To Dice or not to Dice

Closed Human-Computer Interaction Bachelor Thesis No Affiliation

Motivation

Tabletop games have been a core concept of entertainment for hundreds of years (Magerkurth, 2004). Even with the advance of the Computer Entertainment Technology traditional tabletop games did not lose that much importance (Leitner, 2008; Kojima, 2007). There is still a big community that plays these games. Van Loenen finds that board games are preferred by a lot of gamers because they allow face-to-face interactions with the other players (van Loenen, 2007). Video games tend to isolate the player, even in online games, since there are no real face-to-face interactions (Mandryk, 2002). Nevertheless video games provide features that a lot of players prefer over traditional board games. The computer is able to provide the player with graphic and dynamic representations of the environment and complete menial tasks like setting up the game(Mandryk, 2002). Though the technological advancements have also enabled traditional board games to gain new game mechanics in the form auf augmented or mixed reality. Combining both worlds lets the game keep the social aspect of sitting at the same table with the addition of having a computer to help the players (Fischbach, M. et al., 2018). These mixed reality games generally feature an interactive display (Fischbach et al., 2018, Bakker et al., 2007) or a projection (Leitner, 2008) in combination with physical game pieces that are automatically recognized by the surface. This new genre requires the use of new interactions and game mechanics that are designed with mixed reality in mind. Game mechanics are defined as methods invoked by agents for interacting with the game world. (Sicart, 2008). While this definition was written with the context of video games in mind, the nature of mixed reality board games makes it also applicable here. Although how traditional board game mechanic can be implemented into a mixed reality setup is something that is currently not researched very well. The existing research on this topic mostly consists of prototypes that have been implemented but usually not tested with studies (Fischbach, 2018; Kojima, 2006; Leitner, 2008; Link, 2016; Magerkurth, 2004; Mandryk, 2002). There are currently no guidelines specifically for mixed reality. More research has to be done before they can be formulated. This thesis aims to contribute to the field by picking out a specific game mechanic, dice rolling, and evaluate how to best implement it into a mixed reality setup as a first step towards formulating those guidelines.

Goal

The goal of this bachelor thesis is to identify aspects that need to be reconsidered when implementing dice rolling in the context of a mixed reality setup. The first milestone will be to conduct a survey with an online questionnaire to determine what users value when rolling a dice. Based on the results the second milestone is to find multiple ways of implementing dice rolling and to implement them. The third milestone will be to conduct a user study with these mechanics to evaluate them based on Usability and user satisfaction.

Tasks

The work will be split into four main parts (See steps 1-4 in figure below). Step one will be to further read into research in the field of mixed reality tabletop games and based on this create an online questionnaire. The topic of this questionnaire being what users value rolling a dice or having to generate a random number in general when playing board games. The questionnaire has to be formulated in such a way as to not bias the answers of the users. Step one is estimated to take about two weeks. The second part will be evaluating the results of these questionnaires and formulating multiple ways of dice rolling in mixed reality. These will then be implemented in the spawn of about two weeks. The fourth part will be conducting an experiment with the implementation and measuring Focused Attention, Perceived Usability and Satisfaction with a modified version of the User Engagement Scale. The version used was modified by Wiebe et al. for the use with video games (Wiebe, 2014). The remaining time will be used to finalize the thesis and as a time buffer.

References

Magerkurth, Carsten; Memisoglu, Maral; Engelke, Timo; Streitz, Norbert (2004): Towards the Next Generation of Tabletop Gaming Experiences. In: Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2004. School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society (GI ’04), S. 73–80. Online verfügbar unter http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1006058.1006068.

Mandryk, Regan L.; Maranan, Diego S. (2002): False Prophets: Exploring Hybrid Board/Video Games. In: CHI ’02 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. New York, NY, USA: ACM (CHI EA ’02), S. 640–641. Online verfügbar unter http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/506443.506523,

Leitner, Jakob; Haller, Michael; Yun, Kyungdahm; Woo, Woontack; Sugimoto, Maki; Inami, Masahiko (2008): IncreTable, a mixed reality tabletop game experience. In: Masa Inakage (Hg.): Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. the 2008 International Conference in Advances. Yokohama, Japan, 12/3/2008 - 12/5/2008. ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction. New York, NY: ACM, S. 9.

Link, Sascha; Barkschat, Berit; Zimmerer, Chris; Fischbach, Martin; Wiebusch, Dennis; Lugrin, Jean-Luc; Latoschik, Marc Erich (2016): An intelligent multimodal mixed reality real-time strategy game. In: 2016 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference (VR). Greenville, South Carolina, USA, 19-23 March 2016 : proceedings. 2016 IEEE Virtual Reality (VR). Greenville, SC, USA, 3/19/2016 - 3/23/2016. IEEE Virtual Reality; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; IEEE Computer Society; IEEE Virtual Reality Conference; IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality; VR; IEEE VR. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE, S. 223–224.

Kojima, M.; Sugimoto, M.; Nakamura, A.; Tomita, M.; Inami, M.; Nii, H. (2006): Augmented Coliseum: An Augmented Game Environment with Small Vehicles. In: Morten Fjeld (Hg.): First IEEE International Workshop on Horizontal Interactive Human-Computer Systems, 2006. TableTop 2006 ; 5 - 7 Jan. 2006, [Adelaide, Australia ; proceedings. First IEEE International Workshop on Horizontal Interactive Human-Computer Systems (TABLETOP ‘06). Adelaide, South Australia, 05-07 Jan. 2006. IEEE Computer Society; IEEE International Workshop on Horizontal Interactive Human-Computer Systems; TableTop. Los Alamitos, Calif.: IEEE Computer Society, S. 3–8.

van Loenen, Evert; Bergman, Tom; Buil, Vincent; van Gelder, Kero; Groten, Maurice; Hollemans, Gerard et al. (2007): Entertaible: a solution for social gaming experiences. In: Tangible Play workshop, IUI Conference.

Fischbach, Martin; Lugrin, Jean-Luc; Brandt, Michael; Latoschik, Marc Erich; Zimmerer, Chris; Lugrin, Birgit (2018): Follow the White Robot - A Role-Playing Game with a Robot Game Master. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems. Richland, SC: International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS ’18), S. 1812–1814. Online verfügbar unter http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3237383.3237986.

Sicart, Miguel. (2008). Defining Game Mechanics. Game Studies. The International Journal of Computer Game Research. 8.

Wiebe, Eric N.; Lamb, Allison; Hardy, Megan; Sharek, David (2014): Measuring engagement in video game-based environments: Investigation of the User Engagement Scale. In: Computers in Human Behavior 32, S. 123–132. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2013.12.001.

Bakker, Saskia; Vorstenbosch, Debby; van den Hoven, Elise; Hollemans, Gerard; Bergman, Tom (2007): Weathergods. In: Brygg Ullmer und Albrecht Schmidt (Hg.): Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction. the 1st international conference. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2/15/2007 - 2/17/2007. Tangible and Embedded Interaction 2007. New York, NY: ACM, S. 151.

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