Designing co-present experiences in mixed reality spaces

Recent advances in commercial devices mean that Virtual and Augmented Reality hardware is more available to the public than ever before. However, game design practice in these areas is still evolving. This project will explore the issues around designing for co-presence in mixed reality games (situations where multiple participants are taking part in a shared gaming environment, but interacting through different modes), and will draw on existing interaction and game design theories in order to develop a new design framework for asymmetric mixed reality games.

In particular it will examine the applicability of multi-player interaction frameworks (such as Spawforth, 2018), potential approaches include assessing the importance of asymmetric information, investigating the impact on player experience of inequitable mechanics, and exploring the potential of interactive narrative in spaces where there is inter-player agency - and the potential for both multi-player differentiability and a multi-player common experience within a single narrative.

The work will include reviewing the range of asymmetric games that are available (typically using desktop and VR), as well as the mixed reality experiences described in the literature. However, as there are relatively few examples to study it is expected that as part of the project a range of small scale prototype exemplars will be created in order to explore the design space and evaluate the impact on player experience with real participants.

It is expected that the outcomes of the work will be relevant to conferences such as ICIDS and FDG, and journals such as IEEE Transactions on Games.