The greatest trick the videogame industry ever pulled was convincing the world that
videogames were games rather than a medium for making metagames. Elegantly defined as …

Why play is a productive, expressive way of being human, a form of understanding, and a
fundamental part of our well-being. What do we think about when we think about play? A …

Advances in human-computer interaction (HCI) technologies have led to emerging computer
game systems that foster physical exertion as part of the interaction; we call them exertion …

This accessible textbook gives students the tools they need to analyze games using
strategies borrowed from textual analysis. As the field of game studies grows, videogame …

Game designers are typically regarded as advocates for players. However, a game creator's
interests may not align with the players'. We examine some of the ways in which those …

Emotions are key to the player experience (PX) and interest in the potential of games to
provide unique emotional, sometimes uncomfortable experiences is growing. Yet there has …

Recent work introduced the notion of emotional challenge as a means to afford more unique
and diverse gaming experiences. However, players' experience of emotional challenge has …

Fun is often seen a necessary gratification for recreational games. This paper studies two
freeform role-playing games aiming to create extremely intense experiences of tragedy …

Reflection is the mental process that occurs when we encounter situations that cannot be
effectively dealt with using previous experiences and solutions. For decades, it has been …

Gameplay frequently involves a combination of positive and negative emotions, where there
is increasing interest in how to design for more complex forms of player experience …