John Harris, GI resident and Computer Science PhD student, presented a 5 minute short paper at CHI Play 2018 during their "Spotlight on Design Rationale" session. Harris' paper presents his reflections on translating HCI research into concrete game design.
Harris created "Beam Me 'Round Scotty," an asymmetric cooperative game, in 2014. He presented the paper "Beam me 'Round, Scotty: Exploring the effect of interdependence in asymmetric cooperative games" at CHI Play 2014 and again in 2015.
Throughout his PhD Harris has run several player experience studies and has adapted the game design of "Beam Me 'Round, Scotty" after each iteration. His present paper looks at how this iterative research-and-design process has allowed him to explore the research space.
In typical games research, there's limited opportunity to invest in high fidelity visuals, sound design, and narrative. Harris argues that there is research value in developing more complete games as research prototypes.
"Iterative medium fidelity prototyping allows researchers to develop an eye for in-depth design, detail, and development that they would otherwise miss with the typically simplistic prototypes used."
- John Harris