Amani Naseem

This chapter describes the Playmakers in the Maldives project, a collaborative work made for the Maldives Exodus Caravan Show at the 55th Venice Biennale. The project involved ten international game designers collaborating with the Maldivian communities and individuals to create games and play events in the public spaces of the Maldivian capital island Male. We present the games developed and describe some of the issues that we faced during the project.

In this chapter we explore the interconnections between art, ethnography and play. Through a series of workshops with young people focused on digital and non-digital play, we consider how participatory design can inform ethnographic methods and vice versa. These workshops were part of an exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) called The Art of Play. The Art of Play is part of a broader project (funded by the Australian Research Council discovery), Games of Being Mobile (DP140104295), which takes an ethnographic approach to games in everyday Australian households over three years. This project is also part of the “connected and creative” stream of the Young and Well CRC. Drawing on play studies, visual culture and art, this chapter explores the use of ethnography as a conceptual lens, a series of methods and a way in which to experiment with modes of transmission and impact. Hjorth, L., Balmford, W., Greenfield, S., Gaspard, L., Naseem, A. and T. Penney (2016) "The Art of Play: Ethnography and Playful Interventions with young people". In L. Hjorth, H. Horst, G. Bell and A. Galloway (eds) The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography. London/ New York: Routledge.

This article presents the game Junomi, a game designed to give families and teenagers opportunities to play with the way they communicate and also experience closeness and togetherness. Taking a research based approach and getting a detailed understanding of the situation to design for facilitated an investigation that helped seeing potentials for playful moments and spaces in the situation, as well as how the different elements and aspects of the situation could be made playable. Everyday communication is considered complex, heterogeneous and indefinable and the game does not, which models or simulate the complexity of the situation, but to create a frame that invites, suggests, reminds and encourage for a playful mind in the everyday and thereby gives possibilities for the families to, through play, explore and experiments with ways of communicating and ways of being together. The experience of the game depends largely on how the players choose to engage with the game.

This paper describes the design process of the Location Based Mobile game (LBMG) KENARDUMA that tackles the problem of loneliness among Danish teenagers. This article demonstrates a research through design process. Research of the families everyday situation is drawn in to make a game that is relevant to the issue. Examination of design assumptions, ideologies and framing and reframing of the design situation allows for a versatile design process. The issue addressed is This paper describes the design process of the Location Based Mobile game (LBMG) KENARDUMA that tackles the problem of loneliness among Danish teenagers. The paper demonstrates a research through design process. This paper draws on literature and methods from design practice, HCI and interaction design to develop a game that is relevant to the problem addressed. The problem is considered complicated, heterogeneous and indefinable and using a transdisciplinary approach, knowledge from various fields are drawn in to ex...

This article presents the game Junomi, a game designed to give families and teenagers opportunities to play with the way they communicate and also experience closeness and togetherness. Taking a research based approach and getting a detailed understanding of the situation to design for facilitated an investigation that helped seeing potentials for playful moments and spaces in the situation, as well as how the different elements and aspects of the situation could be made playable. Everyday communication is considered complex, heterogeneous and indefinable and the game does not, which models or simulate the complexity of the situation, but to create a frame that invites, suggests, reminds and encourage for a playful mind in the everyday and thereby gives possibilities for the families to, through play, explore and experiments with ways of communicating and ways of being together. The experience of the game depends largely on how the players choose to engage with the game.

Recent years have witnessed a rise in Game Jams organized events to create playable prototypes in a very short time frame. Game Jams offer a unique and quick way to prototype games. Beyond that, we believe Game Jams can also be seen as a design research method, situated in the research-through-design tradition, to create knowledge in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. The goal of this Game Jam is thus twofold: first, participants will use the Game Jam approach to investigate a research question; second, participants can, through actual practice, identify advantages and disadvantages of Game Jams as a research method. Hereby the Game Jam workshop provides a unique opportunity for HCI practitioners and researchers to gain experience in applying gameoriented methods for research.

ABSTRACT Recent years have witnessed a rise in Game Jams - organized events to create playable prototypes in a very short time frame. Game Jams offer a unique and quick way to prototype games. Beyond that, we believe Game Jams can also be seen as a design research method, situated in the research-through-design tradition, to create knowledge in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. The goal of this Game Jam is thus twofold: first, participants will use the Game Jam approach to investigate a research question; second, participants can, through actual practice, identify advantages and disadvantages of Game Jams as a research method. Hereby the Game Jam workshop provides a unique opportunity for HCI practitioners and researchers to gain experience in applying game-oriented methods for research.

ABSTRACT Digital games are increasingly profiting from sensing technologies. However, their focus is mostly on sensing limb movements. We propose that sensing capabilities could also be used to engage players with proxemics: the interpersonal distance between players. We further add that wireless networks offer complementary distance zones for designers, offering novel design resources for digital play. We use our own as well as other games to articulate a set of strategies on how designers can utilize both proxemics and the new wireless proxemics to facilitate novel play experiences. Ultimately, with our work, we aim to expand the range of digital play.

ABSTRACT Recent years have witnessed a rise in Game Jams - organized events to create playable prototypes in a very short time frame. Game Jams offer a unique and quick way to prototype games. Beyond that, we believe Game Jams can also be seen as a design research method, situated in the research-through-design tradition, to create knowledge in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. The goal of this Game Jam is thus twofold: first, participants will use the Game Jam approach to investigate a research question; second, participants can, through actual practice, identify advantages and disadvantages of Game Jams as a research method. Hereby the Game Jam workshop provides a unique opportunity for HCI practitioners and researchers to gain experience in applying game-oriented methods for research.

ABSTRACT Digital games are increasingly profiting from sensing technologies. However, their focus is mostly on sensing limb movements. We propose that sensing capabilities could also be used to engage players with proxemics: the interpersonal distance between players. We further add that wireless networks offer complementary distance zones for designers, offering novel design resources for digital play. We use our own as well as other games to articulate a set of strategies on how designers can utilize both proxemics and the new wireless proxemics to facilitate novel play experiences. Ultimately, with our work, we aim to expand the range of digital play.

This article presents the game Junomi, a game designed to give families and teenagers opportunities to play with the way they communicate and also experience closeness and togetherness. Taking a research based approach and getting a detailed understanding of the situation to design for facilitated an investigation that helped seeing potentials for playful moments and spaces in the situation, as well as how the different elements and aspects of the situation could be made playable. Everyday communication is considered complex, heterogeneous and indefinable and the game does not, which models or simulate the complexity of the situation, but to create a frame that invites, suggests, reminds and encourage for a playful mind in the everyday and thereby gives possibilities for the families to, through play, explore and experiments with ways of communicating and ways of being together. The experience of the game depends largely on how the players choose to engage with the game.

Location-aware systems have attracted much attention from academic and industrial users. Location detection or positioning devices are required in order to get location information. Bluetooth is often used to detect the users’ location in indoor location-aware applications. This paper integrates the Blip devices, which are based on Bluetooth technologies, into location-aware applications. A service oriented method is proposed to provide more flexibility and extensibility of the system. The prototype of CPH AirNotes with Blip devices is developed to show that the proposed method’s effectiveness. Also the performance analysis of Blip is discussed according to experiences with CPH AirNotes.