ABSTRACT. This study explores the integration of historical themes into tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) through the development of Excitatio Corcyrae, a TTRPG set during the 1716 siege of Corfu. By combining rigorous research with mindful game design, the game incorporates historical, mythological, and cultural elements through character creation, social dynamics, maps, visual art, and mechanics. The incorporation of those elements cultivates critical thinking, empathy, and collaboration, demonstrating how TTRPGs can serve as both educational tools and engaging entertainment while preserving historical integrity and accuracy.

ABSTRACT. Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) faces significant challenges in the digital era. This Systematic Literature Review (SLR) investigated the use of Augmented Reality (AR) and gamification as tools for ICH dissemination. Following the PRISMA 2020 framework, we analyzed 45 studies published between 2014 and 2024 to identify trends, regional contributions, and methodological effectiveness.

ABSTRACT. This ongoing research discusses how video games (including PC games, console games) can contribute to cultural heritage. For those familiar with video games, titles such as Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics, 2008), Black Myth: Wukong (Game Science, 2024), or Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft, 2007) may come to mind. While these entertainment-focused AAA titles are not explicitly designed to preserve cultural heritage, they nonetheless bring previously lesser-known locations, names, and imagery to a broader audience (Balela, 2015). As a medium with vast potential, video games hold the capacity to play a unique role in preserving cultural heritage through education and information dissemination. This is precisely the focus of my research. When video games are designed for education or training, they are often categorized as "serious games." Such games are relatively rare and are usually developed with funding from institutions such as medical organizations or transportation authorities (Bontchev, 2015). As game philosopher Bernard Suits states in his renowned book The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, playing games is “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles”(2014). In other words, if the purpose of gaming shifts from entertainment to paid educational experiences, it becomes less likely that many players will find such games appealing. Nevertheless, many excellent video games on the market successfully integrate diverse artistic styles with gameplay, storytelling, and artistic expression. Examples include the ink painting aesthetics in Okami (Clover Studio, 2006) and Inked (Somnium Games, 2018), the watercolor visuals of Gris (Nomada Studio, 2018), and the embroidery-inspired style of Scarlet Deer Inn (Attu Games, 2024). Yet, to date, very few video games have explored the artistic style of batik, particularly Hmong batik. Batik is an ancient resist-dyeing technique with traditions in countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and China. In southwestern China, where I come from, the Hmong people have developed a unique interpretation of batik. This form of Hmong folk art is valued for its intricate patterns, designs, compositions, and its distinctive aesthetic created through points, lines, and surfaces. Having lost their traditional written language during ancient wars with the Han (China’s majority ethnic group), the Hmong people have preserved their history and culture through the patterns in their batik. These designs are deeply embedded in their daily lives, appearing in clothing, fabrics, and more. This study investigates how video game design can serve as an interactive tool for preserving and promoting Hmong batik through the Research through Design (RtD) methodology. By integrating puzzle-based gameplay, narrative elements, and cultural symbolism, this research examines how digital platforms can bridge the gap between traditional art forms and players’ fragmented daily behaviors. These behaviors, shaped by the immediacy and diversity of digital media, often result in segmented attention and shorter gaming sessions (Neuman, 2016). The research situates its design approach between flow theory and the emerging “anti-flow” model. By incorporating frameworks such as self-determination theory, and procedural rhetoric, it expands existing methods of cultural preservation. Self-determination theory addresses people’s inherent growth and tendencies towards specific psychological needs (Deci, 2012). Bogost use the term procedural rhetoric to argue that video games can make strong claims about the world through the processes they embody, and that they have a unique persuasive power that can lead to social change (2007). The goal of my research is to explore new ways of engaging players, particularly on mobile platforms, who often experience short-duration, fragmented gaming sessions. Rather than proposing a definitive or "best" solution for combining video games and cultural heritage preservation, this study addresses the following questions: 1. How can learning take place through video games during fragmented periods of time? 2. In what ways can Research through Design, combined with theories such as flow theory and player-determined theory, inform the development of games that support culturally responsive learning and engagement with indigenous heritage? 3. From a broader perspective, how can video games evolve when connected to learning, and what can they teach us? Mamoru Oshii, the renowned director of Ghost in the Shell and a game designer, once said: “I have never had the idea of 'loving films deeply.' The reason I make films is simply to figure out 'what is a film.’” I want to borrow this sentiment from him. While I am passionate about video games, I am uncertain if I will fall in love with game design and development. However, I deeply love the place where I grew up and hope to find a way to help preserve its cultural heritage. Combining video games with cultural heritage may not be the perfect method, but by the end of this research, I hope to determine whether it is feasible and discover what else video games can contribute. My purpose in attending DiGRA 2025 is to present this concept and my ongoing progress while gathering valuable feedback and insights from the audience.

ABSTRACT. The formative argument of this paper is to introduce a special category of virtual behaviour into ongoing debates about the ontology and morality of video game violence. I propose that what Christopher Patterson (2020, 3) has termed ‘the perversity of the gamer,’ elicited by and notoriously associated with open world or simulation games, represents a rich source of examples and intuitions for exploring the nature of our relation towards virtual realities.

