
	kind		.850
	helpful		.797
	warm-hearted		.614
	aggressive			.712
	courageous			.632
	adventurous			.628
	assertive			.560
	anxious				-.738
	composed				.641
	brave				.553

Principal component analysis with VARIMAX rotation. Factor loadings < .51 are not displayed. Rotation converged in 5 iterations. Excluded items: cultivated, easygoing, tolerant, loyal, trusting, patient, chaotic, imaginative, sportive, lame, shy.

Table 2 .

 2 Effects of the stimulus game on the self-assessment of certain attributes

		Factor 1:	Factor 2:	Factor 3:	Factor 4:
		Tenacity and	Gentleness	Aggressiveness	Courage
		discipline
	Stimulus game	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)
	Call of Duty	0.11 (0.94)	-0.34* (1.03)	0.11 (1.22)	0.02 (0.88)
	Tetris	-0.11 (1.06)	0.34* (0.86)	-0.11 (0.73)	-0.02 (1.12)
	Multivariate effect: F(1,52) = 2.11; p<. 10; η² = .14
	*Univariate effect for "gentleness": F(1,55) = 6.91; p< .05; η² = .11

Words reflecting a soldier-related context (translated from German): to attack, bunker, defilade, explosion, firing, cannon, rifle, grenade, helmet, mine, to reload, tank, soldier, to blow up (Reaction time: M = 624.2 ms, SD = 91.1). Words reflecting a soldier-unrelated context: to bake, to shop, elephant, bottle, spring, to water, cellphone, to marry, coffee, chamber, cake, bar, street, to perform magic (Reaction time: M = 634.6 ms, SD =83.7).

* This research was funded by the European Commission, project "FUGA: The fun of gaming" (NEST-PATH-IMP 28765). We thankfully acknowledge the Commission's support.


Kolja Lubitz

Markus Krause

Exploring User Input Metaphors for Jump and Run Games on Mobile Devices

Mobile devices are already an important platform for digital games. These devices need specialized input metaphors as they have various restrictions such as their own hardware capabilities and the lack of external input devices. Especially challenging are fast paced interactions as in Jump and Run games. This paper explores three user inputs for Jump and Run games on mobile devices along the game Somyeol.

Introduction

Games for mobile devices are already common and use a range of input methods. The most common input device for games on mobile devices is their touchscreen. Examples can be found here [START_REF] Parhi | Target size study for one-handed thumb use on small touchscreen devices[END_REF]. Various games such as "Angry Birds" or "Cordy" use the touchscreen of mobile devices as the only input. The game "Angry Birds" for instance allows the player to shoot bird like characters with a simple sling metaphor. By dragging the sling around an anchor point the player chooses direction as well as strength of shot. Interaction in "Angry Birds" is reduced to this gesture. A classic Jump and Run game such as "Cordy" need more than one metaphor. The main challenge with a gamepad like input as this implemented for "Cordy" is that hitting the right movement button is difficult. In games like "Tiny Wings" or "Ninja Run" the problem is bypassed by letting the player run automatically.

Input Methods

This paper investigates three different user input methods for Jump and Run games on mobile devices or simply JRGMs. It illustrates its findings along the mobile JRGM Somyeol. Somyeol is a puzzle Jump and Run game in which the player controls more than one character at a time. The goal is to control as much Somyeols as possible through the levels. Somyeol is a game which needs input metaphors for three different actions: move left, move right, and jump. The three following input methods were implemented for Somyeol.

1. MultiTouch Input: The multi-touch method uses only the touch screen for input.

The screen is split into six areas as depicted in Fig. 1. The grid maximizes the actual button size as the whole screen is active. The lower left and right areas are used for walking, top left and right areas for jumping in the respective direction. In the top center a straight jump up action is triggered. The bottom center does not have an associated action.

One-Finger Input:

The One-Finger input method getting the first touch point from the screen. If the touch point moves left or right the player moves. If the touch point moves up the player jumps, if the finger moves up and left the player jumps left. This approach was inspirited by gamepad analog sticks.

Accelerometer Input:

This input method uses the accelerometer of many mobiles phones to get the device tilt. Left and right tilt allows for movement in the respective direction. A touch gesture is used to trigger jumping. We also tried to trigger the jump if the device moving up, but this easily moves the device out of the players focus. So we decide to use the whole touch screen as a jump button. This approach is inspirited by car driving games and "Doodle Jump" where the device tilt is used to going right or left. Gilberston et. al gives examples on tilt as an input method [START_REF] Gilbertson | Using Tilt as an Interface to Control No-Button 3-D Mobile Games[END_REF].

