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Background Serious games are now widely used in many contexts, including psychological research and clinical use. One area of growing interest is that of cognitive assessment, which seeks to measure different cognitive functions such as memory, attention, and perception. Measuring these functions at both the population and individual levels can inform research and indicate health issues. Attention is an important function to assess, as an accurate measure of attention can help diagnose many common disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and dementia. However, using games to assess attention poses unique problems, as games inherently manipulate attention through elements such as sound effects, graphics, and rewards, and research on adding game elements to assessments (ie, gamification) has shown mixed results. The process for developing cognitive tasks is robust, with high psychometric standards that must be met before these tasks are used for assessment. Although games offer more diverse approaches for assessment, there is no standard for how they should be developed or evaluated. Objective To better understand the field and provide guidance to interdisciplinary researchers, we aim to answer the question: How are digital games used for the cognitive assessment of attention made and measured? Methods We searched several databases for papers that described a digital game used to assess attention that could be deployed remotely without specialized hardware. We used Rayyan, a systematic review software, to screen the records before conducting a systematic review. Results The initial database search returned 49,365 papers. Our screening process resulted in a total of 74 papers that used a digital game to measure cognitive functions related to attention. Across the studies in our review, we found three approaches to making assessment games: gamifying cognitive tasks, creating custom games based on theories of cognition, and exploring potential assessment properties of commercial games. With regard to measuring the assessment properties of these games (eg, how accurately they assess attention), we found three approaches: comparison to a traditional cognitive task, comparison to a clinical diagnosis, and comparison to knowledge of cognition; however, most studies in our review did not evaluate the game’s properties (eg, if participants enjoyed the game). Conclusions Our review provides an overview of how games used for the assessment of attention are developed and evaluated. We further identified three barriers to advancing the field: reliance on assumptions, lack of evaluation, and lack of integration and standardization. We then recommend the best practices to address these barriers. Our review can act as a resource to help guide the field toward more standardized approaches and rigorous evaluation required for the widespread adoption of assessment games.

BACKGROUND Serious games are now widely used in many contexts, including psychological research and clinical use. One area of growing interest is that of cognitive assessment, which seeks to measure different cognitive functions such as memory, attention, and perception. Measuring these functions at both the population and individual levels can inform research and indicate health issues. Attention is an important function to assess, as an accurate measure of attention can help diagnose many common disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and dementia. However, using games to assess attention poses unique problems, as games inherently manipulate attention through elements such as sound effects, graphics, and rewards, and research on adding game elements to assessments (ie, gamification) has shown mixed results. The process for developing cognitive tasks is robust, with high psychometric standards that must be met before these tasks are used for assessment. Although games offer more diverse approaches for assessment, there is no standard for how they should be developed or evaluated. OBJECTIVE To better understand the field and provide guidance to interdisciplinary researchers, we aim to answer the question: How are digital games used for the cognitive assessment of attention made and measured? METHODS We searched several databases for papers that described a digital game used to assess attention that could be deployed remotely without specialized hardware. We used Rayyan, a systematic review software, to screen the records before conducting a systematic review. RESULTS The initial database search returned 49,365 papers. Our screening process resulted in a total of 74 papers that used a digital game to measure cognitive functions related to attention. Across the studies in our review, we found three approaches to making assessment games: gamifying cognitive tasks, creating custom games based on theories of cognition, and exploring potential assessment properties of commercial games. With regard to measuring the assessment properties of these games (eg, how accurately they assess attention), we found three approaches: comparison to a traditional cognitive task, comparison to a clinical diagnosis, and comparison to knowledge of cognition; however, most studies in our review did not evaluate the game’s properties (eg, if participants enjoyed the game). CONCLUSIONS Our review provides an overview of how games used for the assessment of attention are developed and evaluated. We further identified three barriers to advancing the field: reliance on assumptions, lack of evaluation, and lack of integration and standardization. We then recommend the best practices to address these barriers. Our review can act as a resource to help guide the field toward more standardized approaches and rigorous evaluation required for the widespread adoption of assessment games.

Physiological sensing has been a prominent fixture in games user research (GUR) since the late 1990s, when researchers started to explore its potential to enhance and understand experience within digital game play. Since these early days, is has been widely argued that "affective gaming"---in which gameplay is influenced by a player's emotional state---can enhance player experience by integrating physiological sensors into play. Reflecting in 2020 on these last 20 years of progress, we systematically review the field of affective gaming to answer whether or not it has met this promise. We create a framework (the affective game loop) to classify 162 publications (included from an initial search set of 52,834 results) within affective gaming, present findings on the current state of the field, and discuss how our findings, contextualized within the affective game loop, can guide the future of affective gaming.