ABSTRACT. An ever-changing and imperfect world demands courage and strength, often derived from vulnerability – itself a fusion of uncertainty, risk, and emotion that is inherently uncomfortable (Schawbel, 2013). Games present players with a unique avenue to explore these dynamics, enabling a controlled yet profound emotional experience (Isbister, 2016). Certain design approaches enhance this exploration, particularly when paired with outmersion, a concept rooted in creating critical distance from gameplay, prompting deep absorption and reflection (Frasca, 2001A; Berge, 2021A). Outmersive design enables players to question power and agency within and beyond the game world (Berge, 2021B). This paper argues that game designers can stimulate transformative vulnerability through outmersive design. As a case study, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice VR (Ninja Theory, 2018) demonstrates how outmersion fosters an intersection of vulnerability and critical distance, immersing players in the mental health challenges faced by its protagonist, Senua. This analysis will in its next research stage extend to the new Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 (Ninja Theory, 2024), positioning it as a further aspect for research replication to deepen our understanding of outmersion, vulnerability, and games’ transformative potential.

ABSTRACT. Looking at recent trends in AAA as well as indie game design, one could be forgiven to think that videogames have gone “fully meta.” From highly self-reflexive “games about games” such as There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension (2020) via experimental meta-horror titles such as Inscryption (2021) to “postdigital” games such as The Plucky Squire (2024), metareferential videogames have not only become more frequent and more visible in videogame culture but also more radical in the way they experiment with the formal possibilities of the medium and draw players’ attention to their own artifice. While there is a growing body of research on metareferential videogames in and beyond game studies, not all relevant cases have received the same degree of scholarly attention, leading to a theoretical and analytical gap in the study of metareference in videogames. This extended abstract proposes a comprehensive framework for the analysis of a broad range of metareferential strategies that takes into account the medium specificity of videogames and that can be productively applied beyond so-called "metagames."

ABSTRACT. This extended abstract presents a work in progress that aims to study Chilean horror videogames. Its objectives are to establish if and how these games develop the transculturation process, and if there are elements or repeated motifs that could be considered uniquely Chilean about them. In order to do so, an abridged state of Chilean horror games will be presented. Secondly, the concept of transculturation will be briefly explained, as well as some of the approaches taken by Latin American videogames. A third approach, based on studies of Japanese horror games, will be proposed. Then, a few elements of Chilean horror literature will be discussed, to establish a few of the motifs that are expected to be found. The Chilean videogame industry is, in comparison with other countries, relatively small, and if we delve more specifically into horror it becomes even smaller. However, some of its titles have gathered some level of recognition. For example, Tormented Souls (Dual Effect, 2021), a fixed-camera horror game inspired by the likes of Silent Hill, has gained a following online and has recently announced that there is a sequel in the making. Or the lesser-known The Signifier (PlayMeStudio, 2020), a fairly experimental game about a psychologist that goes into a dead woman’s memories to solve her death, which has nonetheless garnered enough attention to have PlayMeStudio partner with Blumhouse Games to develop The Simulation (PlayMeStudio, TBA), a game about a developer that is given a horror game in a murder scene to analyze how it’s connected. There is also some interesting projects that are being developed, such as Curilemu (Austral Games, TBA), which is based on Chilote mythology. Overall, despite its small size, it is possible to see that the Chilean horror game industry is one brimming with potential and worth being studied. As mentioned earlier, one of the key concepts for this study will be that of transculturation. When discussing this process, it is important to recognize it as one among many concepts for discussing cultural contact, including postcolonialism, multiculturalism and others (Kuortti and Falk, 2015, p. xii). However, what differentiates it from other processes is that “it seeks new cultural formations; it covers heterogeneous authorship and audiences; and it calls for active participation on the part of the individual” (Kuortti and Falk, 2015, p. xii), i.e. it is an aesthetic process with a focus on creation of new identities, forms and motifs. In that sense, the videogame becomes and ideal cultural device to apply the notion of transculturation. Firstly, because of the videogame’s status as container and space of cultural creation (Navarro-Remesal, 2016, p. 12) and secondly, because it demands an active role not only from the developer team that creates it, but also of the players that interact with it, therefore accomplishing one of the pre-requisites needed for this process. This process has been studied and applied to Latin American videogames by Rámirez-Moreno and Navarrete-Cardero, who have recognized two main approaches taken by Latin American games: regionalism and cosmopolitanism. The former corresponds to games that “articulate local folklore, traditions threatened by the influence of globalization, and other pre-European cultural cosmovisions” (Ramirez-Moreno and Navarrete-Cardero, 2024, p. 10), whereas the latter includes games characterized “by a revisionist approach to tradition, customs, and myths particular to the region, universalizing them without losing sight of the local color that makes the cultural identity of these games distinguishable” (Ramirez-Moreno and Navarrete-Cardero, 2024, p. 14). It is worth noting that in Ramirez-Moreno and Navarrete-Cardero’s study, both approaches still include cultural elements of the country that produces them. There is however another view when it comes to studying games and cultures. Pruett, in his study of Japanese horror games, claims “Though some Japanese horror games are designed to reflect themes in traditional Japanese horror, others are constructed to appear as if they originated in the US or Europe” (Pruett, 2010) with the latter purposefully making their cultural symbols and themes more obscure. According to the author, however, it is still possible to recognize cultural elements of Japan in the motifs of these horror games. Although the author here is specifically talking about Japanese horror games, his ideas can easily be applied to other countries, particularly Latin American countries, which are “notable for harboring the origin of cultural hybridization as a conceptual model” (Ramirez-Moreno and Navarrete-Cardero, 2024, p. 3), i.e. they have multiple cultural influences mixed together that create their own unique identities. As mentioned earlier, there is currently only a handful of Chilean horror games in the market. This has led to a lack of studies focused on them. Thus, when discussing motifs beyond the obvious use of Chilean myths and locations, there hasn’t been a study around common motifs that can be found in them. There has been, however, studies on Chilean horror literature, particularly short stories. According to Diamantino Valdés, “the figure of the imbunche has become a metaphor for the Chilean identity, inasmuch as it represents the fracture of memory and political repression” (2022, p. 20) , with the imbunche being a creature from Chilean folklore who used to be human but whose limbs have all been twisted and has been turned into a monster. In that sense, Diamantino Valdés is already highlighting some motifs in Chilean horror: disjointed memories and political components. Some of the games mentioned earlier, like The Signifier, have premises that already hint to the use of fractured memories in them, so the aim of this study will be to see if the aforementioned works do indeed possess these motifs and what others might be recognized in them. In conclusion, this paper will apply the concepts of transculturation, regionalism, cosmopolitanism and obscuring of cultural symbol to Chilean horror games to discern where they fit within these categories. Furthermore, it will study if and how they use motifs of fractured memories and political repressions, as well as any other motifs that might be identified during the study, to shed some light on the identity of Chilean horror games.