Evaluation

The conducted study had 37 participants between 20 -30 years old, 10 out of the 37 participants were women. Each participant played three test levels. Every level contains a certain challenge to test the input quality of the methods. After playing the participants answer a survey with 18 questions. These questions were integrated into the game and answered on the device the participant played with. The question whether the game was fun was answered on a 6-point Likert scale. The accelerometer input performed best with a mean of 4.27, multitouch (3.88) and one finger input (3.70) showed very similar results. The differences between the three input methods were however not significant. All p values measured with one tailed t-tests were >0.15. After publishing the game to a broader audience it turned out that accelerometer and multi-touch input were too demanding for players as both methods gained negative player feedback. This feedback was unexpected as questions in the survey about the usability of the input methods did not reveal any issues with any of the input methods.

Fig. 1 :

 1 Fig. 1: A screenshot of the Somyeols game. The overlay illustrates the multi touch input.


Hayrettin Gürkök
email: h.gurkok@utwente.nl

Anton Nijholt
email: a.nijholt@utwente.nl

Mannes Poel
email: m.poel@utwente.nl

Brain-Computer Interface Games: Towards a Framework

Keywords: Brain-computer interface, games, flow, presence, challenge, fantasy, sociality, concentration

The brain-computer interface (BCI) community started to consider games as potential applications while the games community started to consider BCI as a game controller. However, there is a discrepancy between the BCI games developed by the two communities. In this paper, we propose a preliminary BCI games framework that we constructed with respect to the research conducted in both the BCI and the games communities. Developers can situate their BCI games within this framework and benefit from the guidelines we provide and also extend the framework further.

Introduction

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is an input modality that can infer certain actions, intentions and psychological (e.g. cognitive, emotional) states by analysing the brain activity it captures. Besides its classical purpose of redressing the communication and mobility of disabled people, BCI has been proposed as a candidate modality for a range of recreational HCI applications to be used by the general population [START_REF] Gürkök | Brain-computer interfaces for multimodal interaction[END_REF]. Among these, BCI games [START_REF] Bos | Brain-computer interfacing and games[END_REF] attract the interest of researchers and developers from both BCI and games communities. However, we see a discrepancy between the BCI games developed by the two communities.

Many of the BCI games developed by the BCI community aim at testing some psychological hypotheses or evaluating the performance of signal analysis and classification techniques. Thus, less attention is paid to game characteristics than to technical aspects. These games do not usually have any narrative or rich feedback or visuals. User (i.e. player) experience evaluations are almost never carried out. This leads to BCI games that are reliable but often not enjoyable. On the contrary, BCI games from the games community are developed with respect to game design principles. However, the neurophysiology and signal analysis techniques they rely on are largely unknown. Because, these games mostly make use of the commercial BCI headsets which have their private technical details. This leads to BCI games that are potentially entertaining but unsatisfactory in terms of feeling of control.

In this paper, we will try to transfer some knowledge from the games and the BCI communities into a shared preliminary framework to make them aware of each other's research. From the games community, we will show some game playing motivations which can be satisfied by the features of BCI. From the BCI community, we will take the current interaction paradigms used in general and show the ways they can be used in games. This way, we hope to contribute to bridging the gap between the two communities and promoting the development of entertaining and reliable BCI games.

A Framework of BCI Games

In the framework that we propose, we represent a BCI game using two descriptors. The first descriptor specifies the player motivation(s) the BCI game satisfies. In other words, it answers the question: 'Why is the game played?'. The second descriptor specifies the interaction paradigm(s) the BCI game is built upon. So, it answers the question: 'How is the game played?'. Next, we will elaborate on these descriptors and provide some guidelines for each. For the former descriptor, we will mainly benefit from research in the games community while for the latter in the BCI community. Finally, we will discuss the relation between the two descriptors.

Motivations Satisfied by the BCI Game

People play games which potentially fulfill their psychological needs. We see a correspondence between some psychological needs [START_REF] Sheldon | What is satisfying about satisfying events?[END_REF] and some game playing motivations [START_REF] Rouse | Game Design: Theory & Practice[END_REF], such as competence and challenge or relatedness and socialisation. In this section, we will provide some example game playing motivations (or needs) in which BCI can make a difference and discuss the ways to make the difference.

Challenge Challenge is one of the elements of flow, which is the optimal experience for any activity and described as "so gratifying that people are willing to do it for its own sake, with little concern for what they will get out of it, even when it is difficult, or dangerous" [START_REF] Csíkszentmihályi | Flow[END_REF]. Sweetser and Wyeth [START_REF] Sweetser | [END_REF] proposed a model describing which elements a game should have in order to provide flow. Their model suggests that a game should offer challenges matching player skills and both must exceed a certain threshold.

