In academic and popular culture commentary, as well as in advertising, independent games have bee... more In academic and popular culture commentary, as well as in advertising, independent games have been declared a major factor in video game culture in the last few years. At the same time, most academic and industry discussions have stated it impossible to describe independent games in a meaningful way. Counter to this, this paper examines the history of winning entries in the Independent Games Festival from 2000-2013 and identifies the rise of a specific visual Independent Style shared by many independent games, a style that uses contemporary technology to emulate visual styles from earlier times, including pixel style graphics, sketches and other analog materials. This visual style is meant to invoke a type of authenticity and "honesty in materials" that marks it as distinct from the alleged realism of bigger-budget titles. This type of strategy is associated with the contemporary maker movement, as well with 19 th century ideas about arts, crafts, and architecture. It is a style that is not simply a natural expression of a particular method of game development, but an example of "authenticity work": a careful construction to appear as a counter to large-budget game productions, and to give the appearance of a direct connection between players and game developers. This does not simply mean that Independent Style is a dishonest construct, but rather it enables video games developed with few resources to present themselves as the result of identifiable stylistic decisions rather than of a lack of resources, while also in some cases giving developers a way to demonstrate a countertechnical expertise by using video game hardware and tools against the intentions of manufacturers (such as using 3d hardware to develop 2d games).
The theories of game feel and juiciness claim that players will feel more competent, and that a g... more The theories of game feel and juiciness claim that players will feel more competent, and that a game will be perceived as being of higher quality, when players are given large amounts of redundant audiovisual feedback in response to their actions. This poster describes a preliminary empirical study of this hypothesis. We created two mechanically identical versions of a game, one with only minimal feedback for player actions, and one with large amounts of redundant “juicy” feedback. On average, players rated the juicy game higher. At the same time, players performed worse in the juicy version. The results only partially support the hypotheses and show a need for further studies on the subject. Juiciness and Game Feel Steve Swink’s book Game Feel (Swink 2009) presents a theory of game design not focused on rules or story as has often been the case, but on the control and feedback of a game. Game feel is commonly invoked in game design discussion, and the question of excessive positive...
BACKGROUND Most cancer treatments today take place in outpatient clinics; however, it might be ne... more BACKGROUND Most cancer treatments today take place in outpatient clinics; however, it might be necessary for some patients to be admitted to hospital departments due to severe side effects or complications. In such situations, support from family and social relations can be crucial for the patients’ emotional well-being. Many young adolescents and children whose parents have cancer describe how they are not seen, heard, or listened to as the worried relatives they are. Within the intensive care unit, it has been recommended that early supportive interventions are tailored to include children of the intensive care patient; a similar approach might be relevant in the oncological setting. To our knowledge, no studies have explored how to involve young relatives who are visiting their parent at an oncological department. Recently, a framework for developing theory-driven, evidence-based serious games for health has been suggested. Such a process would include stakeholders from various d...
Research on video game design innovation has identified a number of sources for game innovation, ... more Research on video game design innovation has identified a number of sources for game innovation, particularly inspiration from other games or other media. Through the analysis of game design and video game reviews, the paper argues that inspiration for independent game design often has an inverted character, where innovation is not based on emulating sources of inspiration, but on rejecting design principles from mainstream video games.
In academic and popular culture commentary, as well as in advertising, independent games have bee... more In academic and popular culture commentary, as well as in advertising, independent games have been declared a major factor in video game culture in the last few years. At the same time, most academic and industry discussions have stated it impossible to describe independent games in a meaningful way. Counter to this, this paper examines the history of winning entries in the Independent Games Festival from 2000-2013 and identifies the rise of a specific visual Independent Style shared by many independent games, a style that uses contemporary technology to emulate visual styles from earlier times, including pixel style graphics, sketches and other analog materials. This visual style is meant to invoke a type of authenticity and “honesty in materials” that marks it as distinct from the alleged realism of bigger-budget titles. This type of strategy is associated with the contemporary maker movement, as well with 19 century ideas about arts, crafts, and architecture. It is a style that i...
This panel discusses the possibility of appreciating video games that are otherwise considered &q... more This panel discusses the possibility of appreciating video games that are otherwise considered "flawed" or "bad". The concepts of paracinema (Sconce) and camp (Sontag) describe ways of appreciating cinema and culture that is otherwise derided as low quality by dominant standard of taste. Using these as starting points, we can begin to understand how also games can be enjoyed or valued precisely because they fail to meet established quality criteria. Paragaming can be seen as the practice of valuing games because they fail to meet game-specific quality criteria like usability, stability, flow, etc.
