May 022023
 

Seminário de Ensino de Videojogos e a Conferência Videojogos’23

“28-30 de Novembro de 2023 porque a 13ª edição Videojogos regressa novamente num moliceiro sob inspiração marítima, sendo adocicada por receitas divinas na Universidade de Aveiro. A data para submissão dos artigos é 31 de julho de 2023. Não se esqueçam de passar também a palavra nas vossas redes nacionais e internacionais.”

+infos(oficial): https://videojogos2023.spcvideojogos.pt/

Apr 212023
 

“Call for Papers KuI 2023
To this day, our understanding of technology has been shaped by the idea of industrialisation as progress that makes our daily life safer and easier, but at the same time more diverse. In our post-digital age, physical and virtual systems are becoming more and more inseparable. Concepts for new products and systems are often conceived, implemented, and tested in digital and real environments at the same time. This is especially true for extended reality applications in which code and materiality, virtuality and reality form a unit.
Discussions of new materiality go hand in hand with physical and hybrid realities. At the same time, software and computer programs are increasingly helping to develop physical innovative materials for product design and other application fields. However, this new understanding of materiality is not only found in product design, but also in arts and culture created and/or presented in combination with digital technologies such as extended reality (VR, MR, AR).
The entanglement between the physical world and computer-generated data cuts across and expands far beyond disciplines such as human-computer interaction, machine-to-machine communication, computer graphics, sensor systems, humanities, and artistic sciences such as sound, visual, culture and design studies. With our 21st International Conference on Culture and Computer Science we want to address the multifaceted bridges between physicality and virtuality, between culture, arts, and engineering.
The Culture and Computer Science conference series will focus on best practice examples, challenges and future trends in the fields of physical and virtual spaces, mixed, extended, augmented, and virtual reality, hybrid systems, 3D technology, data collection and management, media integration, modelling, visualisation, and interaction. The conference addresses employees of cultural and creative industries, art and culture professionals, media, and communication scientists as well as computer scientists and engineers, who conduct research and development on cultural topics.

topicos:
Physical and virtual spaces, especially hybrid spaces
Code and materiality
Mixed reality, augmented reality, augmented virtuality, and virtual reality systems, applications, and technologies
Hybrid applications
Analogue and digital exhibition design
Collections – exploitation, design, exhibition, and conveyance
Cultural heritage (tangible and intangible)
Influence of art and culture on future technical developments and vice versa
Interdependence between culture and computer science
Human–computer interaction
Intuitive usage of media systems
Natural user interfaces
Sketching
Simulation of cultural sites (acoustic, visual, and material)
Machine Learning for cultural applications
Cultural techniques
Ethics in culture and computer science

Further Key Aspects of the Conference:
Technologies for physical and virtual spaces
3D technologies
Digitalisation in the cultural and creative industries
Visualisation and interaction technologies
Interactive multimedia solutions for museums, theatres, concert halls, exhibitions etc.
Collaboration in physical and virtual spaces
Digital exhibitions, science centres, museums, and galleries
Virtual reconstructions
Location-based and context-sensitive services in a cultural context
Documentation, visualisation and interaction in museums and archives
Digital and hybrid storytelling”

+infos(oficial): https://kui.htw-berlin.de/call-2023/

Mar 102023
 

A conferência: 8th EAI International Conference on Design, Learning & Innovation
“The EAI DLI conference focuses on advancing research in design, learning, and innovation related to digital and emergent technology, and promoting inclusive and playful discourse. It brings together researchers, practitioners, and educators from various fields. This year’s theme is accessible digital technologies for an inclusive digital society. The conference accepts various submissions, including full and short papers, work-in-progress, workshops, and symposiums. DLI 2023 will be held at Aalborg University in Denmark”

datas importantes:
Full Paper Submission deadline: 1 August 2023
Notification deadline: 10 September 2023
Camera-ready deadline: 5 October 2023

“All registered papers will be submitted for publishing by Springer and made available through SpringerLink Digital Library.

Proceedings will be submitted for inclusion in leading indexing services, such as Web of Science, Compendex, Scopus, DBLP, EU Digital Library, IO-Port, MatchSciNet, Inspec and Zentralblatt MATH.

All accepted authors are eligible to submit an extended version in a fast track of:

Additional publication opportunities:


+infos(oficial): https://designlearninginnovation.eai-conferences.org/2023/

Aug 272022
 

Conferencia IEEE International conference on ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & VIRTUAL REALITY
“Welcome to the 5th IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Virtual Reality! IEEE AIVR is a unique event, addressing researchers and industries from all areas of AI as well as Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality. It provides an international forum for the exchange between those fields, to present advances in the state of the art, identify emerging research topics, and together define the future of these exciting research domains. We invite researchers from Virtual Reality (VR) as well as Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) to participate and submit their work to the program. Likewise, work on AI that has a relation to any of these fields or potential for the usage in any of them is welcome