BCI is an imperfect recognition technology and this is partly because there are no guidelines nor ground truth (e.g. an internal feedback mechanism such as a human sense) for generating particular mental activity. But, people can manipulate and learn to improve their voluntary mental actions as well as involuntary reactions as they keep interacting with a BCI that provides accurate feedback [START_REF] Wolpaw | Brain-computer interfaces for communication and control[END_REF]. So, BCI game players need to show continuous effort and even repeat their actions until they are understood by BCI. Not only the successful end result leads to a positive affect but also the purposeful repetition brings fun [START_REF] Blythe | The semantics of fun: Differentiating enjoyable eeperiences[END_REF].

Fantasy Games let players do things that they cannot do -at least safely or without being criticised-in real life, such as flying or smashing cars. However, in a virtual world, it is not trivial to provide the very same sensation resulting from doing something in the real world. Such a sensation is known as presence and defined as "the perception in which even though part or all of an individual's current experience is generated by and/or filtered through human-made technology, part or all of the individual's perception fails to accurately acknowledge the role of the technology in the experience" [START_REF]International Society for Presence Research: The Concept of Presence: Explication Statement[END_REF]. Riva [START_REF] Riva | Is presence a technology issue?[END_REF] claims that rather than our perception, it is our chain of actions that create the presence. He explains that a user "is more present in a perceptually poor virtual environment ... where he/she can act in many different ways than in a real-like virtual environment where he/she cannot do anything." In achieving this, it is essential to have a one-to-one correspondence between player actions (as well as reactions) in the real world and those in the game world, as provided by the Kinect.

We take the claim of Riva further and propose that 'to act' is not our ultimate goal. We actually aim 'to be' in the virtual world and to act is one way of satisfying our aim. So, we are more present in a virtual world in which we can represent ourselves more. We would like to be represented with our emotions and thoughts. In cases such as these, BCI can provide a translation between the psychological state of the player in the real world and the dynamics of the game world, just as Kinect provides correspondence between real-world and game-world actions. So, the additional inner state information can strengthen the feeling of presence.

Sociality Some people enjoy playing computer games with other people. They play not necessarily for the challenge but just to be with others. They enjoy spending time with friends, seeing their reactions and expressions, and gloating or feeling proud upon winning [START_REF] Sweetser | [END_REF]. Any multi-player version of a BCI game can provide such an interactive environment. Players may cooperate or compete using BCI or they can share their experiences, such as difficulties or enjoyment with control, while playing the game. These are, of course, not specific to BCI games. But, there are other ways in which BCI can provide sociality and which cannot be replicated easily or at all by other controllers.

Many social actions are related to expressing and perceiving emotions. Previous studies have shown that communication of heartbeat, which is a reflection of emotional activity, can improve the co-presence [START_REF] Chanel | Social interaction using mobile devices and biofeedback[END_REF] and intimacy [START_REF] Janssen | Intimate heartbeats[END_REF] of players. Heartbeat is certainly not the only nor the best indicator of emotion. BCI can recognise certain psychological states and let us share them. Since involuntary brain activity, such as emotional response, is not easily controllable, BCI can provide objective information about our emotional state. For this reason, BCI can also be used in game situations where players would like to hide their psychological states from each other. For example, in a bluffing game, players can restrict their bodily movements and to some extent even their physiological activity but not their brain activity. So, BCI can be used for emotion-awareness or, more generally, psychological awareness in two opposite game logics.

Interaction Paradigms Used by the BCI Game

BCI applications rely on brain signals originating from player actions and reactions to events. We call these actions and reactions interaction paradigms and collect them under three categories: mental state regulation, movement imagery and evoked response generation.

Mental State Regulation Mental state games are usually played via two activities: relaxing or concentrating. Most of the mental state games let players move objects [START_REF] Hjelm | Research+design: the making of Brainball[END_REF] but there are other uses such as changing the game avatar [START_REF] Bos | Brain-computer interfacing and games[END_REF].

Relaxing is a preferable activity in a game as it leads to a positive affective state that players would like to reach while playing games [START_REF] Lazzaro | Why we play games: Four keys to more emotion without story[END_REF]. Therefore, even if the game environment is not an affective one, people may play such games for the end effect of being relaxed. Moreover, they might easily refer their acquaintances and even children to play such games. Concentration is also a preferable game activity due to its absorbing effect. According to the flow [START_REF] Csíkszentmihályi | Flow[END_REF][START_REF] Sweetser | [END_REF] and immersion theories [START_REF] Brown | A grounded investigation of game immersion[END_REF], concentration is the key to successful games. Therefore, games requiring concentration or paying attention, which is one of the activities leading to concentration, ought to provide a positive play experience.

