Call for special issue on ‘Hybrid Games and Interaction Design’

Call for a special issue on ‘Hybrid Games and Interaction Design’, for the Journal IxD&A (Interaction Design and Architecture), indexed by SCOPUS and ESCI.

Important dates

Deadline: January 15, 2023
Notification to the authors: February 20, 2023
Camera ready papers: March 15, 2023
Publication: begin of April, 2023

Overview

Board games gained significant momentum throughout the past two decades, with some of the best creations earning millions of dollars in funding platforms during 2021, in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, digital games have surpassed all other media, from film to music, in investments and returns. Board and digital games are two forms of play which use the same base of design – the game design – so it was without surprise that a new hybrid approach, that mixed both media, would appear.

Through the past five years we have seen games with Augmented Reality, board games using smartphones as assisting tools, and tablets being used as boards, or even games using real food – edible games. This combination of digital and physical components and strategies in games contribute to a new experience of play which enhance not only the player’s immersion and interaction, but also the contents, presentation, atmosphere, and control of the game. There are some questions emerging in this discussion, namely about the complementary relationship between physical and digital games: What are the borderlines between real and virtual dimensions in hybrid games? How can hybrid games provide more participatory gaming experience while players become engaged with digital and physical components at the same time? Which model of interaction design of hybrid games best favors player experience, communication and engagement?

In this special issue we want not only to present the current state-of-the-art of the hybrid games, as the possibilities beyond current days, making use of speculative approaches to design, as design fiction, but we want to dig deeper through the lenses of interaction design, in order to understand the new needs in the realm of technologies. Furthermore, we want to understand the full impacts and effects of this move on human interaction with game artefacts and consequently find out what should we expect from the discipline of interaction design while using ludic approaches in the next decade.

Topics of Interest

The indicative list of topics of interest for this special issue devoted to Hybrid Games and Interaction Design’ includes, but is not limited to: 

Hybrid digital/physical games

Methods of hybrid game design 

Design Fiction and Hybrid Interaction Design

Interaction design relation with game design

Play Hybridism 

Hybrid systems;

Hybrid design models;

Hybrid game mechanics and patterns;

Hybrid storytelling models;

Hybrid Game interaction models;

Cognition and game design;

Aesthetics of Hybrid Digital/Physical Games;

Board-games and Digital Games;

Hybrid-games design;

Hybrid game User Experience;

Players physical/digital behaviour modelling;

NPC behaviour and Physical Characters.

Guest editors

Nelson Zagalo, DigiMedia, University of Aveiro, Portugal
Fotis Liarokapis, University of Technology, Cyprus
Micael Sousa, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Ana Patrícia Oliveira, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Submission procedure 

All submissions must be original and may not be under review by another publication.

The manuscripts should be submitted anonymized either in .doc or in .pdf format. 

All papers will be blindly peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers. Perspective participants are invited to submit a 8-20 pages paper (including authors' information, abstract, all tables, figures, references, etc.). 

The paper should be written according to the IxD&A authors' guidelines (http://www.mifav.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/idea2010/index.php ).

Submission page -> https://www-2020.ixdea.uniroma2.it/ojs/ixdea   

(when submitting the paper please choose the section: 'SI: Hybrid Games and Interaction ')

Online call link, for scientific advices and for any query please contact the guest-editor: nzagalo [at] ua [dot] pt, marking the subject as: 'IxD&A Hybrid’.