ABSTRACT. When Germany was divided in 1949, the two parts of the country were set to develop in distinct ways, both economically and culturally. While the West saw steep economic growth resulting in reduced working hours, more free time, greater individual spending power, and access to leisure electronics, the East was more restricted in all these aspects due to its link to Soviet command economy (Schmitt et al. 2016; Bösch 2018). To the world, the two countries were placed at a crossroads that would ultimately lead to significant differences in the pathways they would take up to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. This difference strongly manifested itself in the 1980s, marking a pivotal era for computing technology, both in the advancement of hardware and software, resulting in a government-controlled “technology transfer during the Cold War” (Schmitt 2019, 140), and in the cultural integration of these technologies into everyday life. Despite sharing a common cultural heritage, East and West Germany diverged significantly in their approach to creative computing, influenced by their respective political ideologies and economic systems, and even 35 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, this history has hardly ever been approached from a comparative perspective. This paper seeks to provide an understanding of how these differences and similarities shaped the landscape of computing in both states, particularly but not exclusively at the grassroots level. It thereby contributes to the broader discourse on technology in divided societies by looking at the political context, legal frameworks, hardware, software, and people’s engagement with computing in both Germanies in the decade before their reunification.

In the 1980s, West Germany saw rapid growth in the computing sector, spurred by a market-driven economy and a liberal political environment that fostered innovation and entrepreneurship (Bösch 2018; Schmitt 2022, 103–115). With the advent of leisure electronics in the late 1970s, computers and consoles became a staple in many Western schools and households during the 1980s (Lovejoy and Pajala 2022; Flury 2023), making it easier for people to engage in creative computing practices (e.g., hacking, cracking, demoscene, etc.). In contrast to this, East Germany was shaped by a centrally planned economy and strict government control (Collier 1989; Stahnke 1989; Schmitt 2022, 87–103). The GDR’s political context, characterised by surveillance and censorship, significantly influenced the development and private use of computing technology (Jarmoszko, Geipel, and Goodman 1989), having effects on people’s engagement with computers long after the fall of the Iron Curtain. These developments resulted in individuals, communities, and cultures of creative computing, yet due to contrasting economic and technological frameworks, practices differed between both countries. The aim of this paper is to look at computing in East and West Germany from a diachronic and a synchronic perspective by considering various associated aspects: (1) the politics and policies of computing in both countries (Gießler 2018; Bergien 2019); (2) computing hardware used, produced or obtained, and what it meant in terms of spending power (Jarmoszko, Geipel, and Goodman 1989; Bösch 2018); (3) software used, accessed, created, and shared; and (4) the social aspects of computing, e.g., collaborative playing, teaching, and learning in computer clubs, arcades, and schools as well as the hacker culture (Alberts and Oldenziel 2014; Erdogan 2018, 61–94; Webb 2020, 1–4, 13–21; Uhl 2022, 189–206).

This chapter therefore wants to provide a nuanced understanding of how two ideologically opposed yet strongly related states navigated the digital revolution individually, socially, politically, and technologically. The comparison highlights the resilience and creativity of individuals in both regions, emphasising the importance of considering local contexts when examining the history of computing (Swallwell 2021), as global trends often manifest differently across distinct political and cultural landscapes.

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ABSTRACT. This paper discusses specific examples of indie videogames, including A Trip to Yugoslavia (Piotr Bunkowski, Hades Productions 2017), Golf Club: Nostalgia (Demagog Studio, Untold Tales 2018), Space Yugoslav 2D (Affordable Care Games2022), and Yugo: The Non-Game (In Two Minds Studio 2024), I will analyse them as both archives and utopias (Leiderman 2022) - (non)places that confront players with their own ideas of the world. After a brief historical overview of the emergence of Yugoslavia as a specific chronotope in videogames (economic unsustainability, war, chaos, backwardness), the paper analyses the evolution of this chronotope in recent videogames to argue that videogames not only archive stories about the past, but also the structures of feeling that mark our relationship to it. As such, they present an interactive barometer of collective memory, and can be considered as potent tools for transmedia memory work.

ABSTRACT. War has always involved the mobilization of games and play, especially for the purposes of education and preparation. Ancient Chinese generals played Go to hone their strategic capacities; Prussian officers created Kriegsspiel to prepare for specific battles; U.S. Marines modded Doom II into Marine Doom to train squad tactics (see e.g. Lenoir and Lowood 2005; Peterson 2016). However, since the end of the Second World War, “playful media technologies” (cf. Frissen et al. 2015) such as videogames and simulators, but also smartphones, drones and autonomous systems, have enabled an expansion of the mobilization of play beyond the traditional realm of military simulation for training and planning. Inspired by Paul Virilio’s work on the role of cinematography in the “logistics of military perception, in which a supply of images would become the equivalent of an ammunition supply” (Virilio 2009, 1), I argue that play has been caught in a similarly logistical procedure, which I term ludologistics.