Mental state regulation games should either be slow paced or in these games BCI should be used as an auxiliary controller along with a primary controller which is faster than BCI. Because, the speed with which we can change our state of relaxedness or concentration is much slower than the speed with which we can press buttons or use any other modality. Mental state games usually allow only binary control. For example, in a relaxation game, players can either be relaxed or not relaxed so they can communicate a maximum of two discrete commands. It is possible to fit a continuous scale between these two states but validating such a scale is non-trivial. Therefore, mental state regulation is less suitable for games that require large numbers of distinct commands.

Movement Imagery

Movement imagery games require no physical movement but imagery of limb movements, mostly the hands, fingers or feet. Players imagine movements to navigate [START_REF] Krepki | The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface (BBCI)[END_REF] or to make selections [START_REF] Tangermann | Playing Pinball with non-invasive BCI[END_REF]. To provide intuitive interaction, the mapping of imaginary movements to game commands should be coherent. For example, grasping an object at the left or right hand side can be matched to left or right hand imagery while walking can be matched to foot imagery. Such intuitive mappings can create the illusion that the game is recognising player's actions, even before they move.

Movement imagery can be recognised quickly, without needing to average the signal [START_REF] Tangermann | Playing Pinball with non-invasive BCI[END_REF]. Therefore, movement imagery games are suitable for fast interaction. On the contrary, the number of commands in these games is limited to the number of distinguishable imaginary actions players can perform. Using other modalities in combination with BCI can increase the number of commands. However, the movements made to control other modalities, such as pushing a button or speaking, might contaminate the movement imagery signal. Especially when the signal is not averaged, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is very low.

Evoked Response Generation

This class of games is dominated by steadystate visually evoked potential (SSVEP) games, accompanied rarely by P300 games (e.g. [START_REF] Finke | The MindGame: A P300-based brain-computer interface game[END_REF]). SSVEP is a brain response to flickering light or images. When we observe visual stimulus, say an image, that is constantly re-appearing at a frequency of f then the amplitude of the signals measured from our visual cortex are enhanced at frequency f and its harmonics (2f , 3f , and so on).

One way of using SSVEP is to map the strength (amplitude) of SSVEP that is evoked by single stimulus to game actions. For example, a weak SSVEP can steer a virtual plane to the left while a strong one to the right [START_REF] Middendorf | Brain-computer interfaces based on the steady-state visual-evoked response[END_REF]. Research has shown that sustained attention can strengthen SSVEP [START_REF] Di Russo | Effects of sustained, voluntary attention on amplitude and latency of steady-state visual evoked potential[END_REF]. Sustained attention is an activity which can lead to a state of concentration [START_REF]Cognitive Rehabilitation: An Integrative Neuropsychological Approach[END_REF]. This makes SSVEP suitable for concentration games. Another, and the more popular, approach is to use multiple stimuli each of which is associated with a command. With this approach, BCI is usually used to select a direction, for example to steer a racing car [START_REF] Martinez | Fully online multicommand braincomputer interface with visual neurofeedback using SSVEP paradigm[END_REF]. With this approach, a greater number of commands can be issued.

Evoked response generation is less suitable for fast games due to the signal averaging process, which requires signals to accumulate for some time. But they are suitable for multimodality thanks to their high SNR. The number of distinct commands in evoked potential games depends only on the number of stimuli. So, as long as the stimulation space is large enough to accommodate, (finitely) many stimuli can be presented to the player. But, a computer screen is a limited space so the number of stimuli that can be placed on the screen is also limited.

The Complete Picture

In this section, we will discuss the relation between the two descriptors of our framework. Specifically, we will discuss which interaction paradigms can satisfy which player motivations and in which ways? Where possible, we will mention existing or hypothetical BCI games supporting our discussion. As any game can do, a BCI game can satisfy more than one set of player motivations (the first descriptor) at the same time. It might not satisfy any player motivations, for example if it is just an experimental game. This is illustrated by the set diagrams in Figure 1. A BCI game can make use of multiple interaction paradigms (the second descriptor). The font stylings of the games in Figure 1 indicate the different interaction paradigms and their combinations. For example in the game Bacteria Hunt [START_REF] Mühl | Bacteria hunt[END_REF] the players chase fleeing bacteria by controlling an amoeba. It is a mental state regulation game because when the players are relaxed, the bacteria flee more slowly. It is also an evoked response game because when the amoeba catches bacterium the players concentrate on a flickering circle to eat the bacterium. While there is no restriction on using any interaction paradigm to satisfy any player motivation, there might be preferred and nonpreferred matchings.