Are virtual objects real? I will claim that the question sets us up for the wrong type of conclus... more Are virtual objects real? I will claim that the question sets us up for the wrong type of conclusion: Chalmers (2017) argues that a virtual calculator (like other entities) is a real calculator when it is “organizationally invariant” with its non-virtual counterpart—when it performs calculation. However, virtual reality and games are defined by the fact that they always selectively implement their source material. Even the most detailed virtual car will still have an infinite range of details which are missing (gas, engines, pistons, fuel, chemical reactions, molecules, atoms). This means that even the most detailed virtual object will still have fictional aspects. Rather than argue that virtual objects are, or aren’t, real, it is preferable to think of overlaps and continuities between the fictional and the real, where even the most painstakingly detailed virtual reality implementation of a non-virtual object is still art: a human process of selection and interpretation. Virtual re...
Os jogos precisam de pessoas? Em caso afirmativo, o que faz as pessoas importantes para os jogos?... more Os jogos precisam de pessoas? Em caso afirmativo, o que faz as pessoas importantes para os jogos? Pode parecer auto-evidente que jogos são artefatos projetados para ser usado pelos jogadores, mas neste artigo vamos discutir a ideia paradoxal de jogos zero-player. Não desejamos argumentar contra o estudo de jogadores, mas acreditamos que muitas concepções comuns sobre jogadores são demasiadamente vagas para serem úteis. Baseado na análise de jogos zero-jogador, nós fornecemos cinco subcomponentes para ajudar na compreensão do conceito de jogador. Expressas como perguntas, elas são: Este é um jogador humano? O jogador tem agência? O jogador joga ao longo do tempo? O jogador parece ter intencionalidade? O jogador exibe preferências estéticas?
Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM ha... more Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only correct and linked references. ... Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: Harper & Row. ... Gladwell, Malcolm. 2000. The Art of Failure. The New Yorker, August 21. http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.htm. ... Infinite Interactive. 2007. Puzzle Quest. D3 Publisher (Windows). ... Juul, Jesper. 2007. Swap adjacent gems to ...
Do games need people? If so, what is it that makes people important to games? It can seem self-ev... more Do games need people? If so, what is it that makes people important to games? It can seem self-evident that games are artifacts designed to be used by players, but in this paper we will discuss the paradoxical idea of zero-player games. We do not wish to argue against the study of players, but we believe that many common conceptions of players are too vague to be useful. Based on the examination of zero-player games, we provide five subcomponents to help in the understanding of the player concept. Expressed as ...
Conference proceedings of the philosophy of computer games, 2008
In a common description, to play a game is to step inside a concrete or metaphorical magic circle... more In a common description, to play a game is to step inside a concrete or metaphorical magic circle where special rules apply. In video game studies, this description has received an inordinate amount of criticism which the paper argues has two primary sources: 1. a misreading of the basic concept of the magic circle and 2. a somewhat rushed application of traditional theoretical concerns onto games. The paper argues that games studies must move beyond conventional criticisms of binary distinctions and rather look at the details of ...
This paper proposes a definition of games. I describe the classic game model, a list of six featu... more This paper proposes a definition of games. I describe the classic game model, a list of six features that are necessary and sufficient for something to be a game. The definition shows games to be transmedial: There is no single game medium, but rather a number of game media, each with its own strengths. The computer is simply the latest game medium to emerge. While computer games 1 are therefore part of the broader area of games, they have in many cases evolved beyond the classic game model.
Do games need people? If so, what is it that makes people important to games? It can seem self-ev... more Do games need people? If so, what is it that makes people important to games? It can seem self-evident that games are artifacts designed to be used by players, but in this paper we will discuss the paradoxical idea of zero-player games. We do not
There have historically been four central conceptions of the act of playing a game. They fall rou... more There have historically been four central conceptions of the act of playing a game. They fall roughly on a scale from the assumption that the game dictates the playing of the game to the assumption that the player essentially creates a game by playing it. The four conceptions are:
1. Playing as submission, where the player is bound by the limits set forth by the game rules.
2. Playing as constrained freedom, where the game creates a space in which players acquire a certain amount of freedom and the opportunity to perform particular acts.
3. Playing as subversion, where the player works around both the designer’s intentions and the game object’s apparent limitations.
