Games Beyond Entertainment
Within this research theme, we situate all research on games and play where entertainment is not the main goal. Rather, games and play are studied in their capacity to persuade, steer, sell or in other ways influence the player through its design. This includes the many examples of serious games and gaming (educational, political, commercial) as well as the various forms and applications of gamification. We look both at the potential of, and provides critical reflection on these developments.
Playable Personas: Using Games and Play to Expand the Repertoire of Learner Personas
This article explores how playing and co-creating games in higher education contexts contributes to expanding learner personas and facilitating a multimodal learning experience. Working from the interdisciplinary perspectives of media/games studies, pedagogy, and linguistic anthropology, Stefan Werning, Deborah Cole, and Andrea Maragliano conceptualize in-class learning as the making and playing of games, reporting on game experiments and playful practices targeted at learning key theoretical concepts in our disciplines.
Making data playable: A game co-creation method to promote creative data literacy
This article explores how making data playable, i.e. developing exploratory co-creation techniques that use elements of play and games to interpret small to mid-sized datasets beyond the current focus on visual evidence, can help a) promote creative data literacy in higher education, and b) expand existing definitions of data literacy.
The Playful Citizen. Civic Engagement in a Mediatized Culture
The Playful Citizen edited volume explores how and through what media we are becoming more playful as citizens and how this manifests itself in our ways of doing, living, and thinking.
DietCare: the value of game elements
What if keeping track of your food and fluids intake feels like playing a game rather than paperwork?
Health games symposium
This symposium brought together experts in the fields of game design and development, psychology, neuroscience, physiotherapy, and data and computer science.
Exercise game to reduce the risk of falling
To reduce the falling risk, researchers developed a fun and motivating exercise game for the elderly.
Personalised interactive wall for elderly with dementia
People suffering from dementia often feel confused and depressed. Some of them also display wandering behaviour. We build an interactive wall for people suffering from dementia.
A virtual sleep coach in your pocket
Researchers from Utrecht University, the University of Amsterdam and TU Delft have developed an app that helps users learn to sleep better
Crowds deciphered: simulation and control of the masses
We have researched a model for simulating crowds in big infrastructures, at events, and in computer games.
Game Research Magazine
In 2017, a special issue titled Game Research – Games that Change your Mind was published about the research projects of the Utrecht Center for Game Research.