Kill Monster

Lift

A BCI game can offer a positively affective challenge if the game can hide BCI recognition errors under the game tasks or story. The game should provide the players with the illusion that when they encounter an error, this is not simply a technological fault of BCI but rather an expected situation given the player tasks and game environment. This way, they should be motivated to repeat the tasks until they learn how to generate the desired brain activity. In the mental state regulation game alpha World of Warcraft (aWoW) [START_REF] Bos | Brain-computer interfacing and games[END_REF], the players play a druid that transforms from a bear to a humanoid when the players are relaxed and back again when they are stressed. The level of relaxedness is determined according to the alpha band power. But the players always think of the high level tasks of getting relaxed or stressed to transform. There might be times when players cannot transform desirably in the game. Especially for players who are familiar with the game World of Warcraft or similar games, this is not an unexpected situation. These players would consider that it should take some effort and time for a druid to transform. So, they would keep trying to find the right strategy to transform. The same principle may be applied to movement imaginary games. For example, in a game (let us call it Lift Stone) the players might lift a stone by imagining arm movements. Players familiar with the phenomenon of telekinesis would find this mapping (imagining arm movement and lifting) an intuitive one and consider that it should take some effort to lift something from far. For evoked potential games, due to the explicit stimuli, offering meaningful challenges is more difficult though not impossible. For example in a game (let us call it Kill Monster) players might try to kill a monster by concentrating on its heart which flickers like an SSVEP stimulus. People know that, though it does not flicker, the heart beats and it is the organ of vitality. So, they may accept that killing a monster should require some effort. In contrast, in the Bacteria Hunt game, the flickering circle is not related to bacteria so provides no motivation to concentrate on the stimulus.

To provide fantasy, a BCI game should incorporate additional, inner state information from the players to improve their sense of presence in the virtual world. In the game World of Warcraft, players play the role of a druid. So, the idea is that the players should put themselves in the place of their avatar. The original game translates players actions (e.g. pressing the key W) into game actions (e.g. moving the avatar forward) but it cannot go beyond that. In aWoW, players are represented not only by their actions but also by their psychological states. This way, they can feel more present in the game world. Movement imaginary games cannot convey psychological state information but they can represent covert player intentions. For example in the hypothetical Lift Stone game we mentioned in the previous paragraph, the players might feel as if the game is understanding their intention without having them move.

In a BCI game, sociality might emerge from the explicit social behaviours (e.g. vocalisations, gestures) of co-players while they are competing against or cooperating with each other. In this sense, any interaction paradigm is suitable for use. For example in the game Brainball [START_REF] Hjelm | Research+design: the making of Brainball[END_REF], in which co-players regulate their mental states to roll a ball on the table toward each other, players might, for instance, talk to tease each other or generate facial expressions to manifest the difficulty they are experiencing. Sociality might also be formed through communication of implicit player states. For this sort of sociality, mental state regulation is the natural paradigm of choice. For example, in the game Brainwave Drawing [START_REF] Sobell | Brainwave drawing game[END_REF], co-players try to synchronise their mental states in terms of their brain signals in different frequency bands.

Conclusion

In this paper, we proposed a preliminary framework for BCI games formed partly by research in the BCI community and partly by research in the games community. We represented a BCI game with two descriptor. One of these specifies which player motivation(s) the BCI game can satisfy. We mentioned three example player motivations which are challenge, fantasy and sociality. We showed the ways BCI games can satisfy each of these motivations and provided some guidelines for them. The other descriptor specifies which interaction paradigm(s) the game is built upon. We described three types of interaction paradigms which are mental state regulation, movement imagery and evoked response generation. We relied on literature on BCI and games research while constructing our categories. But there may be many more player motivations that a BCI game can fulfill or interaction paradigms it can make use of. So, obviously, developers should not feel restricted by our categorisations while developing their BCI games. On the contrary, they should investigate the alternative categories.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Diagram showing the set of player motivations and example BCI games. The italic, underlined and bold fonts denote mental state regulation, movement imagery and evoked response generation games respectively.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the BrainGain Smart Mix Programme of the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. They would also like to thank L.E. Packwood for her help in improving the language of the article.