AREAS OF INTEREST
We invite researchers from Virtual, as well as Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) to participate and submit their work to the program. Likewise, any work on AI that has a relation to any of these fields or potential for the usage in any of them is welcome. Areas of interest for the technical program include but are not limited to:
Systems, including techniques, performance, and implementation
System components, virtual reality platforms
AI platforms for VR/AR, cloud-based platforms
Data generation, manipulation, analysis, and validation
Tracking, physical environment mapping, registration
Vision for VR/AR, deep learning for VR/AR
Standards and theoretical models for AI and/or VR
Content creation and modelling
Generation of immersive environments and virtual worlds
Environments for gaming, simulation, training
Visualization, optimized and realistic rendering
Geometric modelling and design in immersive settings
Animations, crowd-simulation, character modelling
Customization and personalization (e.g., for training)
Cognitive aspects, perception, user behaviour
Semantic and cognitive aspects of virtual reality
Depth perception, multimodal perception
Behaviour and activity generation
Representations of self (avatars), embodiment, presence
Virtual agents, conversational non-player characters (NPCs)
Understanding and modelling human behaviour, emotions
AI technologies for VR/AR
Search, planning, reasoning
Knowledge representation
Natural language processing
Robotics and perception
Multi-agent systems
Statistical learning, deep learning
Interactions / interactive and responsive environments
Multimodal interaction and experiences in VR/AR
Machine learning for multimodal interaction
Human-virtual user/agent interaction
Human to human communication in virtual environments, collaboration and communication
Dialogue modelling and generation, conversational and natural language interfaces, speech interaction for AR/VR
Navigation and spatial orientation in VR
Interaction devices, Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI)
Applications and use cases
Data and knowledge representation, problem solving
Visualization concepts (including, e.g., spatial visualization, multimodality for visualization) and domains (e.g., scientific visualization)
Arts, leisure, and entertainment
Gaming and game narratives, immersive storytelling and gameplay
Education, training, simulation
Business, prototyping, productivity, design and architecture, evaluation
Telepresence and collaboration, social interactions
Healthcare and therapy
Evaluation metrics and methodologies
Quality of Experience (QoE)
Ethical and societal aspects of AI and VR/AR
Sensory vulnerability
Privacy and data
Social isolation, desensitization
Overestimation of abilities, psychiatric
Unpalatable fantasies, torture/virtual criminality

+infos(oficial): https://aivr.science.uu.nl/index.html

Jul 282022
 

Vai decorrer uma conferências sobre videojogos em Sevilha em setembro, a chamada de trabalhos já decorreu pelo que agora é desfrutar do evento. Para arquivo fica a apresentação do evento:
“El séptimo congreso Internacional de “Videojuegos y Educación” se celebrará los días 20, 21 y 22 de septiembre de 2022 en València. Organizado por la Cátedra: Ludificación y Gobierno Abierto (según convenio firmado entre la Universitat de València y el Ayuntamiento) y el Grupo Internacional de Investigadores Asociación ALFAS.

Los videojuegos son herramientas transformadoras que han ido adquiriendo cada vez más notoriedad en la sociedad, no solo como un objeto de entretenimiento sino también como una herramienta de formación. Se trata de aportar para la transformación digital en ámbitos como la educación, la cultura, el arte, la inclusión social, la innovación y el trabajo.

Áreas temáticas
ÁREA ESPECÍFICA: LA CIUDAD Y EL ARTE EN LOS VIDEOJUEGOS
La relación con la ciudad es objeto de múltiples perspectivas que se construyen tanto desde el punto de vista físico como del simbólico y de los diversos lenguajes que la van configurando. En estos momentos los lenguajes están, en gran medida, protagonizados por tecnologías y entre ellas el videojuego es claramente el protagonista.

Los videojuegos permiten la interacción con la realidad y la simulación de nuevas realidades imaginadas que se convierten en modelos para la toma de decisiones.
• Creaciones artísticas curriculares con videojuegos
• Aproximación a la creación artística con videojuegos
• El arte como transmisor de valores y estéticas
• El patrimonio artístico y cultural en los videojuegos
• Datos abiertos para la toma de decisiones con videojuegos

ÁREA 1: LOS VIDEOJUEGOS EN LA EDUCACIÓN FORMAL:
¿Cómo influye la sociedad de la información en la organización de la práctica educativa? ¿Qué papel pueden desempeñar los videojuegos en las nuevas estrategias de formación? ¿Se pueden mantener las mismas metodologías docentes utilizadas tradicionalmente, para alcanzar las exigencias del actual sistema educativo? ¿Cómo modular la incorporación de recursos tecnológicos para conseguir las competencias y valores a los nuevos tiempos? ¿Cómo preparar a los educadores para estos cambios?

En esta área se incluirían los trabajos de investigación o reflexión que traten el tema de la utilización de los videojuegos en el ámbito de la educación formal:

Las comunicaciones pueden tratar temas como:
• Videojuegos y currículum
• Formación del profesorado en la utilización y creación de videojuegos
• Experiencias de buenas prácticas con videojuegos en educación formal
• Videojuegos en la atención a la diversidad.

ÁREA 2: LOS VIDEOJUEGOS EN LA EDUCACIÓN NO FORMAL:
Niños, niñas, jóvenes y adultos, como usuarios de videojuegos pueden obtener una experiencia que contribuya a su alfabetización digital, lo que significa no sólo jugar sino controlar su discurso, conocer las reglas desde las que han sido construidos o sumergirse en el mundo virtual que nos presentan. Pero todo ello debe realizarse de una forma consciente y, en este sentido, crítica para contribuir a la formación de las personas.