In ludologistics, the war machine systemically leverages playful techniques and media technologies in service of not just warfare as such, but also for the ongoing militarization of society and the construction of new war economies for NATO states and their allies. Thus play is made complicit in a project of permanent preparation for war that ultimately aspires to total civil-military integration, destroying critical distinctions like citizen/soldier and war/peace just as capitalism disposes with the distinction between work and play (cf. Virilio and Lotringer 2008; Wark 2007). My aim is to offer an overview of this growing effort to make play into a vector for militarism as a starting point for a critical analysis of its socio-political implications, by sketching out four forms of ludologistics that have emerged since the end of World War II.

ABSTRACT. In this extended abstract, I discuss how the hero archetype functions in war video games to renegotiate player complicity with patriarchal and neoliberal capitalist ideologies. Playing the war hero may be empowering temporarily to individual players in contemporary "crisis culture," but this empowerment comes from socially marginalizing performances. Players-as-war-heroes "win" war through acts of militarized masculinity and neoliberal crisis management, which asks players to confront crisis by updating rather than challenging patriarchy and neoliberalism's status quo.

ABSTRACT. In this essay, I analyze how the US military’s relationship with the video games industry poses global questions for speech and privacy rights. The US military faces unique challenges when engaging with the entertainment industry. The so-called “military-entertainment complex” (MEC), as detailed by Lenoir and Caldwell (2018), is the subject of vast scholarship. This military-games scholarship, as Philip Hammond (2022) notes, is often an ideological critique—that is, it begins with the assumption that military engagement with video games is inherently pernicious. But, Hammond asks, if this interplay is so pernicious, so persuasive, and so all-encompassing, why have decades of this relationship not resulted in a massive change in public opinion? I extend this question further: what does this relationship mean for global speech rights?

I argue that there are important dynamics unfolding in global rights that can be viewed through this US military-games industry relationship. Video game companies can mediate the public’s relationship with free speech in two ways: by directly restricting what can be said on their platforms or during events, and by punishing players who stray outside of speech codes (Foust, 2022). The US military has engaged in both types of speech limitation and has possibly violated the US constitution as a result. When viewed alongside their growing relationship with game companies like Activision Blizzard, which has also engaged in censorship on behalf of the Chinese government, these questions for speech rights become urgent considerations for games as a global speech platform.

The US military has a longstanding relationship with Microsoft, which manufactures the Xbox console and recently acquired the publishing giant Activision Blizzard. Microsoft was instrumental in the release of the first commercial game developed for military training, Full Spectrum Warrior (THQ, 2004). In documents detailing the purpose of the game, the US Army said it collaborated with Microsoft because it already placed Xbox consoles at forward operating bases for troop recreation (Button, 2022). As this collaboration with Microsoft continued, Activision approached the military entertainment office in Los Angeles in 2007 for help ensuring accuracy in the production of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision, 2009). The MEO declined to collaborate on the game because they felt its portrayal of the military was too unflattering (Peace, 2008). However, the franchise’s success led them to hire a Pentagon advisor (Stuart, 2014) to help design game scenarios for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Activision, 2014). This collaboration’s success expanded Activision’s access to the training and development of combat troops across the armed services (Hume, 2019).

But, in 2019, this close relationship took on an ominous tone during the so-called Blitzchung Controversy, which involved Activision Blizzard censoring Americans engaged in political speech on behalf of Tencent, the enormous Chinese gaming company with close ties to the government in Beijing. The Controversy happened during the 2019 Hong Kong democracy protests, where citizens of the city took to the streets in opposition to a new bill that would allow them to be extradited into mainland China for speech crimes (Leung, 2019). During an Esports tournament for Hearthstone (Blizzard, 2014), Activision Blizzard suspended and punished an Esports player named Blitzchung over comments he made to two livestream hosts in support of the protesters (Needleman, 2019). Amid a growing outcry over Blizzard’s response, the American University Hearthstone team held an on-stream protest in solidarity with Blitzchung and the Hong Kong protest movement and were also suspended from tournament play (Wales, 2019). The broader community of Blizzard fans and streamers joined in the protest, leading the company to scale back its punishments to be less severe (Vandenberg, 2019).

Activision Blizzard’s decision to treat speech that Americans consider ordinary—expressing support for pro-democracy protests—as an unacceptable violation of corporate speech codes points to a worrying implication given its close relationship with the US military. It is unclear how that relationship may continue to evolve after Microsoft’s acquisition of the company. When the US military engages with video games, they risk tripping over those same challenges to speech rights. In 2020, just a year after the Blitzchung Controversy, the US military was caught censoring US citizens on its live streams (Uhl, 2020). In response, several lawyers from the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University wrote an open letter to US military leadership, noting that more than 300 commenters had been banned and urging them to restore the banned accounts (Fallow et al., 2020). Alleging viewpoint discrimination, which is illegal conduct for federal agencies, the lawyers demanded the US military adjust its moderation policies to not suppress legal speech by American citizens. A spokesperson defended the bans, describing the offending comments as harassment and claiming that such conduct violated the terms of service on Twitch (Browning & Lorenz, 2020).

The dismissive response by the military spokesperson speaks to the larger challenge of whether a military organization can uphold fundamental free speech values as it engages with the games industry and gaming culture. The implications of the military’s involvement in video games for democratic discourse and the public sphere are profound. Research has shown that video games often are not the best propaganda vehicles for war, but they can be vehicles for trying to shape attitudes about war and service. Martha Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum have argued that the ways designers make choices in video games can have “profound effects” on what it communicates about the world and how game designers expect the player to experience it (Flanagan & Nissenbaum, 2016, p. 48). Understanding how collaboration with the military shapes those values is essential to understanding how not just the entertainment, but the government influences public attitudes through gaming and play.