Tom De Weyer

Karel Robert

Johanna Renny

Octavia Hariandja

Geert Alders

Karin Coninx
email: karin.coninx@uhasselt.bejohanna@unpar.ac.id

The Social Maze: A collaborative game to motivate MS patients for upper limb training

Keywords: Rehabilitation, Serious Gaming, Social Gaming, Haptics

Abstract. Serious gaming is often used in the context of rehabilitation to increase the motivation of the patient to continue the rehabilitation program for a longer period. We investigate serious gaming in the context of rehabilitation programs for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Force feedback in combination with a virtual environment is used to establish a training environment supporting basic exercises and more advanced training games for the upper limb, in order to provide patients with an individual training program according to their capabilities. Based on our positive experiences with the use of individual games in this context, we explore "Social Gaming". More specifically, we designed and developed a "Social Maze", allowing patients to train together and to interact with the therapist. In this paper we clarify the game concept, setup and context in which the game is used, and report about the player experiences of patients and therapist.

Introduction

Social support can be beneficial for the engagement and motivation of patients to continue training. Patients' motivation during rehabilitation can be maintained and further enhanced through the incorporation of social interaction into the training exercises. Based on this belief, we have explored social rehabilitation training in a simple proof-of-concept game by designing and developing a simple collaborative game-like training exercise. The collaborative balance pump game is described in [START_REF] Vanacken | Game-Based Collaborative Training for Arm Rehabilitation of MS Patients: A Proof-of-concept Game[END_REF], which received the best paper award at GameDays 2010. An informal user study has revealed that most patients and therapists enjoyed training with this game. Inspired by this positive experience, we developed Social Maze, a more advanced collaborative training setup with a more elaborated game concept which optimally fits in our I-TRAVLE [START_REF]I-TRAVLE: Individualized, Technology-supported and Robot-Assisted Virtual Learning Environments[END_REF] training approach and system. Before describing the Social Maze concept, we briefly describe the structured training approach as supported by the I-TRAVLE system. Robot-assisted rehabilitation and virtual environment (VE) technologies are combined in our I-TRAVLE system [START_REF] Feys | Arm training in Multiple Sclerosis using Phantom: clinical relevance of robotic outcome measures[END_REF]. Using a haptic robot as the central hardware component, a software and hardware system setup has been realized to support systematic and personalized training for MS and stroke patients. The module for therapists allows us to define, to personalize, and to monitor the training. The patient interface gives access to training exercises and games using haptic feedback. In our structured training approach we provide basic training exercises which include only one skill component that has to be trained in the context of the upper limb rehabilitation (namely lifting, transporting, turning, pushing and reaching), but also more advanced training exercises or games which combine multiple skill components. The Social Maze, the collaborative training game described in the next section, was designed to combine several skill components. Furthermore, the collaborative nature of the game brings in a social aspect and stimulates interaction between patients and therapists. In all scenarios the patient will use the HapticMaster (Fig. 1) as the input device to manipulate an avatar. In the case of the empathetic scenario, a fellow patient will also use the HapticMaster as the input device. In the sympathetic scenario, the healthy player (e.g. a family member or therapist) can have different possibilities of input devices, they can either use the Novint Falcon, which is a consumer haptic input device, a Wiimote, a balance board or the Microsoft Kinect, a motion sensing input device which enables operations using body gestures.

Fig. 2. Social Maze overview

Fig. 2 depicts our Social Maze with all game elements. The goal of this game is to collect all symbols, which represent points, by picking up each symbol and bringing it to the collecting bin. The elements of the game, with the pink background, were purposively designed so that two players (i.e. a patient and his/her training partner) have to collaborate as such to achieve the goal. Without collaboration, it is impossible to finish the game, so the game enforces so-called "closely-coupled collaboration". The game area is divided into two. In each part the player, represented by a fish-like avatar (green for the left and purple for the right side), can move around his/her own maze to collect the symbols. Along the way there are some obstacles such as the laser beams that need to be avoided, the bombs that need to be demolished, the devil (red fish) that may not be encountered, and the rotators (with blue background) that need to be surmounted. Demolishing the bombs demands a tight collaboration between the players, where one player has to push the bomb trigger (push skill component) in order to destroy the bomb blocking the way of the other player. To pass the rotator, the players must enter it and perform the turning movement (turning skill component) to rotate it. When the players are hit by the laser beam or the devil, they will lose a life represented by a heart. To gain more lives, the players must attain the connecting heart (two connected half full hearts). Once the players pick up a symbol, they can place it in the collecting bin to earn points. After finishing collecting all symbols, a joint total score is shown to the players as depicted in the collective room. The use of haptics makes sure that the patient's movement is kept within certain limits, for example it is not possible to go through the walls of the maze. Also, the haptic parameters allow us to control the complexity of the training depending on the physical performance of the patient, to make objects heavy or light etc., in order to strive for personalized training.