Esta área recogerá los trabajos de investigación o reflexión que traten el tema de la utilización de los videojuegos en el ámbito de la educación no formal:
• Desarrollo de valores a través de los videojuegos
• La formación de profesionales a través de videojuegos de simulación (Serious games)
• Videojuegos en las terapias de rehabilitación
• Experiencias de buenas prácticas con videojuegos en educación no formal
• Construir puentes entre la educación formal y no formal

ÁREA 3: LA EDUCACIÓN INFORMAL Y LOS VIDEOJUEGOS:
Videojuegos y sus efectos
No cabe duda que hoy en día, los videojuegos ocupan gran parte del tiempo libre de muchos niños, adolescentes y jóvenes.

En esta área se englobarán temas de investigación y reflexión sobre la utilización, consecuencias, creación, de los videojuegos en su utilización en el ámbito de la educación informal:
• La violencia en los videojuegos
• Familia y videojuegos
• Género y videojuegos
• Los videojuegos en la tercera edad
• Creación y desarrollo de videojuegos
• Videojuegos en redes sociales”

+infos(oficial): https://www.uv.es/cive2022/

Dec 182021
 

Encontrei esta conferência com coisas interessantes de se ler..

E tudo começou com:
“This seminar invites artistic researchers of all disciplines to discuss and reflect on method. Method is the framework for the activities undertaken during the research, it decides what and how the researcher is going to do: how he/she recognizes particular phenomenon, reviewing the existing theories, data collection and analysis, understanding a foreign practice, describing the tacit and ineffable experience, organizing the arguments and evaluating empirical results etcetera. Method is, therefore, the steering wheel that guides the researcher to unknown territories and knowledge, and the supporter and stimulator to the artistic researcher’s intuitive ideas.

Method can take shape through a vast array of approaches, such as experimentation, hypothesis, theorization and creation, while each step is defined by the researcher’s aims, position and interests. I argue that artistic research method is idiosyncratic in nature and no two artistic research methods are identical. The configuration of method is always up to the researcher. Same as each culture has their own principles of baking bread, artistic research method can develop from different methodologies, for example, a deconstructive approach, an exploratory-oriented experimentation, or growing out of the clusters between different musical cultures.

Given the permission to design our own methods, we are left with various questions and doubts. On sustainability: can we reuse a method in different artistic research domains? If not, are we facing the problem of ambiguity of classifying artistic research method? Or should we embrace diversity without labeling? Other questions concern the practicality, effectiveness and feasibility of method: how do we know this is “the way” that directs us to the answers of our central questions? How do we evaluate the quality of a method? Eventually, is method the element that defines artistic research, and the element that distinguishes research from pure artistic manifestations”

+infos(oficial): https://www.methodartseminar.com/

May 212021
 

“The Bradley Tabletop Games Symposium is a two-day participatory online event that brings together game industry practitioners, scholars, and anyone else interested in the design and study of tabletop games. The symposium is a product of collaboration between the Interactive Media Department of Bradley University and the Games and Simulation Arts & Sciences Program of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and is being managed by Double Exposure, Inc.”

Os temas..
“We are bringing together people to talk about any developing ideas, trends, and concepts in the design, study, and play of board games, including but not limited to:
Games as media
Games and simulation
Games and anticolonialism
Games as resistance
Games in/as education
Industry studies
Cultures of play
Board game cafes
Hybrid games
Ludo-textual analysis
Virtual tabletop play
Storytelling in tabletop games
Legacy and campaign games
Games and speculative futures / alternate histories
Discourse analysis of play sessions
Streaming and actual play podcasts
Phenomenology of play
Ludic fandom
History of tabletop games
Gaming and the military industrial complex
Games and translation
Games and play therapy
Board game renaissance
Games in the age of the pandemic”

Desta conferência fez parte:
Friday, May 21
“‘I Didn’t See Anyone Who Looked Like Me’: Gender and Racial Representation in Board Gaming” presented by Tanya Pobuda. Who are the designers of the top-rated BoardGameGeek games? What identities dominate board game cover art? Is board gaming predominantly white and male? While there has been extensive scholarly analysis of gender and racial representation, discrimination and violence in the digital games community, an exhaustive audit of scholarly literature uncovered no academic, peer-reviewed studies currently exist that apply critical cultural analysis informed by feminist, queer and critical race theories to gender and racial representation in the contemporary board gaming community and industry. Find out more in this precis of an ongoing PhD dissertation research project.

Educational Adaptations in Analog Games Design Classes” presented by Nia Wearn, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Kieran Reid, Kirsten du Preez, Romeo Molongoana. As part of a larger Gameplay and Game Studies programme we’ve been teaching a specific undergraduate board game design class since 2016. We’d like to discuss the changes we’ve made as we’ve reflected on our practice, and the significant challenges and changes we undertook moving to teaching the same class remotely over the last academic year. We’re excited to showcase some of the games our students have made – both good and bad!

Using Modern Board Game Designs to Build Serious Games” presented by Micael Sousa. Modern board games are bringing innovative design options. They can be simples or complex. By combining mechanisms, components, and narratives, we can build exciting and engaging games. Serious game approaches should benefit from these designs. But in practice, they seem to be ignored by serious game researchers and practitioners. I propose approaching these issues, relating them to my ongoing research and its application to face-to-face and online uses.

