From Disorientation to Harmony: Autoethnographic Insights into Transformative Videogame Experiences

Väkevä, Jaakko; Mekler, Elisa D.; Lindqvist, Janne

doi:10.1145/3613904.3642543

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2024

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Cited by 2 publications

References 86 publications

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Understanding the Design of Emotionally Impactful Game Feel

Bhatnagar,

Laattala,

Dutta

et al. 2024

Companion Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

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Understanding the Design of Emotionally Impactful Game Feel

Bhatnagar,

Laattala,

Dutta

et al. 2024

Companion Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Questions without Answers: Enjoyment of Irresolution in Mystery Player Experience

Kärnä,

Väkevä,

Rautalahti

et al. 2024

Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.

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Mysteries are an engaging form of fiction, capturing audiences with curiosity, uncertainty, and ambiguity. However, mysteries in games have presented a challenge for research since the word mystery may be understood as 1) detective mysteries with clear-cut answers or 2) as mysteries which are unsolvable and incomprehensible. This paper focuses on the latter kind of mysteries. To investigate what constitutes a mystery player experience, in what ways mystery games provide answers to players and how to design these games, we inspected five mystery games through a formalist game analysis by a player-researcher. We discovered (1) how the mystery player experience was characterised by enjoyment of irresolution, state of not receiving clear-cut answers to a mystery, (2) how a mystery condition, a state of wonder and fascination, promoted openness, and (3) how interpretation management represented the doing in the mystery player experience. To our surprise, although the player was driven to find answers to mysteries, the eventual irresolution was an enjoyable experience to the player. We conclude that all mysteries need not be answered during the game, and the experience can be enjoyable because of this.

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From Disorientation to Harmony: Autoethnographic Insights into Transformative Videogame Experiences

Cited by 2 publications

References 86 publications

Understanding the Design of Emotionally Impactful Game Feel

Understanding the Design of Emotionally Impactful Game Feel

Questions without Answers: Enjoyment of Irresolution in Mystery Player Experience

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