Discussion and conclusion

The closely-coupled collaboration scenario as realized in the Social Maze turns out to be a successful (as shown in an RCT) and appreciated way to train. Besides providing the basic movements to be trained (skill components), the patient is immersed in a game concept that is challenging and stimulates social interaction. User tests, including observations, reveal that players discuss strategy and encourage each other. Pictures taken during the sessions show that social behavior is influenced by the game (e.g. mimicking each other's attitude). Patients and therapists also report more longterm social effects, such as teasing each other and referring back to gaming situations during previous sessions.

4

Fig. 1 . 2 Social

 12 Fig. 1. System setup: with Novint falcon (therapist) and HapticMaster (patient)

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the INTERREG-IV program, project "Rehabilitation robotics 2", IVA-VLANED-1.14, Euregio Benelux, and the consortium partners.

See also www.i-travle.eu


Rod Mccall
email: roderick.mccall@uni.lu

Lynne Baillie
email: l.baillie@gcu.ac.uk

Franziska Boehm
email: franziska.boehm@uni.lu

Mike Just
email: mike.just@gcu.ac.uk

Workshop on: Exploring the Challenges of Ethics, Privacy and Trust in Serious Gaming

ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Serious gaming technologies are being used to address a number of societal challenges such as traffic congestion, e-health, cross cultural awareness and education. Furthermore, as these technologies become increasing mobile, social and ubiquitous in nature a number of core challenges arise. Firstly, as has been documented within the media, mobile phone manufacturers and operating system developers often insert clauses that allow their platforms to store the location and other private information. As users frequently fail to read the full terms and conditions they are often unsure of precisely what is being stored about them and how it will be used. The problem of data retention also extends to massive multiplayer online games and worlds such as SecondLife. This leads to a perceptual gap in terms of what users believe they have signed up to and what they have actually agreed to.

As a result there is a need to explore the data privacy and protection issues that surround serious and persuasive gaming. For example, at present data is often stored by the provider or manufacturing company e.g., SecondLife, Google or Apple who have access to all the user actions and information. The data privacy issue is even more problematic in areas such as ehealth.

Currently many games platforms and technologies are being used for e-health and rehabilitation in particular e.g. the Wii, Kinect etc. This has shifted the gaming platforms from being technologies for play into being medical devices for rehabilitation and monitoring. What are the implications of this from a privacy and trust perspec-tive? Further how can we ensure that we design ehealth serious games to ensure that they are fit for purpose?

User acceptance of games as a viable tool is necessary for users to fully engage in a consistent and accurate manner. A lack of acceptance or trust in how the games behave (the "rules") and how it treats them and information could reduce or nullify potential game benefits. In particular, proper design and interaction with the user are critical to ensure appropriate and acceptable game actions and responses, especially for applications such as e-health where some users might already be in sensitive or vulnerable situations. Trust may also be derived from the game results and how they are presented and conveyed, as can be seen in a workplace environment where colleagues may be able to see the results of others, especially if game results were to portray a user in a particularly negative way.

In multi-player games, trust in player authenticity is important to ensure that impersonators cannot access personal information, or attempt to receive game benefits belonging to other users. Trust also hinges upon games being played "within the rules", including the behavior of the game players and the game manager. Proper design and interaction with users is thus important in terms of a trustworthy design and in conveying this to participating users.


Barbara Grüter
email: barbara.grueter@hs-bremen.de

Holger Mügge
email: muegge@iai.uni-bonn.de

Leif Oppermann
email: leif.oppermann@fit.fraunhofer.de

Mark Billinghurst
email: mark.billinghurst@hitlabnz.org

Proposal for the 4th Workshop on Mobile Gaming, Mobile Life -Interweaving the Virtual and the Real

Over the last few years we have witnessed the smartphone dominating the market, the rapid growth of mobile apps, a surge in mobile augmented reality and location-based apps, and burgeoning mobile communities. While mobile topics continue to provide rich research challenges, people and companies outside academia already use these apps regularly. This is due to the increased availability of affordable devices, applications and technologies that support the creation of mixed reality experiences. Thus a core theme of our workshop at ICEC 2012 is authoring mixed realities, designing mobile games and creating mobile experiences. We would like to assess how professional designers and developers, as well as academics and end users, are using the technology to connect the digital and the real in a mobile context.

