Playability heuristics for mobile multi-player games

Korhonen, Hannu; Koivisto, Elina

doi:10.1145/1306813.1306828

Cited by 78 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…When considering the common social features of social games, the player-to-player interaction, as described by Friedl (2003) and Korhonen & Koivisto (2007), is usually missing. Looking at Fullerton's (2008) player interaction patterns, social games seem to focus on one or two patterns within a game.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multiplayer games are often considered to be more interesting and challenging than single-player games due to the player-to-player interaction (Friedl, 2003;Korhonen & Koivisto, 2007). Fullerton (2008) has categorized different player interaction patterns which enable interaction between the players: single-player vs. the game, player vs. player, multilateral competition, team competition, multiple individual players vs. the game, unilateral competition, and cooperative play.…”

Section: Academic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Review of Social Features in Social Network Games

Paavilainen

Alha

Korhonen

2017

ToDIGRA

Self Cite

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Although social network games on Facebook have become popular, their actual sociability has been questioned. In this paper, we review the social features of 16 social games and, as a result, present a list of 30 social features in three categories: presence, communication, and interaction. A common set of features, which was found in all of the examined games, is mainly focused on the presence and communication aspects, while neglecting player interaction. In addition, social features are primarily used for acquisition and retention purposes, rather than monetization. These findings are useful for the study and design of social features in social games and in other games with social network integration.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Academic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Social Features in Social Network Games

Paavilainen

Alha

Korhonen

2017

ToDIGRA

Self Cite

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“…However, because HAR games are still in their infancy, we do not yet have the breadth of examples and recurring design concepts required to create a useful taxonomy. A second possible approach is the generation of "design heuristics" [34,49,50], which summarize knowledge about "good design" into rules and principles that serve as a checklist for evaluation. However, heuristics typically offer only a loose collection of "rules of thumb," lack the formal organization and categorization achieved by taxonomies, and do not suggest solutions when guidelines are not met, or causes when instances violate any particular heuristic.…”

Section: Choice Of Design Pattern Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-patterns for designing embodied interactions in handheld augmented reality games

Barba

Radu

et al. 2011

2011 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality - Arts, Media, and Humanities

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The game industry and related research communities have shown a surge of interest in reality-based interfaces that create "embodied" game play experiences. Handheld AR (HAR) is a reality-based interface that renders digital objects onto a player's perception of the physical world. HAR creates a hybrid space in which players can leverage their existing physical and social skills to interact with the game system and with each other. Although HAR has received some attention in the world of handheld gaming, there is little research that summarizes and communicates design principles and implications across multiple examples. In this paper, we analyze and generate design lessons from dozens of HAR games, drawn from academic and commercial AR games, and also our years of experience designing and teaching HAR game design. We summarize our experience in this new field into a set of design "pre-patterns" as a means of formalizing significant design lessons derived from these existing practices into repeatable principles and solutions. We contribute to both the game and interaction design communities with pre-patterns that support embodied game play. KEYWORDS:Handheld augmented reality interface, design patterns, game design, game interface. As new designers and researchers approach HAR technology, they are asking themselves similar questions. What kind of experience can HAR support and create for the player, aside from the shear "novelty" of the interface? What are the constraints and complexities that this technology adds? How can we transform embodied interaction with a HAR interface into meaningful embodied game play? Both AR research and game design communities have something to contribute to the discussion. AR researchers have investigated the affordances and constraints of AR interfaces [11,12], and empirically examined AR systems in a number of contexts, including collaborative work, instructor support, learning, and games [7,[13][14][15][16][17][18]. Game designers are familiar with game elements and conventions that are critical for enjoyable game experiences. We hope to bridge this discussion between the two communities by presenting our results as a collection of design pre-patterns for HAR games. INDEX TERMS:Design pattern research is a tool to capture and communicate repeated solutions for recurring problems in the field [19][20][21]. Although it was first created in the context of the mature field of architecture, recent research has suggested the idea that sharing design knowledge might also be appropriate for less mature design domains, such as ubiquitous computing and home technology [22,23]. Recognizing that HAR game design is a nascent, fast-growing domain, we adopt the term "pre-patterns" in our work, which has been used to identify patterns that focus on summarizing ongoing practice to inspire new design.In this paper, we present nine design pre-patterns that leverage four kinds of embodied human skills [4]. Different from software engineering design patterns, where the "problems" are usually ...

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“…Korhonen and Koivisto point out that designing games for mobile platforms poses a unique set of challenges not seen elsewhere [23], and they developed a set of heuristics that address how networked multiplayer games can be designed for mobile devices [22]. Even though their heuristics focus on mobile games, many of them cover usability issues that are relevant to other types of networked games, including the need to support communication, the need to control address spoofing, and the need to help people find other players.…”

Section: Design Principles For Networked Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Usability heuristics for networked multiplayer games

Pinelle

Wong

Stach

et al. 2009

Proceedings of the 2009 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work

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Networked multiplayer games must support a much wider variety of interactions than single-player games because networked games involve communication and coordination between players. This means that designers must consider additional usability issues that relate to group play -but there are currently no usability engineering methods that are specifically oriented towards the needs of multiplayer games. To address this problem, we developed a new set of usability heuristics, called Networked Game Heuristics (NGH), which can be used in the design and evaluation of networked multiplayer games. The new heuristics were identified by analyzing problem reports from 382 reviews of networked PC games, covering six main genres. We aggregated problem reports into ten problem categories (covering issues from session management to cheating to training for novice players) and developed heuristics that describe how these usability problems can be avoided. We tested the new heuristics by having evaluators use them and an existing set to assess the usability of two networked games. Evaluators found more usability problems with NGH, and stated that the new heuristics were better for evaluating multiplayer game usability. Our research is the first to present networked game heuristics that are derived from real problem reports, and the first to evaluate the heuristics' effectiveness in a realistic usability test.

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Playability heuristics for mobile multi-player games

Cited by 78 publications

References 10 publications

A Review of Social Features in Social Network Games

A Review of Social Features in Social Network Games

Pre-patterns for designing embodied interactions in handheld augmented reality games

Usability heuristics for networked multiplayer games

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