Social closeness is important for health and well-being, but is difficult to maintain over a distance. Games can help connect people by strengthening existing relationships or creating new ones through shared playful experiences. We present the design and evaluation of 'In the Same Boat' (ITSB), a two-player infinite runner designed to foster social closeness in distributed dyads. ITSB leverages the synchronization of both players' input to steer a canoe down a river and avoid obstacles. We created two versions: embodied controls, which use players' physiological signals (breath rate, facial expressions), and standard keyboard controls. Results from a study with 35 dyads indicate that ITSB fostered affiliation, and while embodied controls were less intuitive, people enjoyed them more. Further, photos of the dyads were rated as happier and closer in the embodied condition, indicating the potential of embodied controls to foster social closeness in synchronized play over a distance.

With the rise of live streaming and esports in recent years, it becomes increasingly important for the HCI community to understand this phenomenon. The organizers encourage people to submit papers with novel interfaces they wish to explore in a live streaming context. In this workshop, participants will discuss different facets of the live streaming experience and obtain a greater understanding of the culture that exists on streaming platforms like Twitch. They will then participate in a design exercise, forming groups and iterating on a design together. Discussion/design topics will include ideas encouraging audience participation, moderation of toxicity, and other such topics. Participants will leave the workshop with ideas about how they can better design games and other experiences taking the live streaming ecosystem into consideration.

Social closeness is important for an individual's health and well-being, and this is especially difficult to maintain over a distance. Games can help with this, to connect and strengthen relationships or create new ones by enabling shared playful experiences. The demo proposed is a game we designed called 'In the Same Boat', a two-player game intended to foster social closeness between players over a distance. We leverage the synchronization of both players' physiological data (heart rate, breathing,facial expressions) mapped to an input scheme to control the movement of a canoe down a river.

In this paper, we describe a comparative analysis of several emotional reporting techniques for assessing gameplay experience. We compared newer feedback methods, such as the Sensual Evaluation Instrument (SEI) and recent tools for capturing physiological data, with more traditional techniques such as think-aloud, the Immersive Experience Questionnaire (IEQ), and retrospective interviews. We present results from an exploratory study with 7 participants who all played the same game and gave feedback on their emotional experience using this suite of methods. Preliminary results indicated that mixed methods offer complementary strengths in registering player emotion, are useful at different moments of play, and help to accommodate differences in the ways players' emotions manifest. We argue for the value of using multiple methods in evaluating players' emotional response to games.

Interactive storytelling balances the desire to create dynamic, engaging experiences around characters and situations with the practical considerations of the cost of producing content. We describe a method for assessing player experience by analyzing player facial expressions following key content events in The Wolf Among Us by Telltale Games. Two metrics, engagement and valence, are extracted for six participants who play the first episode of the game. An analysis of the variance and distribution of responses relative to emotionally charged content events and choices suggests that content is designed around events that serve to anchor player emotions while providing the freedom to respond through emotionally-motivated choice selections and content elicitors.

In this paper, we present All the Feels, a tool that provides an overlay of biometric and webcam-derived data onto the interface of the popular video game streaming service, Twitch. This overlay provides visualization of heart rate, skin conductance, and facial emotion recognition. It is intended to enhance the spectator experience and improve streamer-spectator connection. We present results of a preliminary study investigating spectator reactions to the introduction of this tool, via a live test with a streamer. Analysis of the stream combined with survey responses from 17 spectators indicates enhanced enjoyment of the stream, and suggests that spectators may feel more connected to the streamer. This work opens up opportunities to improve stream quality and spectator engagement through the introduction of an interface that includes biometric signals.

All the Feels is a tool developed to incorporate biometric data into online gameplay streams. The tool displays heart rate and GSR (galvanic skin response) information to stream spectators, taken from the player in real-time, through the use of a commercially available wearable device. The tool also provides emotion labeling information input from existing auto-detection software that uses the player's webcam. In this paper, we motivate and discuss the initial prototype of the tool, and present results of a preliminary study with stream watchers and streamers to assess the potential of this novel addition to streaming gameplay.