4. Playing as creation, where the game is ultimately irrelevant for (or at least secondary to) the actual playing.
Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games - FDG '09, 2009
In video game literature and video game reviews, video games are often divided into two distinct ... more In video game literature and video game reviews, video games are often divided into two distinct parts: interface and gameplay. Good video games, it is assumed, have easy to use interfaces, but they also provide difficult gameplay challenges to the player. But must a good game follow this pattern, and what is the difference between interface and gameplay? When does the easy-to-use interface stop, and when does the challenging gameplay begin? By analyzing a number of games, the paper argues that it is rare to find a clear-cut border between interface and gameplay and that the fluidity of this border characterizes games in general. While this border is unclear, we also analyze a number of games where the challenge is unambiguously located in the interface, thereby demonstrating that "easy interface and challenging gameplay" is neither universal nor a requirement for game quality. Finally, the paper argues, the lack of a clear distinction between easy interface and challenging gameplay is due to the fact that games are fundamentally designed not to accomplish something through an activity, but to provide an activity that is pleasurable in itself.
In academic and popular culture commentary, as well as in advertising, independent games have bee... more In academic and popular culture commentary, as well as in advertising, independent games have been declared a major factor in video game culture in the last few years. At the same time, most academic and industry discussions have stated it impossible to describe independent games in a meaningful way. Counter to this, this paper examines the history of winning entries in the Independent Games Festival from 2000-2013 and identifies the rise of a specific visual Independent Style shared by many independent games, a style that uses contemporary technology to emulate visual styles from earlier times, including pixel style graphics, sketches and other analog materials. This visual style is meant to invoke a type of authenticity and "honesty in materials" that marks it as distinct from the alleged realism of bigger-budget titles. This type of strategy is associated with the contemporary maker movement, as well with 19 th century ideas about arts, crafts, and architecture. It is a style that is not simply a natural expression of a particular method of game development, but an example of "authenticity work": a careful construction to appear as a counter to large-budget game productions, and to give the appearance of a direct connection between players and game developers. This does not simply mean that Independent Style is a dishonest construct, but rather it enables video games developed with few resources to present themselves as the result of identifiable stylistic decisions rather than of a lack of resources, while also in some cases giving developers a way to demonstrate a countertechnical expertise by using video game hardware and tools against the intentions of manufacturers (such as using 3d hardware to develop 2d games).
The theories of game feel and juiciness claim that players will feel more competent, and that a g... more The theories of game feel and juiciness claim that players will feel more competent, and that a game will be perceived as being of higher quality, when players are given large amounts of redundant audiovisual feedback in response to their actions. This poster describes a preliminary empirical study of this hypothesis. We created two mechanically identical versions of a game, one with only minimal feedback for player actions, and one with large amounts of redundant “juicy” feedback. On average, players rated the juicy game higher. At the same time, players performed worse in the juicy version. The results only partially support the hypotheses and show a need for further studies on the subject. Juiciness and Game Feel Steve Swink’s book Game Feel (Swink 2009) presents a theory of game design not focused on rules or story as has often been the case, but on the control and feedback of a game. Game feel is commonly invoked in game design discussion, and the question of excessive positive...
BACKGROUND Most cancer treatments today take place in outpatient clinics; however, it might be ne... more BACKGROUND Most cancer treatments today take place in outpatient clinics; however, it might be necessary for some patients to be admitted to hospital departments due to severe side effects or complications. In such situations, support from family and social relations can be crucial for the patients’ emotional well-being. Many young adolescents and children whose parents have cancer describe how they are not seen, heard, or listened to as the worried relatives they are. Within the intensive care unit, it has been recommended that early supportive interventions are tailored to include children of the intensive care patient; a similar approach might be relevant in the oncological setting. To our knowledge, no studies have explored how to involve young relatives who are visiting their parent at an oncological department. Recently, a framework for developing theory-driven, evidence-based serious games for health has been suggested. Such a process would include stakeholders from various d...
Research on video game design innovation has identified a number of sources for game innovation, ... more Research on video game design innovation has identified a number of sources for game innovation, particularly inspiration from other games or other media. Through the analysis of game design and video game reviews, the paper argues that inspiration for independent game design often has an inverted character, where innovation is not based on emulating sources of inspiration, but on rejecting design principles from mainstream video games.
In academic and popular culture commentary, as well as in advertising, independent games have bee... more In academic and popular culture commentary, as well as in advertising, independent games have been declared a major factor in video game culture in the last few years. At the same time, most academic and industry discussions have stated it impossible to describe independent games in a meaningful way. Counter to this, this paper examines the history of winning entries in the Independent Games Festival from 2000-2013 and identifies the rise of a specific visual Independent Style shared by many independent games, a style that uses contemporary technology to emulate visual styles from earlier times, including pixel style graphics, sketches and other analog materials. This visual style is meant to invoke a type of authenticity and “honesty in materials” that marks it as distinct from the alleged realism of bigger-budget titles. This type of strategy is associated with the contemporary maker movement, as well with 19 century ideas about arts, crafts, and architecture. It is a style that i...
