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KickAR: Exploring Game Balancing Through Boosts and Handicaps in Augmented Reality Table Football

Published: 19 April 2018 Publication History

Abstract

When player skill levels are not matched, games provide an unsatisfying player experience. Player balancing is used across many digital game genres to address this, but has not been studied for co-located augmented reality (AR) tabletop games, where using boosts and handicaps can adjust for different player skill levels. In the setting of an AR table football game, we studied the importance of game balancing being triggered by the game system or the players, and whether player skill should be required to trigger game balancing. We implemented projected icons to prominently display game balancing mechanics in the AR table football game. In a within-subjects study (N=24), we found players prefer skill-based control over game balancing and that different triggers are perceived as having different fairness. Further, the study showed that even game balancing that is perceived as unfair can provide enjoyable game experiences. Based on our findings, we provide suggestions for player balancing in AR tabletop games.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
      April 2018
      8489 pages
      ISBN:9781450356206
      DOI:10.1145/3173574
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      Published: 19 April 2018

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      Author Tags

      1. augmented reality
      2. foosball
      3. game balancing
      4. handicap
      5. mario kart effect
      6. player experience

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      • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
      • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
      • Mitacs
      • Canada Foundation for Innovation

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      CHI '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 666 of 2,590 submissions, 26%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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      • (2024)DungeonMaker: Embedding Tangible Creation and Destruction in Hybrid Board Games through Personal Fabrication TechnologyProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642243(1-20)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
      • (2024)Effects of a Gaze-Based 2D Platform Game on User Enjoyment, Perceived Competence, and Digital Eye StrainProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641909(1-14)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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