Prestige Gaming: Social Capital Around and Away From the Table” presented by Greg Loring-Albright, Steven Dashiell, Greg Niedt, Melissa Rogerson. This roundtable will center on discussions of Bourdieu’s concept of “social capital”: non-monetary ways of producing value and status, which Consalvo refocuses in gaming contexts as “Gamer Capital.” Whether by owning a large collection, playing complicated games, or verbally leveraging fluency in gaming rules and subcultures, we assert that social capital is present an important factor in understanding tabletop gaming. Panelists will discuss material foundations of tabletop gaming capital, the ways in which this kind of social capital is performed and generated in-person and online, and other, related topics from the experiences in the board game, collectible card game, and role-playing game hobbies.

Cardboard Stories: Narrative Games as Works of Literature” presented by Dave Neale, Emma Reay, Kirsten du Preez. How can we analyze narrative games as works of literature or art? How do we read the meaning of a work that contains multiple possible narratives, of which many players will only experience one? How do we conceptualize interaction as a literary and artistic device? Narrative tabletop games have not received much attention as a form of literature or art, but these games are currently in a period of high innovation and popularity as a storytelling medium, with rapid industry growth and thousands of new releases every year. This session will begin with 2 short presentations about viewing games as an art-form, and will then open up to a round-table discussion.

Gamifying Digital Storytelling in the Writing Classroom” presented by Maha Alawdat. Remote learning created an environment in which digital storytelling – specifically game-based writing – became extraordinarily useful to motivate students and improve their attitudes towards writing communities and collaboration. This workshop will share on-the-spot practice in implementing these tools.

Play and Purchase Intentions for Analog and Hybrid Games” presented by Mehmet Kosa, Dave Neale, Vincent Vergonjeanne. What are distinctive motivations for playing analog and hybrid gaming? What are the advantages of being full analog or hybrid in what contexts (e.g. learning)? What factors influence players to buy commercial analog and/or hybrid games?

Playing the Game World You’re Dealt” presented by John O’Donnell. Despite the evident cultural endurance of cards as elements of games and story-telling through the centuries, appropriate and specific language to discuss their dual use is lacking. My session is a thorough presentation of the practice of using cards in games to convey game worlds. I first establish the ubiquity of cards in games – making concrete their assumed cultural and historical relevance. I follow this with a productive description of game worlds pertaining to non-digital games; an interactive, subcreated story world. The multi-layered natured of cards is then discussed in an attempt to deconstruct the homogenous card-as-game-element. These findings are organised into a framework that can be applied to tabletop games concluded with an application on a selection of modern games.

How to Connect and Enjoy the Doom of Zoom!?” presented by Maarten Koeners. We invite you to take a break and come spend some time re-discovering playing hands-on games on Zoom and jovially explore what our online experiences of the last 12 months might teach us about teaching and learning. I will aim to extend your idea of play and playfulness and how it could be used to create connection and potentially support a community that can fosters joyous co-creation of knowledge and skills. Expect to enjoy some light interaction through your camera and to dust-up your collaborative theatre skills during the “Lecture without lecturer”.

Legacy Games and Their Impact on Tabletop Gaming” presented by Sarah Cheatle, Dave Neale. In 2011, game designer Rob Daviau introduced the world to his latest creation, Risk Legacy. It took the somewhat tired and dated concept of “vanilla” Risk and turned it on its head, introducing gamers to game mechanics previously unseen. For the first time, decisions and game events had permanent consequences, shaping gameplay and even the game board over future sessions. Since then, the tabletop industry has seen an explosion of heralded games including Gloomhaven, Pandemic legacy and Betrayal Legacy. This roundtable is meant to explore the nuances and unique characteristics of legacy games, as well as their impact, and perhaps assess whether the legacy system is still essentially a gimmick or something that will endure.

Board Game Attributes – Derived From Science!” presented by Simon Strange. As part of his PhD research, Simon Strange conducted a broad survey of board game properties, and subjected the results to advanced statistical analysis to discover which game attributes are tightly correlated with others. The research is done, but now how can it best be used to improve the lives of board game enthusiasts everywhere? Let Simon explain his experiment, methods, and results, and then discuss possible applications with him.

Improv’ing Education Through Serious Play” presented by Hartley Jafine. Through applied drama and improvisation, participants will experience how education can be enhanced through playful, embodied learning. Engagement with the workshop aims to raise a critical consciousness, develop personal awareness, and build community/support. We will engage with serious play and reflective practice through creative exploration. No previous theatre, improv, or performance experience required.

Worldbuilding, Procedural Storytelling, and Critical Thinking” presented by Trent Hegenrader. In this playtest presented in Roll20, participants will procedurally generate a fantasy world, and three different characters. Then, they will discuss the different points of tension that would exist between each character and the world, and between the characters based on their attributes, personalities, and traits. I argue that this worldbuilding methodology and randomized character creation process can be used to develop students’ critical thinking skills as they are required to see the world through a variety of different perspectives. We can accommodate spectators, if you want to be part of the conversation, you can log into the Zoom call with us, but you won’t be one of the people interacting with the Roll20 elements.