This panel discusses the possibility of appreciating video games that are otherwise considered &q... more This panel discusses the possibility of appreciating video games that are otherwise considered "flawed" or "bad". The concepts of paracinema (Sconce) and camp (Sontag) describe ways of appreciating cinema and culture that is otherwise derided as low quality by dominant standard of taste. Using these as starting points, we can begin to understand how also games can be enjoyed or valued precisely because they fail to meet established quality criteria. Paragaming can be seen as the practice of valuing games because they fail to meet game-specific quality criteria like usability, stability, flow, etc.
Are virtual objects real? I will claim that the question sets us up for the wrong type of conclus... more Are virtual objects real? I will claim that the question sets us up for the wrong type of conclusion: Chalmers (2017) argues that a virtual calculator (like other entities) is a real calculator when it is “organizationally invariant” with its non-virtual counterpart—when it performs calculation. However, virtual reality and games are defined by the fact that they always selectively implement their source material. Even the most detailed virtual car will still have an infinite range of details which are missing (gas, engines, pistons, fuel, chemical reactions, molecules, atoms). This means that even the most detailed virtual object will still have fictional aspects. Rather than argue that virtual objects are, or aren’t, real, it is preferable to think of overlaps and continuities between the fictional and the real, where even the most painstakingly detailed virtual reality implementation of a non-virtual object is still art: a human process of selection and interpretation. Virtual re...
Os jogos precisam de pessoas? Em caso afirmativo, o que faz as pessoas importantes para os jogos?... more Os jogos precisam de pessoas? Em caso afirmativo, o que faz as pessoas importantes para os jogos? Pode parecer auto-evidente que jogos são artefatos projetados para ser usado pelos jogadores, mas neste artigo vamos discutir a ideia paradoxal de jogos zero-player. Não desejamos argumentar contra o estudo de jogadores, mas acreditamos que muitas concepções comuns sobre jogadores são demasiadamente vagas para serem úteis. Baseado na análise de jogos zero-jogador, nós fornecemos cinco subcomponentes para ajudar na compreensão do conceito de jogador. Expressas como perguntas, elas são: Este é um jogador humano? O jogador tem agência? O jogador joga ao longo do tempo? O jogador parece ter intencionalidade? O jogador exibe preferências estéticas?
Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM ha... more Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only correct and linked references. ... Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: Harper & Row. ... Gladwell, Malcolm. 2000. The Art of Failure. The New Yorker, August 21. http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.htm. ... Infinite Interactive. 2007. Puzzle Quest. D3 Publisher (Windows). ... Juul, Jesper. 2007. Swap adjacent gems to ...
Do games need people? If so, what is it that makes people important to games? It can seem self-ev... more Do games need people? If so, what is it that makes people important to games? It can seem self-evident that games are artifacts designed to be used by players, but in this paper we will discuss the paradoxical idea of zero-player games. We do not wish to argue against the study of players, but we believe that many common conceptions of players are too vague to be useful. Based on the examination of zero-player games, we provide five subcomponents to help in the understanding of the player concept. Expressed as ...
Conference proceedings of the philosophy of computer games, 2008
In a common description, to play a game is to step inside a concrete or metaphorical magic circle... more In a common description, to play a game is to step inside a concrete or metaphorical magic circle where special rules apply. In video game studies, this description has received an inordinate amount of criticism which the paper argues has two primary sources: 1. a misreading of the basic concept of the magic circle and 2. a somewhat rushed application of traditional theoretical concerns onto games. The paper argues that games studies must move beyond conventional criticisms of binary distinctions and rather look at the details of ...
This paper proposes a definition of games. I describe the classic game model, a list of six featu... more This paper proposes a definition of games. I describe the classic game model, a list of six features that are necessary and sufficient for something to be a game. The definition shows games to be transmedial: There is no single game medium, but rather a number of game media, each with its own strengths. The computer is simply the latest game medium to emerge. While computer games 1 are therefore part of the broader area of games, they have in many cases evolved beyond the classic game model.