ABSTRACT. This article extends existing scholarship on the pastoral video game Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe 2014), highlighting the diffuse ways in which pastoral video games act as sites of encounter between oppositional impulses of nature and technology. Drawing on diverse literature, including Leo Marx’s ([1964] 2000) description of the American pastoral, Paul Martin’s (2011) idea of the video game landscape as a garden, and Amanda Phillips’s (2014) concept of “algorithmic ecologies,” this paper proposes the term “cyberpastoral” to capture the nuanced interplay in how these games articulate the relationship between the natural and the technological. This framework is further tested through a close playing of Satisfactory (Coffee Stain Studios, 2024), demonstrating the utility of the cyberpastoral in understanding contemporary video game environments. The analytical approach applied here has implications not just for scholarship of similar titles, but for wider study of games engaged with ecological and environmental care.

ABSTRACT. This presentation discusses the example of Stardew Valley to demonstrate the two-way productivity of investigating waste and garbage in digital games. With regard to game exploration, tracking down the waste management scheme is helpful in the identification of a game’s biopolitical logic and environmental paradigm. With regard to waste-oriented research, games bring out the factor of functionality and affordances in waste and garbage definitions. They also illustrate the ontological fluidity of those categories, indicating how easily various objects fall into and out of them. Brought together, those reflections highlight the relativity of the concept of waste and map out its creative potential.

ABSTRACT. The extended abstract looks at how cozy games with driving mechanics engage with, represent, and challenge, petroculture.

ABSTRACT. In this paper we describe and reflect the design process of a radically new approach in experimental game design, applying Ludic Method and The Psycholudic Approach in an idea of games for/with non-humans: The Tree Game prototype is an experimental board game that investigates new ways of addressing environmentalism, democracy and the relationship between society and nature. Our game features two radical mechanics: 1. A fundamental asymmetry in rules between the roles of “citizen” and “industrialist” and “lake” and “wood”. While the first two play something akin to a typical Eurogame, the latter can’t influence the game state, but instead play a drawing game that prioritizes creativity and expression. 2. Players’ roles are switched randomly at irregular intervals. This means that each player will potentially play each role during the game. Our aim is to create a game that lets the players embody multi-perspectivity and radically different concepts of agency.

ABSTRACT. One of the trailers of The Last of Us Part II (Naughty Dog 2020) shows the character Ellie sneaking through enemy territory. She is suddenly joined by Joel, her surrogate father, who tells her he has come to aid her (see PlayStation 2019, 02:18–02:38). This trailer is a lie. In the actual game, the scene shown in the trailer plays out differently, as Joel is, at that point in the narrative, long dead. The game implied by the trailer, one where Ellie and Joel team up once again to fight zombies, does not exist. It is an example of what can be called a fake game. In this presentation, I introduce fake games by contrasting them to games that are, instead, fictional.

ABSTRACT. In this presentation, we aim to show that the basic mechanics of conspiracy thinking and videogame interpretation are often very similar. That is: while conspiracy theorists really do seem to believe their theories, the mechanics through which these beliefs come about are similar to how imaginings are usually generated while engaging with videogames as designed works of fiction. Our presentation thus focuses on comparisons of specific interpretative practices within game fandoms and conspiracy communities.

ABSTRACT. Perhaps more so than any game in the computer roleplaying genre, all but the most rudimentary actions in Disco Elysium are gated by language, such that branching conversations, often determined by skill checks, unlock new deductions about one’s environment in the form of perceptual, interpersonal, or logical insights and, in turn, further access to its kaleidoscopic story of spiritual redemption under late capitalism. As Harry DuBois, a boozy detective with a missing gun and questionable methods, early on the player is tasked with investigating a derelict building behind a bookstore from which a ghostly sound is emanating; flashlight in hand, eventually a scene is triggered wherein Harry is said, but not shown, to “climb half-way inside” a large industrial furnace. Through a reconsideration of diegesis as informationally authoritative and the mimetic as that which one might describe as representationally complete, being at once visually informative and, story-wise, always already narrational, the preoccupation of this article is thus an experiential inequivalence inherent to the act of reading, both in literary and visual media, and the degree to which fictive changes of state may be said to occur at all in a player’s imagination.

ABSTRACT. Transgender representations in the media have grown significantly in recent years (Capuzza & Spencer 2017, Cavalcante 2017, Oppliger 2022, Kosciesza 2023, Thach 2021). In video games such representations are rather scarce, and when present are often simplified and replicate stereotypes and tropes (Kosciesza 2023, Thach 2021). However, a few video games have recently introduced more in-depth portrayals. This study examines three transmasculine characters—Tyler Ronan in Tell Me Why (Dontnod Entertainment 2020), Lev in The Last of Us Part II (Naughty Dog 2020), and Paolo in Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft Toronto 2021). Employing discourse, narrative, and visual analysis, findings reveal recurring themes: characters are defined primarily by their transgender identity, their narratives center on severe trauma and violent episodes (e.g., matricide), and their aesthetics conform to hypermasculine norms. This appears in contrast with the transmasculine discourse, focused on empowering alternative ways of understanding masculinity (Aboim and Vasconcelos 2022, Ashley and Skolnik 2022). The study highlights the need for video games to move beyond trauma-driven narratives and hypermasculinity, advocating for more nuanced and diverse representations of transmasculine identities.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents early findings from a recent qualitative study on romantasy balls in which participant observation and 20 individual interviews create a rich data set reflecting on the meaning these balls have for the everyday lives of participants. This extended abstract focuses on an emergent aspect of the data set- that despite participant recruitment strategies not mentioning games, videogames, or gamers, the majority of interview participants (17 out of 20) could be classified as ‘hardcore gamers.’ While definitions of what constitutes a ‘hardcore gamer’ varies, this abstract has adopted the Quantic Foundry definition which references owning high-end equipment and playing seriously or competitively (Yee 2018). The findings of this study are of interest to the Digital Games Research Association as they represent a crossroads in gendered gaming identities as well as a paradigm shift in thinking about what being a gamer means. Attendees will walk away from this talk with a stronger understanding of the relationship between gender, games, and fandom spaces.

ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION and background

What does it mean to be a man and a game enthusiast? How does being a man and masculinity intersect with games and gaming? Although player research in game studies tend to be overly dominated by male respondents, men are rarely being treated as gendered within this research. This paper will present the results from an interview study of men’s gendered gaming experiences carried out in 2024. (see PDF for more)

ABSTRACT. Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) have been proven to both positively and negatively impact the well-being and mental health of people playing them. In this paper we discuss how TTRPGs may impact identity exploration, specifically for queer people. While there is extensive research on how video games and queer identities interact there is little research discussing TTRPGs and queer identity. Specifically we explore identity exploration, an important part of the identity formation process. We performed 12 semi-structured interviews with TTRPG players on their experiences creating and playing characters related to their own queer identity exploration. Participants shared with us the ways that TTRPGs helped them explore different possible identities by providing low-stakes, structured, social environments to practice them. We discuss how performance plays a role in our current ideas about the performativity of queer identity and ways that game developers can encourage players to foster safe game communities during TTRPG play.

ABSTRACT. The spatial practices of dwelling and being-at-home in digital gameworlds has been the subject of some attention in game studies (Vella 2019, Lima 2022, Nguyen 2024). In games like Animal Crossing (Nintendo 2003) and Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe 2016) – as well as in specific locations in games like Mass Effect (Bioware 2007) and The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine (CD Projekt RED 2015) – the impulse towards progression and movement towards the goal of the quest is replaced with the spatial practices of habituation, repetition, lingering, and an inward-drawing focus on the centre, often with affects of coziness (Waszkiewicz and Bakun 2020; Poirier-Poulin 2024). In this presentation, we shall expand on this work by focusing on how the different temporalities that intertwine in gameplay shape the player experience of these in-game home places. More specifically, we shall examine moments of homecoming – the return to game places that no longer afford the practices or affective qualities of dwelling. In order to do so, we shall be drawing not only on the aforementioned literature on space and place in games, as well as approaches to the phenomenology of space (Bachelard 1994; Casey 1993; Massey 2005) but also on existing work on time in games (Zagal and Mateas 2010, Alvarez Igarzábal 2019). We shall also argue that the affective experiences of unhomeliness that such moments of return give the player can be conceptualized through the notion of the uncanny (Royle 2003). There is already some existing work that looks at uncanny effects in games, mostly focusing on horror effects or intermedial poetics of glitches (Holmes 2008; Janik 2019; Zawacki 2024). However, what we are referring to by the uncanny in this context is “the sense of something unhomely at the heart of hearth and home” (Royle 2003, 1). We propose to follow a hauntological route (Derrida 1994; Royle 2003) and consider the uncanniness of “time out of joint.” This allows us to explore the tension that appears when different layers of time collide in one moment, trapping the player in a present still bound by the past, not letting them orient themselves towards the future. This moment often generates a space for longing rooted in nostalgia (Boym 2001; Sloan 2016). We propose a taxonomy of five different kinds of uncanny homecoming in games. The first, narrative homecoming - which we encounter in games like Gone Home (Fullbright 2013), Returnal (Housemarque 2021) and Bastion (Supergiant Games 2011), describes situations where a game’s scripted narrative returns the player-character to a former home that is not a part of the player’s past experience. Here, the temporal dimension at work is “fictive time” (Zagal and Mateas 2010, 8), and the past that haunts these unhomely places is the past of the scripted narrative, disconnected from the player’s lived temporal experience. The second kind of uncanny homecoming, progression homecoming, occurs in situations where the player’s progression through the game, whether in the linear form of a scripted narrative or in a more open structure, brings them back to an in-game place they had previously inhabited, and in relation to which they had experienced the affects of dwelling and homeliness - only to find that the place is no longer the same - as in the return to Candlekeep in Baldur’s Gate (Bioware 1998) and the return to Kokiri Forest in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 1998). Here, the temporality in question is that of the player’s alterbiography (Calleja 2011), and the uncanny affect emerges in the disconnect between the player’s memory of the place, and what they find upon their return. Third, there is the uncanny feeling of negated homecoming which a player might feel when, having put in a great deal of work in the development of the gameworld as a place that can afford the experience of dwelling, they return to the start of the game. All personal efforts and meaningful choices disappear from the digital materiality of the gameworld, surviving only in the player's memory. Here, the player finds themselves at a disjuncture in the flow of time - to use Zagal and Mateas’ terms, the “real-world time” in which the player lives has moved forward, while “gameworld time” has reverted, undoing all of their work and progress (2010). Fourth, there is the return to the abandoned game home, where the player returns to a game place that used to afford the qualities of dwelling and homeliness, to find that the virtual space is materially different and no longer provides the same affective qualities - either through its abandonment by the player (Animal Crossing) or by other players (as in the case of dead MMO worlds, like Meridian 59 [Archetype Interactive 1996]), or due to a game having changed significantly as a result of patches and version updates (Baldur’s Gate III [Larian Studios 2023]). Finally, there is the experience of returning, after many years have passed, to a fondly remembered gameworld - only to find that, though it has remained uncannily the same, we have changed. In this kind of nostalgic homecoming, we are dealing with the uncanny of that which has remained the same, but that marks our divergence as individuals, returning to find that the same gameplace no longer affords the same affective qualities of dwelling. Rather than an alterbiographical return - where the temporality in question is that of the player’s existence in the gameworld - this is an autobiographical one, marked by a nostalgic relation to the game itself as a recollected place of dwelling (Sloan 2016). By examining these different forms of uncanny homecomings in games, we aim to shed light, not only on the experiences and affects of dwelling and being at home in digital gameworlds, but also on the temporalities of our experiences of game places, and on the way that past and present intersect on multiple temporal levels in our dwelling, and returning, to these places.

