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Documents
ANTs on the TRPG Table: Collaborating with Actor-Network Theory to Understand Role-Playing
Japanese Journal ofAnalog INVITEDPAPER ANTs on the TRPG Table: Collaborating with Actor-Network Theory to Understand Role-Playing This article introduces actor-network theory (ANT) as an innovative methodological approach for studying tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs).
What Makes a Rulebook Accessible and Entertaining? Recommendations of Best Practices
CJARPS Japanese Journal ofAnalog THEORETICAL ARTICLE What Makes a Rulebook Accessible and Entertaining?
The Infusion of Virtuality and Reality: Video Games in Exhibition Space and the Flow of Power
This research examines video games in exhibition spaces as ecosystems of human and non-human actors, focusing on how agency and power circulate among institutions, artists, audiences, and machines.
- Video games in exhibition spaces redistribute agency among institutions, artists, audiences, and machines, destabilizing traditional curatorial hierarchies and making exhibition power dynamics more complex and less stable.
- Games tend to attract more diverse visitor types and give audiences greater agency within the exhibition experience.
- Technological labour and machine maintenance function as non-human participants in game-based exhibitions, and are often overlooked because they are treated as mere tools.
Environmental Storytelling and Active Spectatorship in Walking Simulators and Exploration Theatre
Environmental storytelling in exploration-based immersive theatre and walking simulators is the subject of this study, which argues that both forms place the surrounding environment at the centre of narrative meaning and offer participants exploratory freedom without the power to alter the story's events.
- Environmental storytelling in exploration-based immersive theatre and walking simulators places the surrounding environment at the centre of narrative meaning, while giving participants freedom to explore but no power to change the story's events.
- The study frames audiences and players as "active spectators": their agency is confined to interpreting spaces, traces, and atmosphere rather than intervening in the narrative.
- The analysis identifies two main environmental strategies: indexical storytelling, where objects and arrangements act as cause-and-effect clues inviting participants to reconstruct past events, and atmospheric storytelling, where mood and sensory qualities convey meaning affectively.
Convergent Validity of Game-Based Assessment: A Meta-Analysis
International Journal of Serious Games https://journal.seriousgamessociety.org/ Convergent Validity of Game-Based Assessment: A Meta- Fadillah1,3, Rahmat Hidayat1 and Agung Santoso2 1Faculty of Psychology, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; 2Faculty of Psychology, Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia…
Investigating the Effects of Feedback Modality on Sustained Attention and Performance in a Serious Game: A Pilot Study
International Journal of Serious Games https://journal.seriousgamessociety.org/ Investigating the Effects of Feedback Modality on Sustained Attention and Performance in a Serious Game, A Sara Golbashi1, Golnaz Baghdadi2 1Biomedical Engineering Department, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran 2Biomedical Engineering…
VAFUG: A Model for Designing Educational Activities Grounded in Game Studies and Aesthetics
The paper introduces VAFUG, an analytical model designed to help educators examine commercial video games and build learning activities around their expressive and affective qualities.
- VAFUG is an analytical model for educators to examine commercial video games, organized into three components (Visual and Auditory Environment, Fictional Universe, and Core Gameplay), each paired with two indicators.
- The model was developed through Design-Based Research and is aimed at teachers who are not Game Studies specialists, generating guiding questions for student dialogue on socioemotional and civic competences.
- VAFUG targets independent commercial games not originally designed for education and is positioned as complementary to existing serious-game frameworks such as LM-GM.
Italian Teachers’ Attitudes and Competence According to the Acceptance Game-Based Learning Questionnaire
A survey of 2,752 Italian teachers examined which factors predict attitudes toward game-based learning (GBL), measured with the Acceptance of Game-Based Learning (AGBL) questionnaire.
- School level is the only meaningful demographic predictor of Italian teachers' attitudes toward game-based learning: preschool teachers reported significantly more positive attitudes than teachers at any secondary school type (p < .001), while differences among secondary school types were negligible.
- Demographic variables together explained only about 2 percent of the variance in attitudes toward game-based learning (R² = 0.019), with no significant association for age or years of teaching experience (p = 0.414 for experience).
- The authors attribute the preschool advantage to the constructivist flexibility of early childhood education versus the assessment-driven rigidity of secondary schooling, along with technological disparities across school levels.
The Terrible Victims: "Female Ghosts" as a Cultural Symbol in Chinese Indie Video Games
This paper examines the symbolic function of female ghosts in the horror puzzle genre of Chinese indie video games, arguing that these spectral figures give expression to anxieties about gender, memory, and justice that are difficult to voice openly.
- The paper argues female ghosts in Chinese indie horror puzzle games act as "terrible victims" who reclaim narrative space and ethical agency, expressing anxieties about gender, memory, and justice that are hard to voice openly.
- Analysis of four titles (Detention 2017, Blind Village 2022, Laughing to Die 2024, Firework 2021) identifies two archetypes, the wrathful avenger and the empathetic helper, each shaped by regional context.
- In Detention, the ghost serves as an ethical witness to Taiwan's White Terror, prompting civic reflection on guilt and remembrance, whereas Blind Village presents a vengeful folk-derived spirit reflecting anger over gender injustice and institutional failure in mainland settings.
Turning Play into Progress: Unveiling the Effect of Gamified VR on Learning Through Meta-Analysis
International Journal of Serious Games https://journal.seriousgamessociety.org/ Turning Play into Progress: Unveiling the Effect of Gamified VR on Learning Through Meta-Analysis Yongxiang Zhang1 and Zhonggen Yu1 1Faculty of Foreign Studies, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China {Yongxiang Zhang}…
Impact of a Serious Board Game on the Academic Performance of Future Physical Education Teachers
International Journal of Serious Games https://journal.seriousgamessociety.org/ Impact of a Serious Board Game on the Academic Performance of Future Physical Education Teachers Pablo Sotoca-Orgaz1, Marta Arévalo-Baeza1 and Isaac J.
Serious Games for English Language Learning: A Scoping Review
International Journal of Serious Games https://journal.seriousgamessociety.org/ Serious Games for English Language Learning: A scoping Antonio Patrocinio-Braz1 and Marta Martín-del-Pozo1 1Faculty of Education, Department of Didactics, Organization and Research Methods, University of Salamanca, Keywords: Abstract Serious Games…