Title: Rock Band: A case study in the design of embodied interface experience
Authors: Joshua Tanenbaum & Jim Bizzocchi
Year: 2009
Additional: Paper presented at SIGGRAPH, New Orleans, LA, USA
Available at: http://josh.thegeekmovement.com/Tanenbaum-Bizzocchi-SIGGRAPH09_prepub.pdf (prepub version)
Abstract:
There has been a recent surge of novel interface devices available for home gaming systems. With the rise in popularity of games like Guitar Hero and consoles such as Nintendo’s Wii comes new opportunities for game design at the interface level. In this paper we propose three interrelated dimensions for the analysis of embodied and gestural game interface hardware devices. We demonstrate how gestural and embodied interactions can be understood as ludic, kinesthetic and narrative experiences. We ground this discussion in a close analysis of the interface affordances of the game Rock Band and demonstrate how these three dimensions allow us to understand more clearly the place of the interface in the design and the experience of games.
Content:
1. Introduction
2. Ludic Interaction
— 2.1. Ludic Efficiency
— 2.2. Granularity
3. Kinesthetic Interaction
— 3.1. Embodiment
—- 3.1.1. Phenomenological Embodiment
—- 3.1.2. Embodied Context
— 3.2. Viewpoints
—- 3.2.1. Viewpoints of Time
—- 3.2.2. Viewpoints of Space
4. Narrative Interactions
— 4.1. The Narrativized Interface: Iconic and Functional
— 4.2. Metaphorical vs. Literal Interactions
5. Conclusions
— 5.1. Three Types of Immersion
— 5.2. Prior Knowledge
— 5.3. Transparency
6. Future Work