Researchers

Ekaterina Durmanova

Master’s Student, Juiciness in Game Design

Projects

Science Communication for Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology

Mitacs: Studying Gameful Design for Bite-Sized Information Consumption

Developing and Analyzing Immersive Game Technologies and Components for Motivation, Wellbeing, and Guidance

Publications

Year 2020

Curioscape: A Curiosity-driven Escape Room Board Game

@inproceedings{10.1145/3383668.3419925,
author = {Tu, Joseph and Durmanova, Ekaterina},
title = {Curioscape: A Curiosity-Driven Escape Room Board Game},
year = {2020},
isbn = {9781450375870},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3383668.3419925},
doi = {10.1145/3383668.3419925},
abstract = {Are you frustrated when a board game has too many rules? Do you want to jump straight into the game and just play? We created Curioscape, an escape room board game that focuses on the idea of whether eliminating a rule book is possible in a board game context. This means players can start the game without having to learn rules or understand how the game works. This paper describes Curioscape's conception to release, along with the exploration of replicating escape rooms in a smaller space and investigates if we can use curiosity to create meaningful game design choices.},
booktitle = {Extended Abstracts of the 2020 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play},
pages = {94–97},
numpages = {4},
keywords = {tangible board game, game design, curiosity, games},
location = {Virtual Event, Canada},
series = {CHI PLAY '20}
}

Are you frustrated when a board game has too many rules? Do you want to jump straight into the game and just play? We created Curioscape, an escape room board game that focuses on the idea of whether eliminating a rule book is possible in a board game context. This means players can start the game without having to learn rules or understand how the game works. This paper describes Curioscape's conception to release, along with the exploration of replicating escape rooms in a smaller space and investigates if we can use curiosity to create meaningful game design choices.