The Red Burnoose: Algeria 1857” presented by Matt Shoemaker. Join Fadhma N’Soumer in her fight against the invading French armies in the Kabylie region of Algeria in the game The Red Burnoose: Algeria 1857. You will join forces with up to 3 other players in this co-op board game to use deck building and area control elements to survive as the French advance on your villages. This game was designed to take on challenging themes of colonialism in board games as well as take a look at what a wargame designed with feminist principles in mind could look like. There is room for up to 4 to play but if we get more than that we can pair people in teams. Tabletop Simulator is required to play. Voice chat will be run simultaneously via a Zoom meeting.

The Digital Mediation of Analog Play” presented by Colin Stricklin, Raphael D’Amico. What happens when private play becomes public entertainment? How do games change when we point a camera at them? Between “actual play” RPG podcasts, web-based programming like Tabletop, and the ubiquitous reach of Twitch, more people are discovering analog games within a digital frame. This panel explores these effects, seeking to understand how analog gameplay changes in response to digital mediation. F

The Process of Getting Your Game Ready to Manufacture and Bid Out” presented by JD Madsen. Having all the components thought through for play testing and prototyping is a difficult task for any game designer. What then becomes different when you want to get it ready for manufacture and market? Sit and discuss with other game designers, their process, their struggles and success, strategize and advise one another on next steps for your projects. Friday 7:00PM – 8:00PM EDT. Location: http://twitch.tv/dexboardroom1

The Well-Integrated Theme: How to Get Theme and Mechanism to Work Together in Your Game” presented by Gil Hova. Board game designers and fans often talk about theme and mechanism in opposition. They’ll say things like “theme versus mechanism” or ask which is better to start with. In this talk, veteran tabletop game designer and podcaster Gil Hova will give his view on how to design board games where your theme and mechanism flow together to craft an experience for your players. We will discuss the phenomenon of ludonarrative dissonance and how it manifests on the tabletop, go through examples of games that have thematic issues, and study a few techniques that can help us avoid these pitfalls and get our game to tell a story through its mechanisms.

Visual Modeling for Teaching and Sharing Game Logic (Part 1: Intro & Overview)” presented by Marc Gurwitz. This session is an introduction to a modeling structured language that can help quickly visualize a game’s overall flow and design, and enable teachers, students, designers, and developers to share their ideas easily with others. In this session, I will introduce the language, provide an overview of the symbols and structures, and show some examples of how it can be applied during game design, using some existing game designs as examples. AGML uses some common elements from UML (Unified Modeling Language), Flow Charts, and other familiar structures to make it easy to pick up for anyone familiar with those existing languages, although modeling knowledge is not required.

Saturday, May 22
Ludic Lekgotla – Teaching Game Design in Africa” presented by Kieran Reid, Kirsten du Preez, Romeo Molongoana. This lekgotla (a public meeting where community decisions are arrived at consensus and anyone is allowed to speak) is a discussion of how we teach analogue game design in South Africa. At Wits Digital Arts, we teach all of our students how to play and design boardgames which serves as the foundations of our 4 year degree. Our teaching practice is highly iterative and reflective of the specific socio-economic context in which our students learn and live. Our students arrive with limited gaming experience/exposure, and as such our playful pedagogy is partially aimed at ludic literacies. However, the challenges that we and our students face create opportunities for interesting and meaningful pedagogical growth. Saturday 10:00AM – 11:00 AM EDT. Location: http://twitch.tv/dexconcord
“Board Games in Intercultural and Social Work Context” presented by Jean-Emmanuel Barbier, Virginie Tacq, Alexis Messina, Bruno Dupont, Yannick Deplaedt, Melissa Rogerson, Rabin Lomami. There are very few studies on the usage of games by social workers in their activity. However, games have been used as social lubricant (Walter Crist and al. 2016) since antiquity (at least!), and boardgames are often associated with togetherness and proximity of the players. It is also well documented that games can be used for pedagogical purposes. Both elements: Pedagogical use and togetherness, are central for the practice of social workers. The project ANPRAJEU aims to study the usage of boardgames by Socio-cultural workers (a barely translated type of social work in Belgium) and, for this presentation, with a special interest in intercultural contexts. We are just starting our research and are very interested to broaden our horizon outside the Belgium field by exchanging with you either directly through zoom, or through your reaction on twitch, and with our guest panelist from around the globe. For that, we will use the elicitation probes methods, by which we will suggest (or be suggested to) some sentences, keywords, anecdotes, diagrams, pictures etc. to discuss various subjects around our question. Feel free to join us and submit your own point of view, and maybe probes during these discussions.

Using Safety Tools as Creative Freedom in TTRPGS” presented by Beatrix Livesey-Stephens, Sara Tedrick Parikh. This roundtable will explore and evaluate the alleged conflict between TTRPG safety tools and creative freedom, and discuss how a variety of safety tools can in fact be used to enhance gaming narratives despite being “meta-gamey” or “breaking the game.” We will also discuss the usefulness of safety tools in TTRPGs specifically, and discuss safety tools through a lens of accessibility and consent as a whole. (Content note: I’ll be mentioning sensitive topics such as serious illness, rape etc in order to illustrate how safety tools might be used, and I expect that roundtable participants will want to discuss these too in the context of RPGs and safety tools.)

