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Serious gaming is used as a means for improving organizational teamwork, yet little is known about the effect of individual game elements constituting serious games. This paper presents a game design experiment aimed at generating knowledge on designing game elements for teamwork. In previous work, we suggested that interaction- and goal-driven rules could guide interdependence and teamwork strategies. Based on this finding, for the present experiment we developed two versions of multiplayer Breakout, varying in rule-sets, designed to elicit player strategies of either dependent competition or dependent cooperation. Results showed that the two rule-sets could generate distinct reported player experiences and observable distinct player behaviors that could be further discriminated into four patterns: expected patterns of helping and ignoring, and unexpected patterns of agreeing and obstructing. Classic game theory was applied to understand the four behavior patterns and made us conclude that goal-driven rules steered players towards competition and cooperation. Interaction rules, in contrast, mainly stimulated dependent competitive behavior, e.g. obstructing each other. Since different types of rules thus led to different player behavior, discriminating in game design between interaction- and goal-driven rules seems relevant. Moreover, our research showed that game theory proved to be useful for understanding goal-driven rules.

Background: Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease that affects the quality of life (QoL) of HD gene expansion carriers (HDGECs) and their partners. Although HD expertise centers have been emerging across Europe, there are still some important barriers to care provision for those affected by this rare disease, including transportation costs, geographic distance of centers, and availability/accessibility of these services in general. eHealth seems promising in overcoming these barriers, yet research on eHealth in HD is limited and fails to use telehealth services specifically designed to fit the perspectives and expectations of HDGECs and their families. In the European HD-eHelp study, we aim to capture the needs and wishes of HDGECs, partners of HDGECs, and health care providers (HCPs) in order to develop a multinational eHealth platform targeting QoL of both HDGECs and partners at home.Methods: We will employ a participatory user-centered design (UCD) approach, which focusses on an in-depth understanding of the end-users' needs and their contexts. Premanifest and manifest adult HDGECs (n = 76), partners of HDGECs (n = 76), and HCPs (n = 76) will be involved as end-users in all three phases of the research and design process: (1) Exploration and mapping of the end-users' needs, experiences and wishes; (2) Development of concepts in collaboration with end-users to ensure desirability; (3) Detailing of final prototype with quick review rounds by end-users to create a positive user-experience. This study will be conducted in the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, and Ireland to develop and test a multilingual platform that is suitable in different healthcare systems and cultural contexts.Discussion: Following the principles of UCD, an innovative European eHealth platform will be developed that addresses the needs and wishes of HDGECs, partners and HCPs. This allows for high-quality, tailored care to be moved partially into the participants' home, thereby circumventing some barriers in current HD care provision. By actively involving end-users in all design decisions, the platform will be tailored to the end-users' unique requirements, which can be considered pivotal in eHealth services for a disease as complex and rare as HD.

In this article, we aim to provide insights into the design and implementation of game elements for teamwork on the work floor and to study their effect. Inventing games to break monotonous jobs is a long-standing practice, yet conscious implementation of motivational elements of games at work is a recent phenomenon. Generally, gamification is used to enhance individual performance; it may be effective in enhancing teamwork as well. We developed game elements aimed at team cohesion and examined the effect of two gamified interventions (team performance feedback and personal profiles) on team cohesion in a factory. Results suggest that the interventions mainly raised attention toward the aspects of the work that were explicitly addressed. Team performance feedback led to increased task commitment and perceived team performance, while personal profiles increased nonwork-related conversations among team members. We conclude with lessons learned regarding the development and study of gamified interventions for teams on the work floor.

Using robots to reward and stimulate children doing tasks together can be helpful in improving their social skills. Robots implemented 3 types of behavior scenarios -imitate, enhance and counteract -in a collaborative game of teaching robots perform movements shown by hand gestures. The paper presents a novel account of ASD symptoms based on the interplay of empathic concern and empathic accuracy in different personalities with and without cognitive deficits. Performance of autistic children was compared with two age groups of typically developing children -under and above the age of 7. The study confirmed the limited resource hypothesis -cognitive and motivational -bringing about the observed phenomena in situations of limited attention resources and performance under distraction. The robotic framework for educating children has shown potential for developing of various complex cognitive and social skills and has substantial developmental impact.Keywords-robots, autism, empathy, behavioral training with multiagent system of robots, collaboration through immitation games, design of interactive robot scenarios, learning robots