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Three Design Themes for Collaborative Alternative Controllers

Authors:

Erin J.K. Truesdell,

Brian MagerkoAuthors Info & Claims

FDG '23: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

Article No.: 11, Pages 1 - 8

https://doi.org/10.1145/3582437.3582473

Published: 12 April 2023 Publication History

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Abstract

Alternative game controllers — physical input mechanisms for interactive media that are distinct from traditional handheld controllers or computer inputs — are a continuing presence in commercial and academic games fields. Many of these works, presented at conferences, festivals, and public art outlets, forefront social interaction as a key component of the play they afford, supporting a variety of designs specifically aimed at collaborative play. However, despite a substantial body of work in this field, there is as of yet no unified framework for designing or conceptualizing collaborative games that use alternative controllers.

This paper proposes three nested themes for describing collaborative controllers: safety, social spaces, and interreliance. These themes have been drawn from literature in tangible interaction design, games studies, practice-focused game design works, and existing alternative-control games. They can be used to support the classification of alternative controllers for collaboration based upon their physical affordances. Furthermore, they can be used to provide designers of collaborative alternative-control games with strategies for approaching design decisions. This paper presents each theme in detail and covers examples of the three themes in the design and analysis of alternative controllers for collaboration.

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Cited By

Truesdell EMadera M(2024)Creative Sense-Making Analysis for the Representation of Collaboration in Embodied Play2024 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645562(1-8)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645562
Slawek SStiavnická ITomasi MVlad TMitchell R(2023)Find Your Match - Collaboratively Carrying A Pair of Horizontal Screens Towards Convivial InteractionsProceedings of the 26th International Academic Mindtrek Conference10.1145/3616961.3617802(317-320)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3616961.3617802
Deshpande MTrajkova MKnowlton AMagerko B(2023)Observable Creative Sense-Making (OCSM): A Method For Quantifying Improvisational Co-Creative InteractionProceedings of the 15th Conference on Creativity and Cognition10.1145/3591196.3593514(103-115)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3591196.3593514

Index Terms

Three Design Themes for Collaborative Alternative Controllers
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Interaction design
    1. Interaction design theory, concepts and paradigms

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cover image ACM Other conferences

FDG '23: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

April 2023

621 pages

ISBN:9781450398558

DOI:10.1145/3582437

Editors:
Phil Lopes
Lusófona University
,
Filipe Luz
Lusófona University
,
Antonios Liapis
University of Malta
,
Henrik Engström
University of Skövde

Copyright © 2023 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 12 April 2023

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FDG 2023

FDG 2023: Foundations of Digital Games 2023

April 12 - 14, 2023

Lisbon, Portugal

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Cited By

Truesdell EMadera M(2024)Creative Sense-Making Analysis for the Representation of Collaboration in Embodied Play2024 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645562(1-8)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645562
Slawek SStiavnická ITomasi MVlad TMitchell R(2023)Find Your Match - Collaboratively Carrying A Pair of Horizontal Screens Towards Convivial InteractionsProceedings of the 26th International Academic Mindtrek Conference10.1145/3616961.3617802(317-320)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3616961.3617802
Deshpande MTrajkova MKnowlton AMagerko B(2023)Observable Creative Sense-Making (OCSM): A Method For Quantifying Improvisational Co-Creative InteractionProceedings of the 15th Conference on Creativity and Cognition10.1145/3591196.3593514(103-115)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3591196.3593514

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