Owen Gibbs
INF385e
4/5/2012
Subtopics

Increasingly immersive peripherals

Game elements in websites

Serious Games
The Early Days

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Atari-2600Joystick.jpg/465px-Atari-2600-Joystick.jpg
Gamers had to rely
on their eyes and
ears (and
imaginations)
Haptic Feedback

Introduced in 1976 –
Sega’s Fonz

Early home use
 Nintendo 64
 Sega Dreamcast

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/
Fonz_1976_sega_arcade.PNG
Sony Dual Shock
built in haptics and
created standard
Beyond Traditional Haptic:
Philips amBX System



Short for “Ambient
Experience”
Speakers w/ lights,
“wallwasher,” rumble
pad, and fans
Philips kits
discontinued
Extreme Immersion & the Future
http://www.force-dynamics.com/401/

Potential for integration of various forms
of non-visual/auditory feedback.

Olfaction? Taste?
Badges

AKA Achievements

Popular in gaming (XBOX, PS3, Steam)

Becoming more popular on websites

They help with revenue (targeted ads),
community building, better crowdsourcing, and better comments
Websites With Badges
Foursquare
 Huffington Post
 StackOverflow
 Kongregate
 Pub Scout (Team Beer)

Project 27x
Design team at Vanguard tasked with
redesigning Open an Account function
 The old design was a serial process that
“obscured the vision of the whole”
 Looked to games, especially children’s
games, for inspiration
 Leveraged visual metaphors “to help tell
the story of investing” and animations to
focus users’ attention

Project 27x (cont.)
Kellie Rae Carter & Dominic La Cava, Gaming the Design: Using Game Design Techniques in the Realm of Investing, Figures 1 and 2
Games Aren’t Just for Fun
Games are being used for many
purposes other than entertainment
 Example Categories:

 Advergames
 Games-based learning
 Games for health
 Exergaming
Dora the Explorer
66 Dora the Explorer games on the Nick
Jr. website.
 Each game has a list of developmental
skills associated with it:

 CREATE with us
 EXPLORE with us
 COUNT with us
A Local Example

Yan Zhang’s current research:
“LIFEisGame: Learning of facial
emotions using serious games”
 Designed to help kids with Autism Spectrum
Disorders learn facial expressions
Sources

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






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haptic_technology
https://www.ambx.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmBX
http://www.pcworld.com/article/199362/15_ultimate_gamer_chai
rs.html
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/socialmedia/140653/how-badges-help-news-websites-buildcommunity-make-money/
Kellie Rae Carter & Dominic La Cava, Gaming the Design:
Using Game Design Techniques in the Realm of Investing,
Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology August/September 2009, Volume 35, Number 6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~yanz/research.html
http://www.nickjr.com/games/dora-the-explorer/all-themes/allages/index.jhtml