Researchers

John Gregory

Capstone Project: Magic Sensor Game

Projects

Developing and Analysing Adaptive, Enjoyable, and Engaging Human-Computer Interfaces

Publications

Year 2013

Exploring Social Interaction in Co-Located Multiplayer Games

@inproceedings{kappen2013exploring,
Abstract = {Games have always been a social activity. Playing digital games affords spending time with people; helps build personal connections between individuals and helps to redefine the personality of the player while in play. Games also enable to build the concept of togetherness as a means to foster and enhance the concept of social connectedness, mutual dependencies, collaboration, community living and social interaction. We present a work in progress digital game installation to create multi-level social interactions between the player, the spatial game environment and the digital game. We discuss MagicDuel, a multiplayer digital game, where we are in the process of evaluating the socio-spatial contextual relationship between the players, the audience and gameplay elements for this specific digital game.},
Address = {Paris, France},
Author = {D. L. Kappen, J. Gregory, D. Stepchenko, R. R. Wehbe, and L. E. Nacke},
Booktitle = {Proceedings of CHI EA 2013},
Doi = {10.1145/2468356.2468556},
Img = {http://hcigames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Exploring-Social-Interaction-in-Co-Located-Multiplayer-Games.png},
Organization = {ACM},
Pages = {1119-1124},
Publisher = {ACM},
Title = {Exploring Social Interaction in Co-Located Multiplayer Games},
Url = {https://hcigames.com/download/exploring-social-interaction-in-co-located-multiplayer-games},
Year = {2013},

Games have always been a social activity. Playing digital games affords spending time with people; helps build personal connections between individuals and helps to redefine the personality of the player while in play. Games also enable to build the concept of togetherness as a means to foster and enhance the concept of social connectedness, mutual dependencies, collaboration, community living and social interaction. We present a work in progress digital game installation to create multi-level social interactions between the player, the spatial game environment and the digital game. We discuss MagicDuel, a multiplayer digital game, where we are in the process of evaluating the socio-spatial contextual relationship between the players, the audience and gameplay elements for this specific digital game.

How Does It Play Better? Exploring User Testing and Biometric Storyboards in Games User Research

@article{mirza2013does,
Abstract = {Improving game design is a hard task. Few methods are available in games user research (GUR) to test formally how game designs work for players. In particular, the usefulness of user tests (UTs) for game designers has not been fully studied in the CHI community. We propose a novel GUR method called Biometric Storyboards (BioSt) and present a study demonstrating how a Classic UT and a BioSt UT both help designers create a better gameplay experience. In addition, we show that BioSt can help designers deliver significantly better visuals, more fun, and higher gameplay quality than designing without UTs and that classic UTs do not provide this significant advantage. Our interviews support the idea that BioSt provides more nuanced game design improvement. The design implication is that a game designed with the BioSt method will result in high gameplay quality.},
Address = {Paris, France},
Author = {P. Mirza-Babaei, L. E. Nacke, J. Gregory, N. Collins, and G. Fitzpatrick},
Doi = {10.1145/2470654.2466200},
Img = {http://hcigames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/How-Does-It-Play-Better-Exploring-User-Testing-and-Biometric-Storyboards-in-Games-User-Research.png},
Journal = {Proceedings of CHI 2013},
Pages = {1499-1508},
Publisher = {ACM},
Title = {How Does It Play Better? Exploring User Testing and Biometric Storyboards in Games User Research},
Url = {https://hcigames.com/download/how-does-it-play-better-exploring-user-testing-and-biometric-storyboards-in-games-user-research},
Year = {2013},

Improving game design is a hard task. Few methods are available in games user research (GUR) to test formally how game designs work for players. In particular, the usefulness of user tests (UTs) for game designers has not been fully studied in the CHI community. We propose a novel GUR method called Biometric Storyboards (BioSt) and present a study demonstrating how a Classic UT and a BioSt UT both help designers create a better gameplay experience. In addition, we show that BioSt can help designers deliver significantly better visuals, more fun, and higher gameplay quality than designing without UTs and that classic UTs do not provide this significant advantage. Our interviews support the idea that BioSt provides more nuanced game design improvement. The design implication is that a game designed with the BioSt method will result in high gameplay quality.

Introducing a Biometric Storyboards Tool for Games User Research

@inproceedings{mirza2014introducing,
  title={Introducing the biometric storyboards tool for games user research},
  author={Mirza-Babaei, Pejman and Nacke, Lennart},
  booktitle={2014 IEEE Games Media Entertainment},
  pages={1--7},
  year={2014},
  organization={IEEE}
}

Evaluating and communicating affective user experience in games is an important component of the growing field of games user research (GUR). An important goal for the game industry and researchers alike is the successful unification of physiological measurements and player experience reports to generate meaningful insights, which is challenging due to the varying natures of the data. In this paper, we present a tool that facilitates GUR with a method called Biometric Storyboards (BioSt). The tool allows GUR professionals to visualize relationships between changes in a player's physiological state, a player's self-reported experience, and in-game events. This paper focuses on the BioSt development stages and the final BioSt tool that we present to facilitate the creation implementation of BioSt and its analysis procedure.