Do games need people? If so, what is it that makes people important to games? It can seem self-ev... more Do games need people? If so, what is it that makes people important to games? It can seem self-evident that games are artifacts designed to be used by players, but in this paper we will discuss the paradoxical idea of zero-player games. We do not
There have historically been four central conceptions of the act of playing a game. They fall rou... more There have historically been four central conceptions of the act of playing a game. They fall roughly on a scale from the assumption that the game dictates the playing of the game to the assumption that the player essentially creates a game by playing it. The four conceptions are:
1. Playing as submission, where the player is bound by the limits set forth by the game rules.
2. Playing as constrained freedom, where the game creates a space in which players acquire a certain amount of freedom and the opportunity to perform particular acts.
3. Playing as subversion, where the player works around both the designer’s intentions and the game object’s apparent limitations.
4. Playing as creation, where the game is ultimately irrelevant for (or at least secondary to) the actual playing.
Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games - FDG '09, 2009
In video game literature and video game reviews, video games are often divided into two distinct ... more In video game literature and video game reviews, video games are often divided into two distinct parts: interface and gameplay. Good video games, it is assumed, have easy to use interfaces, but they also provide difficult gameplay challenges to the player. But must a good game follow this pattern, and what is the difference between interface and gameplay? When does the easy-to-use interface stop, and when does the challenging gameplay begin? By analyzing a number of games, the paper argues that it is rare to find a clear-cut border between interface and gameplay and that the fluidity of this border characterizes games in general. While this border is unclear, we also analyze a number of games where the challenge is unambiguously located in the interface, thereby demonstrating that "easy interface and challenging gameplay" is neither universal nor a requirement for game quality. Finally, the paper argues, the lack of a clear distinction between easy interface and challenging gameplay is due to the fact that games are fundamentally designed not to accomplish something through an activity, but to provide an activity that is pleasurable in itself.
The theories of game feel and juiciness claim that players will feel more competent, and that a g... more The theories of game feel and juiciness claim that players will feel more competent, and that a game will be perceived as being of higher quality, when players are given large amounts of redundant audiovisual feedback in response to their actions. This poster describes a preliminary empirical study of this hypothesis. We created two mechanically identical versions of a game, one with only minimal feedback for player actions, and one with large amounts of redundant " juicy " feedback. On average, players rated the juicy game higher. At the same time, players performed worse in the juicy version. The results only partially support the hypotheses and show a need for further studies on the subject.
This paper makes two arguments: First, that video game history fundamentally proceeds by changing... more This paper makes two arguments: First, that video game history fundamentally proceeds by changing in ways we had not predicted, as new developments (casual games, independent games, free to play games) force us to consider facets of video games that we had previously ignored. We therefore continually have to reconsider what our object of study is; to reconsider the ontology of what we are studying. Second, how can we then grasp, or model, video game history? This paper therefore proposes that design patterns, originally defined as an atemporal list of patterns, can be reconceptualized as a historically evolving ontology of game design. This approach has the potential to allow us to explore the multifaceted history of video games in a single online system.
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Papers by Jesper Juul
1. Playing as submission, where the player is bound by the limits set forth by the game rules.
2. Playing as constrained freedom, where the game creates a space in which players acquire a certain amount of freedom and the opportunity to perform particular acts.
3. Playing as subversion, where the player works around both the designer’s intentions and the game object’s apparent limitations.
4. Playing as creation, where the game is ultimately irrelevant for (or at least secondary to) the actual playing.
By analyzing a number of games, the paper argues that it is rare to find a clear-cut border between interface and gameplay and that the fluidity of this border characterizes games in general. While this border is unclear, we also analyze a number of games where the challenge is unambiguously located in the interface, thereby demonstrating that "easy interface and challenging gameplay" is neither universal nor a requirement for game quality. Finally, the paper argues, the lack of a clear distinction between easy interface and challenging gameplay is due to the fact that games are fundamentally designed not to accomplish something through an activity, but to provide an activity that is pleasurable in itself.
1. Playing as submission, where the player is bound by the limits set forth by the game rules.
2. Playing as constrained freedom, where the game creates a space in which players acquire a certain amount of freedom and the opportunity to perform particular acts.
3. Playing as subversion, where the player works around both the designer’s intentions and the game object’s apparent limitations.
4. Playing as creation, where the game is ultimately irrelevant for (or at least secondary to) the actual playing.
By analyzing a number of games, the paper argues that it is rare to find a clear-cut border between interface and gameplay and that the fluidity of this border characterizes games in general. While this border is unclear, we also analyze a number of games where the challenge is unambiguously located in the interface, thereby demonstrating that "easy interface and challenging gameplay" is neither universal nor a requirement for game quality. Finally, the paper argues, the lack of a clear distinction between easy interface and challenging gameplay is due to the fact that games are fundamentally designed not to accomplish something through an activity, but to provide an activity that is pleasurable in itself.