First European symposium on Computer Games and Emotions

… will be held at ITU on Monday 27.11.2006.

From the official page:

Monday November 27th 2006, 8:30-16:15

IT University of Copenhagen, Rued Langgaards Vej 7, 2300 Copenhagen s, Auditorium 2. How to get here.

The emotional dimension of computer games has has in the recent years became a popular focus for game research and development. While new games appear dubbed as “emotional rollercoaster rides”, academic research projects attempting to understand games and emotions pop up on the fields of game studies, psychology and HCI, to name a few. Even if one does not subscribe to David Freeman’s statement that the next revolution in games is emotional, the topicality of emotions as both a subject and an approach for computer games research seems evident.
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Paper on role-playing game communication out

I wrote a paper with Anders Tychsen, Michael Hitchens and Susana Tosca which is now published:

Tychsen, Anders & Smith, Jonas Heide & Hitchens, Michael & Tosca, Susana. Communication in Multi-Player Role Playing Games – The Effect of Medium. Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment (Lecture Notes in Computer Science). Berlin: Springer Verlag.

Abstract: The Pen-and-Paper role-playing game is a successful example of collaborative interactive narrative. Meanwhile, computer-based role-playing games, while structurally similar, offer quite different narrative experiences. Here results are presented of an experimental study of role-playing gamers in Pen-and-Paper and computer-supported settings. Communication patterns are shown to vary significantly on measures such as the share of in-character statements and the share of dramatically motivated statements. These results are discussed in the light of differences between the two gaming forms and finally some design implications are discussed.

Find it at Springer or, if you don’t have access, try this version.

Game lecture: Aki Järvinen to speak at ITU tomorrow

The Center for Computer Games Research (game.itu.dk) is happy to announce its Game Lecture Series for Fall 2006.

The next lecture will be given by Aki Järvinen, from the Finnish
National Lottery, who will present his research on applied ludology.
It’ll take place on October 12, 2006 at 16:15 at the IT University of
Copenhagen (Rued Langgaards Vej 7, Copenhagen 2300 S). Entrance is free
and everybody is welcomed.

Details about the talk can be found here:

http://game.itu.dk/events/jarvinen2006.htm

For any enquiries, please contact Gonzalo Frasca at frasca@itu.dk

No end to the achievements of former ITU man

Let it be known that justly famous former colleague Troels Folmann‘s Tomb Raider: Legend soundtrack just recieved a BAFTA award for original score. Troels, we never doubted you, and of course we are considering how to claim some of the credit :-). Some examples.