Complex problems brought on by climate change can be approached through a combination of Research through Design (RtD), co-design, and Serious Games (SG) by inviting affected communities to take part in developing iterative, gameful solutions and exploring their potential impact. I propose a framework for community-centered game design based on HCI literature. Core elements include supporting diverse discussions, interdisciplinarity, valuing local knowledge, and aligning concepts with gameful elements and interactions. Following this framework, I developed a gameful intervention to support wildfire resilience in communities at the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) which integrates local knowledge from communities alongside expert knowledge from fire science, social science, and engineering. Multiplayer cooperation in the game encourages discussion between friends, community members, and intergenerational conversations within families. My research explores what game design has to offer to address wicked problems, with specific approaches to better serve communities facing complex risks associated with a rapidly changing climate.
Digital media creators, including game developers and live streamers, face growing pressure to produce high-quality, engaging content at a relentless pace. I propose rethinking how tools can adapt to the needs of game developers and streamers without compounding workflow complexity. My thesis formalizes the concept of creator trails and introduces trail-aware tools as a new design approach. Digital creation inherently generates a creator trail; an evolving record of ideas, intermediate artifacts, metadata, and creative decisions. While many HCI systems implicitly leverage such data, there is little discourse on how to harness it effectively or generalize design insights. I will address this gap by developing a framework for trail-aware design that treats trail data as a first-class design material for aligning tools with a creator’s intent, style, and process. By framing digital creation as a data-rich process, this thesis advances our understanding of designing adaptive tools aligned with the non-linear, iterative nature of creative work.
This dissertation explores how video games can support personal growth and foster wisdom. Grounded in developmental psychology, the project bridges psychological theory and game studies to investigate video games as emotionally meaningful, reflective experiences. The research is structured in three parts: a conceptual framework connecting video games to contemporary models of wisdom; two mixed-methods studies examining life insights gained through gameplay and their real-life integration; and an autobiographical interview study mapping players’ developmental trajectories across the lifespan. Findings suggest that video games can foster wisdom-related capacities through mechanisms such as simulation, emotional processing, and narrative reflection. Insights range from intrapersonal to existential, with narrative-rich games offering more potential for growth than fast-paced or competitive ones. The work targets the research gap between psychology and HCI by proposing that simulated experiences, when immersive and emotionally resonant, can complement real-life development and offer design-relevant implications for fostering reflective and transformative player experiences.
Interactive Digital Narratives (IDNs) are accounts of connected events (a story) represented on digital systems. Through interactivity, IDNs afford ways for users to directly engage with the information embedded in the system’s rules in an accessible manner that taps into the user’s conscious, reflective learning abilities. IDN research is relatively new and there is much to be done to harness IDNs’ storytelling potential, requiring insights from fields such as Human-Computer Interaction, Digital Media & Communication Studies, and Narrative Studies. This workshop brings together researchers from these and other related fields to develop practical, communal knowledge for Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) design. Our focus is storytelling structures, techniques, and traditions that could support digital audience/user-interactions. By developing communal knowledge, we can assist IDN designers in the creation of engaging, impactful narrative experiences and guide IDN researchers toward future areas of study.
In museums, playfulness enriches engagement, and contributes to visitor wellbeing and repeat visits. However, there is a lack of systematic exploration into the broader structures and common characteristics of playfulness in museums. Understanding this is important for designing better exhibits and creating meaningful visitor experience. Focusing on playful interactions between visitors and digital exhibits, this research aims to develop the first framework of ‘playfulness’ in the museum context. It explores playfulness from three perspectives: as a personality trait; as a mindful state of engagement; and as a design affordance of exhibits. Using mixed methods, the study collected 239 visitor responses and conducted expert interviews at two museums in the UK and China, focusing on five digital exhibits. Finally, 17 common characteristics of playfulness are identified within the museum context. The framework will offer guidance for playful experience design for more cultural institutions.
This panel brings together organizers of the Meaningful Play and Meaningful XR conferences for an open conversation about the communities that have emerged through these events—and where they may be headed next. We'll reflect on how these conferences got started, how they've evolved across locations and formats, and what it means to create spaces for interdisciplinary dialogue around games, play, and purpose. This session is meant to be both reflective and forward-looking, exploring how these conversations can continue to grow and stay relevant to future challenges in research and design. We'll leave plenty of time for discussion with attendees.
Instructionist Game-Based Learning (iGBL), where students learn through playing instruction-focused games, offers an engaging approach but suffers from many complexities in its implementation. Teachers can struggle with assessing student knowledge, while students may find it challenging to learn how to play the game effectively. My research explores how community-building and the use of iGBL data (like player actions and choices) can foster collective wisdom and support across cohorts. I aim to cultivate a sense of community that teachers can use to motivate their current students. I follow a Research Through Design approach as I investigate and develop systems, such as data visualization tools.