Bored to Board Games: The Evolution of Serious Tabletop Games for Medical Education” presented by Michael Cosimini, Teresa Chan, Paulius Mui, Bjorn Watsjold. Join our panel of medical educators and trainees who have developed tabletop games with diverse formats, audiences and educational goals discuss their experience. The session will focus on: – Challenges and benefits of tabletop games in the medical education setting where preclinical education is dominated by high stakes testing and clinical teaching time is limited by competing responsibilities. – How use of tabletop games can connect learners in variable stages of training and some innovations looking to use a tabletop game based framework for remote connections with social media. – Lessons from this session can be applied to other settings with learners with variable degrees of training and settings where tabletop games are relatively novel.

Shorter and Sweeter – Streamlining Your Classroom Games” presented by Evan Torner. Running games for high-school and college classes is great, but they can also involve a lot of hard work and overhead. This workshop lets us come up with ways of reducing cognitive load and extraneous game details, so that the final product that the students play will be focused on core aspects of gameplay without sacrificing the overall lesson coherence. We’ll look at a cross-section of character designs, game rules, and content matter. Heck, we’ll even grapple with YOUR personal classroom gaming issue. Bring any educational larp or RPG you may have into the space, and we’ll take a look at it! Shareable PDF of some kind is preferred Let’s do this!

Innovation Theory and Board Game Design” presented by Simon Adderly. Join us for an exploration of how we might apply innovation theory traditionally utilised in management schools to explore new product development and apply it to the creative processes which underpin board game design.

The Playful Academic” presented by Maarten Koeners, Kieran Reid, Chris Jeansonne, Jon Cole. Conversational cafe on the emergence of playful universities – giving examples of personal practice and inviting participants to share their experiences and ideas addressing the following questions: – How to create a culture that fosters play and playfulness? – How to use games for development and support of Playful Academics? – A playful campus – how could that look like? – What research will help develop and foster playful universities? – A university toolkit for play – how could that look like?

Play and Vulnerability” presented by Joan Moriarty, J Li, Sarah Cheatle, Romeo Molongoana. Have you ever felt a spike of anxiety when you were trying to learn a new game? Have you ever taught a game to someone who worried that they might not be smart enough or creative enough to belong at the table? Feelings of fear, anxiety and vulnerability can make us believe that we can’t handle new things, can’t leave our comfort zone. But willingness to be vulnerable together with our friends can have extraordinary benefits. So how can we help each other to cope with these anxieties when we play games? Bring your experiences to the table and let’s talk!

Speaking About Wargames, in Different Languages: A Comparison of Experiences as International Wargaming Content Creators” presented by Jan Heinemann, Riccardo Masini, Fred Serval. Coming from different cultural and national backgrounds, content creators Jan Heinemann (Germany), Riccardo Masini (Italy) and Fred Serval (France) have recently joined their common knowledge to coordinate a collection of essays about wargaming in Europe and its many new design trends all over the world. But what about their different experiences as wargaming content creators on YouTube and other social media, with different approaches and different groups of viewers? Together with other prominent international content creators, this roundtable aims at highlighting the peculiar features of speaking about wargames also to non-English speaking viewers: the related difficulties caused by the language barrier and the different historical heritages, the perks granted by cultural diversity and the related criticalities, the needs of the different publics, the choice of media and style, the most requested contents and the games that prove harder to introduce, sometimes for lack of interest on the topic and sometimes even for their controversial nature in other nations. An engaging and rarely seen comparison and mutual confrontation about what it means to speak about board wargaming, a hobby born in the United States in the 1950s, also to non-US players by non-US content creators in the 2020s. Showing once again how gaming can prove to be an important bridge and connection between different cultures.

Dramaturgical Approaches to Tabletop Roleplaying Games” presented by Mike Sell, Kieran Reid. Tabletop roleplaying games are often characterized as a form of “collaborative storytelling,” but this is hardly an accurate description. Yes, storytelling is a significant part of the TTRPG experience…€”setting the scene, describing character actions, building the world. But the term “storytelling” constrains our understanding of the TTRPG experience within an exclusively narrative framework and a limited understanding of the TTRPG’s layered matrix of texts and performances. To properly assess the ways text and performance interact in the moment of play, we need to think dramaturgically. In the theatre, dramaturgs enable the director, cast, and crew to comprehend the script (including problematic elements involving race, gender, sexuality, ability, and so on), provide advice on staging, and enable a maximally meaningful audience experience. Our panelists explore the ways dramaturgical methods enable TTRPG gameplay to be coherent, entertaining, and, ideally, a wellspring for empathetic interaction and thoughtful reflection. Ultimately, they hope to demonstrate that a dramaturgical approach enables us to better comprehend what TTRPGs are and what TTRPG players do.

University World” presented by Maarten Koeners. As a student, you are a *new kid* on the block in academia and you are taking your very first steps on the path that goes with it. Very exciting, yet also daunting. This will be a period of *intense learning* together with personal and professional change, in a way you have not yet experienced before. In ‘University World’, we will play together, discovering the skills you can develop during your time at the University, while simultaneously exploring who you are mentally, emotionally and socially. The fastest path to graduate is going over the Campus Grasslands, through the Forrest of Zoom and along the coast of the Sea of Knowledge where you will find the Promised Land next to the Mountains of Ignorance. However, when you finish 1st you have not necessarily won the game – depending on the type of student you are playing, you might need to travel afar to gather the required experience, skills and mental health. You might need to venture to the County of the Unwashed Dishes, look in the Pool of Wisdom, experience the Desert of No Sleep, reflect on the Island of Therapy or brave the Valley of Death.

