This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the First International Workshop on Motion in Games, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, during June 14-17, 2008, in collaboration with the NLGD Festival of Games. The 24 revised papers presented during the workshop cover topics on crowd simulation; virtual humans; motion synthesis; interfaces; navigation and steering; and facial and behavioral animation.

Advances in human-computer interaction (HCI) technologies have led to emerging computer game systems that foster physical exertion as part of the interaction. This book provides an overview of existing work in the area, outlines a spectrum of exertion games, and presents an analysis of key enabling technologies.

The book is about user interfaces to applications that have been designed for social and physical interaction. The interfaces are ‘playful’, that is, users feel challenged to engage in social and physical interaction because that will be fun. The topics that will be present in this book are interactive playgrounds, urban games using mobiles, sensor-equipped environments for playing, child-computer interaction, tangible game interfaces, interactive tabletop technology and applications, full-body interaction, exertion games, persuasion, engagement, evaluation and user experience. Readers of the book will not only get a survey of state-of-the-art research in these areas, but the chapters in this book will also provide a vision of the future where playful interfaces will be ubiquitous, that is, present and integrated in home, office, recreational, sports and urban environments, emphasizing that in the future in these environments game elements will be integrated and welcomed.

Evaluating interactive systems for their user experience (UX) is a standard approach in industry and research today. This book explores the areas of game design and development and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) as ways to understand the various contributing aspects of the overall gaming experience. Fully updated, extended and revised this book is based upon the original publication Evaluating User Experience in Games, and provides updated methods and approaches ranging from user- orientated methods to game specific approaches. New and emerging methods and areas explored include physiologically- orientated UX evaluation, user behaviour, telemetry based methods and social play as effective evaluation techniques for gaming design and evolving user-experience. Game User Experience Evaluation allows researchers, PhD students as well as game designers and developers to get an overview on available methods for all stages of the development life cycle.

It was a pleasure to provide an introduction to a new volume on user experience evaluation in games. The scope, depth, and diversity of the work here is amazing. It attests to the growing popularity of games and the increasing importance developing a range of theories, methods, and scales to evaluate them. This evolution is driven by the cost and complexity of games being developed today. It is also driven by the need to broaden the appeal of games. Many of the approaches described here are enabled by new tools and techniques. This book (along with a few others) represents a watershed in game evaluation and understanding. The eld of game evaluation has truly “come of age”. The broader eld of HCI can begin to look toward game evaluation for fresh, critical, and sophisticated thi- ing about design evaluation and product development. They can also look to games for groundbreaking case studies of evaluation of products. I’ll brie y summarize each chapter below and provide some commentary. In conclusion, I will mention a few common themes and offer some challenges. Discussion In Chapter 1, User Experience Evaluation in Entertainment, Bernhaupt gives an overview and presents a general framework on methods currently used for user experience evaluation. The methods presented in the following chapters are s- marized and thus allow the reader to quickly assess the right set of methods that will help to evaluate the game under development.

As the distinction between the digital and the material world becomes increasingly blurred, the ways in which we think about design are also shifting and evolving. How can the human, digital and material be brought together to intervene in the world? What constitutes our digital-material environments? How can we engage with digital technologies to make sustainable, healthy and meaningful decisions, both now and in the future? Digital Materialities presents twelve chapters by scholars and practitioners working at the intersection between design and digital research in the UK, Spain, Australia and the USA. By incorporating in-depth understandings of the digital-material world from both the social sciences and design, the book considers how this combined knowledge might advance our capacity to design for the future. Divided into three parts, the focus of the book moves from the theoretical to the practical: how different digital materialities are imagined and emerge, through software emulation, urban sensors and smart homes; how new digital designs are sparked through collaborations between social scientists and designers; and finally, how digital design emerges from the insider work of everyday designers. A fascinating, ground-breaking book for students and scholars of digital anthropology, media and communication, and anyone interested in the future of digital design.