Dispensable, Tweakable, and Tangible Components: Supporting Socially Negotiated Gameplay
Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media
Published online on July 31, 2013
Abstract
Our article examines a flexible approach to designing general game components inspired by traditional game components. Our goal is to design digital game systems that offer the players greater choice in dictating the rules, pacing, and sociability of a game session—we describe this as supporting socially negotiated gameplay. We introduce five design principles of flexibility: dispensability, live tweakability, tangibility, mobility, and value. Our work demonstrates this approach with the design of an augmented game system composed of playing cards instrumented with near field communication chips and a mobile device with three digital game components: a Card Viewer, a Score Board, and a Turn Keeper. We report on initial user sessions and articulate two emerging challenges for supporting socially negotiated play: (a) solving interaction costs to enable greater flexibility and (b) managing user expectations for the automatic part of a manual–automatic system.