Analog Apps: Board Gaming and Digital Play” presented by Paul Booth. As texts, board games communicate much about the culture that produces them. In this talk, I explore how the integration of digital apps within analog board games creates a hybrid space of play that mirrors contemporary mediated experiences. I argue that the use of digital apps in board gaming is a natural outgrowth of a number of factors—the increased popularity of games, the need to reach new audiences, a change in the narrative and style of games, and the underlying structure of board games themselves. My goal with this talk is not to pass judgment on the use of digital apps within analog gaming, but to explore the nuances of this practice in order to better understand the contemporary board game environment.

Games and Game Hacks for Critical Futures” presented by Samuel Collins, Nick Mizer, Jason Morningstar. Many games lend themselves to collaborative speculation, and, indeed, some have been designed for this. These games are also (variously) open to challenges and variations that might help us critique the (mostly) derivative futures they conjure. This panel considers resources, games and tips for the formation of critical futures.

Loss Aversion and Player Psychology” by Geoff Engelstein. Loss aversion is a profound aspect of human psychology, and directly relevant to game design; it is a tool the game designer can use to elicit particular emotions in players. This interactive presentation gives examples of different aspects of loss aversion and how they have been used in various video and tabletop games.

Learning to Learn in Games” presented by Luke Jones, Katie Allred, Phil Cameron. Believe it or not, tabletop games can have an influence on how we learn not only in the game’s environment but also outside it. Games can have that magic spark that not only allows you to enjoy it with multiple play throughs, but gives you the necessary environment that helps you learn the game. not only can this help you learn the game better, but also help you learn new concepts outside the game by applying those concepts.

Visual Modeling for Teaching and Sharing Game Logic (Part 2: Discussion on Usage and Future)” presented by Marc Gurwitz. (Participation in Part 1 on Friday is recommended but not required). This session is a discussion of the AGML as introduced in the previous session. We will examine the model structure, review its viability in a classroom and collaborative design environment, and consider its applications and uses. The session is open for discussion on modifications to the modeling system and implementation of it.

+infos(oficial): https://www.dexposure.com/zoc2021.html

Aug 102020
 

Meaningful Play 2021 Conference Overview
Whether designed to entertain or to achieve more “serious” purposes, games, virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality have the potential to impact players’ beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, emotions, cognitive abilities, physical and mental health, and behavior.

Meaningful Play 2021 is a conference about theory, research, and game design innovations, principles and practices. Meaningful Play brings scholars and industry professionals together to understand and improve upon games to entertain, inform, educate, and persuade in meaningful ways.

The conference will include thought-provoking keynotes from leaders in academia and industry, peer-reviewed paper presentations, panel sessions (including academic and industry discussions), innovative workshops, roundtable discussions, and exhibitions of games and prototypes.

Conference Audience and Themes
The conference is primarily for:
industry and academic game researchers
industry and academic game designers and developers
game educators
students
government and NGOs interested in games

The three primary themes of the conference are:
exploring meaningful applications of games
issues in designing meaningful play
learning, education & games
The first theme includes an examination of games (of all types) from primarily an academic research perspective.

The second theme focuses on much more practical knowledge from the front-line of actual design, development, and use of games, virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality experiences for meaningful purposes.

The third theme is focuses the use of games for learning and education, as well as the teaching of game making and game studies within academia.

+infos(oficial): https://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/index.php

Feb 202020
 

GAME-ON®’2020
The 21st annual Simulation and AI in Games Conference
Department of Communication and Art
University of Aveiro
(https://www.ua.pt/)
Aveiro, Portugal
September 23-25, 2020

CONFERENCE AIM
The aim of the 21st annual European GAME-ON® Conference (GAME-ON®’2020) on Simulation and AI in Computer Games, is to bring together researchers and games people in order to exchange ideas on programming and programming techniques, which will be beneficial to the gaming industry and academia. Secondly it aims to steer young people into this industry by providing how-to tutorials and giving them the opportunity to show their ideas and demos to the gaming industry. The conference will concentrate mostly on the programming of games, with special emphasis on simulation, AI and fuzzy sets, and physics related computer graphics. Next to that, all of this will be fused in the topic of computer game design in stand-alone and networked games. Software providers will be able to show their latest packages and give hand-on tutorials for the participants.

GAME-ON®’2020 consists of five core tracks, which cover, Gaming Methodology, Game Theory, Gamification, Artificial Intelligence and Simulation, while the other tracks cover peripheral technologies closely linked to games design, like 3-D scalability, facial and skeletal animation, 3D in-game animation etc, Mobile Gaming and Gaming
Applications such as Serious games and Gamification in different sectors; Organizational issues when implementing games; Designing games for learning; Technologies, tools and platforms for developing games for learning; Games to teach arts, science, or business; Social and collaborative aspects of game-based learning; Multi-modal aspects of game-based learning (e.g. audio, augmented reality, virtual reality, etc); Motivational aspects of game-based learning.