ABSTRACT. Historical video games are often said to focus predominantly on violence, conquest, empire-building, resource management, technological progression, and audiovisual fidelity or authenticity. In this presentation, I explore how cozy games set in historical periods might challenge these hegemonic languages of history in games. Looking at titles such as Tiny Glade (2024, Pounce Light), REKA (2024, Emberstorm Entertainment), Dawn of Defiance (2024, Traega Entertainment), Valheim (2021, Iron Gate AB) and Manor Lords (2024, Slavic Magic), I note how 'cozy history' introduces new historical frameworks to video games. Specifically, cozy history seems to foreground building and creating in collectives and natural environments situated only loosely in particular historical periods, characterized by non-photorealist aesthetics and by either a general, or a potential absence of violence. Finally, I argue that this paradigm of cozy history strongly emphasizes affect, allowing players to be emotionally invested in their own constructed presence within history.

ABSTRACT. Video games are increasingly recognized as tools for stress management, yet the psychological mechanisms underlying their effectiveness remain debated. Through qualitative analysis of interviews and play sessions with stressed individuals, this study identifies two distinct modes of gaming for emotional regulation: mindless play, characterized by distraction and casual engagement, and mindful play, involving deeper cognitive and emotional investment. These modes align with established psychological theories of distraction and reappraisal in emotional regulation. While mindless play offers immediate stress relief through distraction, mindful play may support longer-term emotional resilience through metaphorical and narrative processing of stressful situations. The choice between modes appears to be influenced by both individual preferences and immediate emotional resources. This distinction has implications for understanding gaming's role in emotional well-being and suggests new directions for both therapeutic and commercial game design targeting stress management.

ABSTRACT. Videogames, the games industry, and game studies all find themselves at a crossroads of ecological crisis. Considering the entanglement of games with ecological crisis in terms of their environmental impact, their ecological textuality, and the sustainability of game development, this paper explores the methodology of anecdotal evidence to study games’ ecological relations. Doing so requires that the analysis of games comes to appreciate their innate politics to cultivate ecopolitical negotiation. By reviewing the lineage of ecomedia theory in game studies, this paper retrospectively identifies anecdotal method as capable of bridging between situated knowledge and planetary realities. Prospectively, this paper suggests future directions for anecdotal analysis.

ABSTRACT. This paper intends to explore some ways historical games, and game scholars interested in historical theory, can draw from the fantasy genre to address contemporary dilemmas brought about by the Anthropocenic condition. It proposes a theoretical reevaluation of the role of fantasy in games, arguing for its recognition not simply as non-factual historiography or technocultural mashup (Cole 2022), but as a potentially distinctive mode of being in time. I will seek to address its points of conflict with historical epistemologies and highlight ways it can (or it cannot) be reconciled with historical understanding.

My point of departure is the growing number of studies highlighting how ludic means of manipulating time in games - or conversely, denying temporal agency outright - affect the representation and perception of temporalities (e.g. Zagal and Mateas 2010; Bódi 2022). This potential is evident in games in which ontological agency in on the line, from classics like Legend of Mana (Square 1999) to more recent titles like Slay the Princess, (Black Tabby Games 2023). Yet, as scholars like Nikolchina (2017) and Jayemanne (2019) have shown, heterochronia – a multiplicity of competing times – is present in most computer games thanks to commonplace features like save games, pause buttons, fast-travelling, auto battling, and levelling up mechanics.

The ubiquity of such features even in the most factually grounded of historical games means that, just like fantasy works can be framed as history games, historical games can be interpreted as temporal fantasy. More importantly, it also means that resorts to the fantastic can be mobilized as a method with which to interpret in-game temporalities. This perspective may prove particularly fruitful for the ludic representation of phenomena that challenge the limits of the historical discipline, like the decentering of human agency and reappraisal of non-Modern ontologies proposed by ecological theory and ecocriticism (Morton 2016; Bennet 2010).

The research behind this presentation is part of the broader project “Amazonian Dreams and the Relational Imagination”, which aims to combine scientific, historical, and Indigenous epistemologies to implement responses to the climate emergency.

ABSTRACT. Zombies have long been a mainstay of videogames, providing players with hordes of abject reanimated corpses to gun down, stealthily avoid or hack and slash at in the desperate last moments of a virtual life. However, the form zombiism takes within contemporary videogames is changing in ways that radically redefine the boundaries of this familiar apocalyptic menace. This transformation resituates the ludic undead at the nexus of our present climate crisis and the material conditions surrounding play. In this presentation I make a case for an emerging figuration of the zombie as an undead ecology rather than an embodied figure. This view rests on the observation that the necrotisation of the planet Earth, a process accelerated by the ecological relations associated with late-stage capitalism (McBrien 2016), is intricately connected to this new form of ludic zombiism. I examine two games that sit outside the conventions of traditional zombie texts—Timberborn (Mechanistry 2021) and Elden Ring (FromSoftware 2022)—to reveal that, just as the shambling corpses of earlier zombies destabilised biological and ontological meaning, virtual landscapes and ecologies in contemporary games now ply the margins of life, subjectivity and meaning.