Every year, creators produce incredible transformational games and experiences that feature the current issues facing wildlife conservation. Through their work, people are inspired to take action, but that next step is often unclear or overwhelming, which leads them to do nothing. To address this, we created a feature on the Key Conservation platform called Creative Connect. Through Creative Connect, creators can capture the moment of inspiration that users have after an experience and help them to connect their supporters to real conservation organizations that work with the issues or species addressed in the experience, and provide clear actions they can take to help create change. In this workshop, participants will learn how to create their own Creative Connect profiles, link their projects to real-time conservation efforts, and provide varying levels of user engagement, from learning more about a featured issue or species to joining discussions or supporting live campaigns. Through the Key platform, creators will have access to over 100 global conservation organizations, allowing them to tailor user action pathways based on the themes of their projects. Participants will also explore how to collect and use engagement data to inform research, design, and funding strategies, as part of a research initiative supported by the CMU Portugal-PRR Collaborative Research Grant.
People play games with a variety of motivations. One among them is escapism, which is related to playing games to get away from other activities, stressors or problems. This behavior can become detrimental if it is purely pursued for avoidance, however depending on the situation and when utilized mindfully, it can also provide regeneration, recess or a breathing space. It is important for individuals to be aware of their intentions and experiences to be able to better understand how their gaming behaviors may affect them. This workshop is about exploring healthy escapism and self-regulated gaming. It aims to connect researchers interested in similar topics, and create a roadmap for future research in the field.
This Connections proposal outlines a hands-on workshop focused on the design and creation of interactive paper-based board games powered by BBC Micro:bits. Building on successful prior work with making interactive comics with Micro:bits, this session invites participants to explore the intersection of tangible craft, simple electronics, programming, and collaborative storytelling through the medium of board games. Participants will learn to integrate Micro:bit sensors and outputs to create dynamic game mechanics and narrative triggers within their own paper-prototyped games, leveraging pre-cut templates to expedite creation. The workshop aims to foster interdisciplinary skills (STEAM), encourage rapid prototyping, and demonstrate how accessible technology can enhance traditional play experiences, making digital game design principles tangible and approachable for a diverse audience. We seek to connect HCI researchers and practitioners interested in tangible interaction, game design, education, and narrative play.
This workshop brings together emerging and established leaders in the Games & Play research community to reflect on their leadership journeys, exchange best practices, and collectively envision the future of leadership in the field. As the community continues to expand across disciplines, geographies, and cultures, there is a growing need for dialogue around how we lead, support, and sustain playful, inclusive, and forward-thinking research groups. Through a series of interactive sessions—including show-and-tell reflections, group discussions, campus walks, and co-creative mapping—we aim to surface key challenges, playful practices, and shared needs among leaders. The outcomes of the workshop will include a collaboratively generated Playful Leadership Map, a community reading list, and the foundation for an open-source Handbook of Playful Leadership. This gathering marks the beginning of an ongoing network committed to shaping the next generation of leadership in Games & Play.
Players of online video games often experience frustration during their gaming sessions, for example, because of the competitive nature, high pressure, or toxic behaviors of others. Managing this frustration is important but often difficult because games are designed to keep players’ attention and engagement. In this interactivity, we reflect on the design process of Frustration Buddy, a novel system for managing frustration in online games. We leverage the concept of distraction by using light and sound signals to transfer a player’s frustration to a smart stress ball device. By moving their frustration from the stressor to a soothing device, we enable them to regain control over their emotions. By managing these complex emotions, we prevent the loss of enjoyment in the video game and could potentially prevent that frustration escalates into other more serious harms like toxic behavior.
During wildfires, the safety of whole communities can depend on individuals’ decisions about home hardening and neighborhood connections. However, awareness and understanding of one’s impact are often lacking. Few simulation tools address this gap, tending to instead focus on an expert audience. We designed an interactive wildfire simulation system for public engagement and incorporated it into two minigames: one with a top-down view of community-level impact and a second with a close-up perspective of neighboring houses with home-hardening details. We developed the system using a gameful approach to make the complex wildfire systems in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) more approachable and tested it in an early user study (N=5). Our interactive simulation reflects the complex interdependencies of decision-making between individuals, communities, and the human-made and natural environment. With this interactivity piece we contribute a playful wildfire simulation system.