This year’s event features the following new topics Deep Learning, Evolutionary (Genetic) approaches combined with Deep Learning. Procedural Generation, Real-Time Ray-Tracing (RTRT), Real-Time Path-Tracing (RTPT), Hybrid Rendering and Mesh Shaders.

KEYNOTE
Procedural Content Generation Techniques applied to Game Design and Development
Davide Gadia, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

INVITED TALKS
The Highs and Lows of Natural Language Learning Gamification
Maxim Mozgovoy, The University of Aizu, Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima, Japan
Evaluation of a VR system for Pain Management using Binaural Acoustic Stimulation
Dr. Francisco José Perales López, Catedrático de Universidad CCeIA,
Dep. Matemáticas e Informatica, UIB, Palma de Mallorca, Illes Balears, Spain

TUTORIALS
Tutorials can be proposed in the following three categories:
* T1- Introductory Tutorials
* T2- State of the Art Tutorials
* T3- Software and Modelware Tutorials

Tutorial proposals should be emailed to Philippe.Geril@eurosis.org, by indicating the type of tutorial you would like to suggest. (T1, T2 or T3) before MARCH 1, 2020. A confirmation email will be sent to verify that the proposal was received.

PAPER SUBMISSIONS
All submissions will be peer reviewed by at least three members of the International Program Committee. Accepted papers will be published in the conference Proceedings (both print and electronic format), that will be copyrighted and widely disseminated.

Contributions to the technical program are solicited in the following general areas;

CONFERENCE THEMES
The conference will cover the following themes
– Games Development Methodology
– Game Theory/Multi-Agent Systems
– Gamification and Social Game Mechanics
– Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning
– Learning, Adaptation and Procedural Generation
– Intelligent/Knowledgeable Agents
– Collaboration & Multi-agent Systems
– Opponent Modelling
– Physics and Simulation/Graphical Simulation
– 3D Scalability
– Facial, Avatar, NPC, 3D in Game Animation
– Modelling of Virtual Worlds
– AI and Simulation Tools for games design
– Game Design
– Rendering Techniques, RTRT, RTPT
– Cognitive Psychology
– Affective Computing and Emotional Gaming
– Voice Interaction
– Artistic input to game and character design
– Storytelling and Natural Language Processing
– Online Gaming – Security Issues in Online Gaming
– MMOG’s
– Serious games and Gamification
– Wargaming Aerospace Simulations, Board Games etc…
– Games for training
– Games Applications in education, Government, health, Corporate
– Games Consoles
– Games Console Design
– Mobile Gaming and Vr Gaming
– Perceptual User Interfaces for Games

WORKSHOPS
Workshops on gaming, AI, simulation or software topics can be
proposed by MARCH 1, 2020.

POSTER SESSION
The poster session only features work in progress. Next to the actual
poster presentation, these submissions also feature as short papers in
the Proceedings.

PAPER SUBMISSION TYPES
EXTENDED PAPER
8 pages, single spaced, double column, including abstract, conclusions, diagrams, references).
During review, the submitted 8 PAGE EXTENDED papers can be accepted either as a regular 5 page paper or if excellent, full 8 page papers can be accepted by the program committee as an extended (8-page) paper for the conference proceedings.
Each submission will be reviewed by at least three members of the GAME-ON®’2020 International Program Committee.
Accepted extended papers are automatically published in a journal.

FULL PAPER
At least five pages, single spaced, double column).
Participants may also submit a 5 page paper for a regular (5 pages).
During review, the submitted 5 PAGE FULL papers can be accepted either as regular 5 page papers or if excellent, full 5 page papers can be accepted by the program committee as extended (8-page) papers for the conference proceedings.
Each submission will be reviewed by at least three members of the GAME-ON®’2020 International Program Committee

SHORT PAPER
At least three pages, single space, double column.
Participants may also submit a 3 page short paper. During review, the submitted 3 PAGE papers can be accepted either as a short 3 page paper or poster. or if excellent, 3 page papers can be accepted by the program committee as full five (5-page) paper for the conference proceedings.by the International Program Committee. All accepted
papers will be published in the GAME-ON®’2020 Conference Proceedings.

ONE AND TWO PAGE ABSTRACTS ARE NOT ACCEPTED.
CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS
Philippe Geril
EUROSIS-ETI
European Simulation Office
Greenbridge NV
Ghent University Campus Ostend
Wetenschapspark 1
Plassendale 1
B-8400 Ostend Belgium
Tel: OO32.59.255330
Email: philippe.geril@eurosis.org

OUTSTANDING PAPER AWARD
The 2020 GAME-ON Conference Committee will select the Outstanding Paper of the Conference. The author of this paper will be awarded a free registration for a EUROSIS conference. Only papers SUBMITTED AS FULL papers will be eligible for the Outstanding Paper Award.
The free registration is valid for 2 years after the event

LANGUAGE
The official conference language for all papers and presentations is English

IMPORTANT DEADLINES
EARLY BIRD SUBMISSION DEADLINE: APRIL 20TH, 2020
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: MAY 15TH, 2020
LATE SUBMISSION DEADLINE: JUNE 1ST, 2020
NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE OR REJECTION: JULY 3RD, 2020
Authors provide camera-ready manuscript: AUGUST 10TH, 2020
Conference at University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal, SEPTEMBER 23-25, 2020

+infos(oficial): https://www.eurosis.org/conf/gameon/2020/