ABSTRACT. See attached

ABSTRACT. Based on the theory of embodied interaction and multi-modal sensory design, this study constructs an immersive plant experience model integrating virtual reality technology, and explores the effect of the integration of multiple senses, such as visual, tactile, and olfactory, on the enhancement of user immersion and participation. By integrating software and hardware technologies, an interaction scene containing dynamic rendering, wind sensation simulation and odor feedback is designed, and the effectiveness of the model is verified through user experiments. The experimental results show that the multi-modal interaction design significantly enhances the user's immersion and emotional connection, and provides a new direction for the application of virtual reality in cultural, ecological and educational fields. The study also analyzes the current technical limitations of multi-modal design and proposes future optimization solutions and application expansion possibilities.Place your ‘full paper’ abstract here. You do not need to have this in an ‘extended abstract’ or other paper formats.

ABSTRACT. One of the most important consequences of climate change are the increase frequency of urban disasters. However, it is almost impossible to make simulations in reality of universities, large corporations or large government buildings whose physical infrastructure houses the largest concentration of people in the same space due to the complexity and cost (in time and money) that they require. that would imply. Therefore, the use of Information Technologies and virtual reality (Bianconi,et al. 2023) and serious games becomes relevant to integrate various catastrophic scenarios (Wang,et al.2022) and obtain metrics in two way.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) to enhance public engagement in cultural contexts, focusing on experiences designed for the MobiCave platform. By integrating the MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) framework with the Framework for Immersive Virtual Environments (FIVE), we examine how VR experiences can be designed to maximize usability, engagement, and educational outcomes. Particular attention is given to the interplay of interaction design, immersion, and spectator roles in shared VR spaces. Case studies from the MobiCave demonstrate how these frameworks guide the balance between entertainment and educational objectives, while also addressing the dynamics of multi-user interaction and bystander engagement. The work highlights the value of combining game mechanics, emotional engagement, and accessibility to create impactful and memorable cultural experiences.

ABSTRACT. This extended abstract is for a WIP study which explores the impact of full-body haptic feedback, delivered via Teslasuits, on Sense of Presence (SoP), affective engagement, and game engagement in a narrative-driven VR game, 'You Are Being Followed'. Using a mixed-methods approach, 50 participants play under haptic and non-haptic conditions, with measures including self-reports, psychophysiological data, and qualitative interviews. Findings aim to inform VR game design, highlighting the potential of full-body haptics to enhance immersion, emotional resonance, and accessibility, advancing immersive storytelling and inclusive gameplay experiences in virtual environments.

ABSTRACT. The interdisciplinary nature of game studies situates the field at the crossroads of the humanities and social sciences, among others. Reflecting on its progression from its recent history to the present, we can identify in-game violence as an under-explored concept within the existing body of knowledge. A new framework for understanding in-game violence can shed light on broader concepts of violence, particularly in digital spaces, and contribute to the multidisciplinary discourse on the subject. By using digital games as a lens to explore how players engage with violence and its meanings, we can gain deeper insights. Central to this exploration are the embodied cognition involved in gaming and the kinaesthetic experience of violence, which serve as a starting point.

ABSTRACT. This extended abstract proposes the method Discourse Analysis of Game Mechanics to identify discourses in digital game mechanics, where mechanics define players' ideal actions and discourse is understood as a communicative event that links language and action. The method is analytical, descriptive, and qualitative, focusing on the semantics of action through the mechanics-action-verb triad. The procedure is divided into three stages: pre-analysis, analysis, and results

ABSTRACT. This pilot study presents a mixed-methods, player-experience centric examination of past-play, play about and around history, as a process of destabilizing and shaping relationships to the past. A large portion of contemporary work analyzing historical games centers on researcher-centric and game-centric approaches, such as close-playing and developer interviews (Chapman 2016; Mukherjee 2018; Grufstedt 2022). These ventures demonstrate the value in studying historical videogames as sites of pastness, recognizing and categorizing historicity in and around videogame play in relation to discourses of authenticity, accuracy, and agency, among others. However, recent works have highlighted the need for a shift in historical game studies research, incorporating game-analytic approaches, larger-scale analyses, and focusing on experience (Mol 2020; Politopoulos et al. 2019). This pilot study combines player observation, eye-tracking, survey data, and focus group discussion, to two ends: (I) to examine past-play using an Open Science, mixed-methods approach, and (II) to road-test the feasibility of implementing the chosen methods at scale. The pilot presents the first phase of a larger series of past-play ‘labs’, showing the potential of iterative, mixed-methods research for deepening lines of investigation into past-play.

ABSTRACT. Video game scholarship has a long history of debates on how a video game’s materiality, in other words, its programmatic structure, matters to its analysis. The distinction that is constantly reproduced is this structure vs. everything else in a computer game: rules vs. narrative, form vs. content, code vs. representation etc.. The founding moment of the game studies journal is built on this difference, arguing that the structure itself requires its own methodology separate from literature and films (Aarseth 2001). The proceduralist movement focused on the rhetorical capabilities of procedural systems, as distinct from narrative and audiovisual qualities (Bogost 2010, p14). It also has consequences on the curriculum of game design, where interaction and system design is emphasized and taught through computer science programs (Malazita et al. 2024), while narrative, audio and visual design is considered separate disciplines. This abstract argues that computationalism is a factor that continually reinforces this division at an ontological level for games (the “gameness” of games), thus denaturalizing computationalism from studies of video games.