Ulf Wilhelmsson

Inclusive game design: audio interface in a graphical adventure game

A lot of video games on the market are inaccessible to players with visual impairments because they rely heavily on use of graphical elements. This paper presents a project aimed at developing a point-and-click adventure game for smart phones and tablets that is equally functional and enjoyable by blind and sighted players. This will be achieved by utilizing audio to give blind players all necessary information and enjoyment without graphics. In addition to creating the game, the aim of the project is to identify design aspects that can be applied to more types of games to include more players. This paper also presents a pilot study that has been conducted on an early version of the game and the preliminary findings are discussed.

A Game-Based Approach to Support Social Presence and Awareness in Distributed Project-Based Learning

An important factor for success in project-based learning PBL is that the involved project groups establish an atmosphere of social interaction in their working environment. In PBL-scenarios situated in distributed environments, most of a groups work-processes are mediated through the use of production-focused tools that are unconcerned with the important informal and social aspects of a project. On the other hand, there are plenty of tools and platforms that focus on doing the opposite and mainly support informal bonding e.g., Facebook, but these types of environments can be obtrusive and contain distractions that can be detrimental to a groups productivity and are thus often excluded from working environments. The aim of this paper is to examine how a game-based multi-user environment MUVE can be designed to support project-based learning by bridging the gap between productivity-focused and social software. To explore this, the authors developed a game-based MUVE which was evaluated in a PBL-scenario. The result of the study revealed several crucial design elements that are needed to make such a MUVE work effectively, and that the acceptance towards game-based MUVEs is high, even with a rudimentary execution.

Roger Caillois and Marxism: A Game Studies Perspective

The authors look at Caillois’ reflections on the dichotomy between work and leisure in relation to Marxism, whose dialectics are shown to influence the milieu under which Caillois developed his ideas. The contribution interrogates this labor/play dialectic while looking at recent literature on games being produced within the current capitalist and neoliberal system, focusing on phenomena like “playbour” and on key elements discussed in these theories, from the affordances and limitations of technology to the immaterial technological tools used by gamers and game makers. The article argues that looking at Caillois in relation to Marxism would provide an interesting critical perspective, one that has been underexplored by current approaches. The authors note that contemporary concerns on capitalism and games are far from being at odds with Caillois’ distinction between labur and play and suggest that the influence of Marxism on Caillois’ writings would provide an interesting terrain of further discussion.

Accessible Game Culture Using Inclusive Game Design - Participating in a Visual Culture That You Cannot See

In this paper, we present the result of an experiment, in which we compare the gaming experience between sighted players and visually impaired players playing the same game. Specifically we discuss whether they experience the same story construed from the plot elements that are either manifested by audio and graphics in the case of sighted players or primarily by audio in the case of visually impaired players. To this end, we have developed a graphical point-and-click adventure game for iOS and Android devices. The game has been designed to provide players with audio feedback that enables visually impaired players to interact with and experience the game, but in a manner that does not interfere with the overall appearance and functionality of the game, i.e. a design that is fully inclusive to both groups of players and that is as invisible for sighted players as possible without hindering visually impaired players to share the same gaming experience when it comes to story content. The study shows that the perception of the story was almost identical between the two groups. Generally it took visually impaired players a little longer to play the game but they also seem to listen more carefully to the dialogue and hence also build a slightly deeper understanding of the characters.