INTRODUCTION

This is the fourth workshop on Mobile Gaming since 2008. Recent developments in the mobile domain emphasize the vanishing border between mobile gaming and mobile life, and the emerging mixed reality worlds, so this fourth installment of the series introduces a revised title and a new member to the committee (Mark Billinghurst). The organizers are from four different organizations and have been actively involved in the field of mobile gaming for at least more than five years each.

ORGANIZERS BACKGROUND

Barbara Grüter is Professor for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at the Hochschule Bremen and Associated Professor of the Graduate School Advances in Digital Media at the University Bremen. She is head of the research group Gangs of Bremen with the focus on interaction and mobile gaming experiences by exploring, developing, and play testing mobile game prototypes. She currently leads the BMBF project Landmarks of Mobile Entertainment (2010Entertainment ( -2013) ) and is spokeswoman of the research cluster Mobile Life at the Hochschule Bremen since February 2012.

Holger Mügge is a project manager at the University of Bonn and organizes the research group Software Architecture and Middleware which does research projects on context-sensitivity and mobile gaming. He is also co-founder and CEO of Qeevee, a young company that specializes in mobile distributed applications for entertainment, gaming and learning.

Leif Oppermann is deputy head of the Mixed and Augmented Reality Solutions group at Fraunhofer FIT. Through his current role at FIT and previously at the University of Nottingham's Mixed Reality Lab, he has been directly involved in various projects that researched into Mixed Reality and Pervasive Gaming.

Mark Billinghurst is director of the HIT Lab New Zealand at the University of Canterbury. He has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in human computer interface technology, particularly in the area of Augmented Reality and mobile AR. His research team developed the first collaborative AR application for mobile phones, and one of the first mobile AR advertising campaigns.

Together, the organizers have experience in organizing three previous editions of this workshop; two of them as part of the annual conference of the German "Gesellschaft für Informatik" (GI), and one at ACM ACE in 2011.

GOALS

This workshop provides a forum for researchers and practitioners in the field of pervasive, mobile, and location-based gaming. The thematic focus is on mobile games and other social mobile applications that take location and context, and players' movements as important design parameters. The workshop particularly addresses mobile game designers, developers, and scholars who are concerned with current and future issues of mobile game design, development, staging, and evaluation. It aims to span the boundaries between play, research, and business.

MOTIVATION

Mobile applications already pervade our everyday life. Mobile games allow their players to exploit the arising opportunities for mobile human-computer interaction in a playful fashion. The archetypical mobile game is Geocaching, which started immediately after the US government announced the discontinuation of the artificial degradation of GPS signals for non-military users on 1 May 2000. In this game, players hide caches, small treasures, and announce their locations as GPS coordinates over the Internet for other players to search for them. In a similar way, mobile games today utilize the location by means of mobile and pervasive technology. Small and portable devices are equipped with sensors and models of their environment that allow them to sense the emerging context of play and interact with the player. These mobile games combine the real and virtual worlds. As outdoor games they continue the tradition of rallies and Geocaching. They use the outside real environment as playground but use computing devices to access a digital world and to enable and organize play activities. Thus they offer unique gaming possibilities. They enable communication and collaboration between players independent from their positions; they augment the real world by game-specific information and action possibilities; they allow the collection of game process data for analysis and complex feedback; they integrate the game interaction with other web-based services and perform complex game mechanics either on the client-and/or the server-side.

In this workshop, we explore the mobile games of tomorrow and their aesthetical, technological and conceptual assumptions. We have already seen the convergence of mobile, social, and map technologies. We are now witnessing the emergence of mobile game communities, the localization of social networks, a surge of mobile Augmented Reality (AR), social mobile gaming platforms, mobile game creators, and the development of dynamic map technologies. We further notice emerging ecosystems connecting mobile gamers, producers, researchers, and game technologies.

THE WORKSHOP

We solicit research or position papers, prototype demonstrations, and position statements and questions as contributions to the workshop. We will set up a program committee and organize at least three reviews for each contribution. Accepted papers and demonstrations will be presented at the workshop as part of the program. In addition we will invite one or two keynote speakers from academia and industry.

During the hands-on session, participants could also try out specific approaches to planning and creating their own mobile experiences under the supervision of an expert.

All contributions will be available to all participants in advance through a workshop webpage which will also be updated after the workshop to reflect the results.

We are expecting about 10 -20 participants. We are aiming for attracting submissions from fitting research projects and student works. Moreover we intend to invite industry representatives, including also small companies.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:



  Authoring solutions and game creators  Mobile game design and patterns of game play  Mobile Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality

SUBMISSION, DATES AND WEBSITES

All workshop submissions will be handled via our EasyChair account, which is linked in from the workshop website.