In this demo, we present a Gomoku Tutor that can provide users with immediate feedback and hints, and support users in engaging in after-action reviews when playing the strategy board game Gomoku. These capabilities are powered by an expert model that we discovered using AlphaZero. Our work fills the gap of developing and deploying tutors in domains where there are multiple approaches to tackle a problem. Furthermore, we also demonstrated the feasibility of using black-box models such as AlphaZero to improve human learning, reasoning, and strategic decision-making. Our work aims to introduce new pedagogical uses for Game AI models and contribute to the broader scope of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS).
Wildfire seasons are becoming longer and more destructive, increasing the risk of loss of lives and property damage around the world. As such, knowing how to prepare and evacuate safely is critically important, yet may be daunting for those who have never experienced a wildfire before. In this interactivity paper, we present the initial design of a virtual reality game that addresses how and what to pack in preparation for evacuating a house. The training simulation includes a tutorial phase, a timed ‘play’ phase where players pack items from around the house, and an ending scene with a list of the items packed. We also include initial results and design feedback from a small pilot study. These findings further support the use and development of virtual reality for natural hazard training applications.
In this keynote, I will examine the design of care(full) online play communities for youth. These communities foster belonging, agency, and resilience by centering youth interests and identities, amplifying the social and relational dimensions of play, and positioning youth as co-designers of values, norms, and practices. Unlike traditional models of online safety and governance that privilege adult surveillance and productivity, care(full) communities exemplify asset-based and equity-oriented approaches that highlight the expertise, experiences, and identities of young people, particularly those from vulnerable or marginalized communities. While my examples focus on youth, the principles of care, contribution, and ongoingness have implications for designing meaningful play across all age groups. By examining care(full) communities as a lens on meaningful play, I argue that the games research community has both the responsibility and the opportunity to reimagine our agenda: moving beyond narrow metrics of engagement or “fun” toward the design of systems, practices, and cultures that sustain flourishing. The challenge before us is not only to study play, but to design infrastructures of care that enable it to matter.
New technologies are poised to make big changes in the world of video games. VR, AI, and even robotics will have meaningful impacts on the way that people play. In this talk, Jesse Schell will use technological trends and psychological realities to make concrete predictions about how video games for both entertainment and education will evolve over the next ten years.
We have proposed NightmareBreaker, a therapeutic VR game that combines breathing exercises and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help teenagers (aged 13-16) manage night fears. Unlike existing VR intervention methods, we have innovatively transformed three evidence-based breathing techniques - box breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, and butterfly breathing - into core game mechanisms, achieving a 93% detection accuracy rate and a 150-millisecond response delay through a novel straw interface. Players gradually advance through three environments (bedroom, living room, and garden), overcoming the element of fear through breathing techniques. The system adopts Meta Quest VR and a customized detection interface to provide objective treatment indicators for clinicians. User research (n=8) shows that 87.5% reported positive emotional changes, 83% mastered correct breathing techniques, and 67% experienced a reduction in nighttime anxiety during the one-week follow-up. The "friendly horror" aesthetic of the game ensures the safety and participation of the treatment. The results verified that this method provides a standardized and efficient alternative to traditional treatment.
Academic writing is boring. Games are fun! Can we combine the two? Here, we argue that we can (if not must) level up our approach to academic reporting with the help of video games and interactive play. We offer three core motivations and several practical ways that games can inspire a revolution in academic reporting. First, authors can leverage the expressive capacities of digital worlds. Second, ludic engagement may be ideal for co-creating meaning with readers. Third, unquestioned norms in academic reporting can be upended. The digitization of academic practice and wealth of examples at our dispersal compels us.
Assembler’s Adventure in Sands is a puzzle-based educational game designed to teach foundational programming and computational thinking skills through an assembly-inspired visual interface. Players solve spatial logic challenges by dragging and sequencing simplified commands such as MOV and JMP to complete level-specific goals. Each level targets foundational CS1 concepts, including control flow, memory access, and conditional execution, with later levels introducing more advanced topics such as recursion and comparison logic. Players receive real-time feedback: incorrect solutions prompt optional scaffolded hints, which can be unlocked using in-game coins. Hints are delivered by Khepri, a narrativealigned mentor who also supports player navigation and learning progress. Correct solutions trigger performance metrics such as execution time, instruction count, and comparisons with optimized paths. Insights from informal playtesting with five adult learners, including graduate students who recently transitioned from non-computing backgrounds, informed the game’s design and hint system. The findings revealed support for problem-solving, iterative reasoning, and engagement with key programming concepts. Developed within the LogicStep research initiative, this work demonstrates how structured logic puzzles, adaptive feedback, and narrative framing can create flexible and exploratory learning experiences, particularly for learners with diverse backgrounds, prior knowledge, and learning needs.
