Games have been widely used for purposes other than entertainment due to their engaging nature. However, the concept of game engagement is still not well-defined, which limits its use in analysis and game design. The primary objective of this dissertation is to conceptualize game engagement to guide the analysis and design of applied games.

The dissertation first explores the requirements for conceptualizing applied game engagement, identified through an analysis of three applied gaming projects and an empirical study. It then uses these requirements to develop the Applied Games Engagement Model (AGEM). The AGEM posits that engagement is the process of focusing attention on a task and that attention can be purposefully directed through design.

The practical use of the AGEM is then explored by analyzing applied games. The theory is extended with relevant game design knowledge and applied to game design practice. This results in the Lens of Engagement for Applied Games, a unique way to view the design of an applied game.

Overall, this dissertation provides a comprehensive perspective on applied game engagement, emphasizing the role of attention and its relation to game design. It offers a practical and workable method of considering and discussing game engagement, which can be used by anyone creating or studying applied games.

Whereas entertainment games are capable of creating deeply rewarding and emotional experiences, applied game projects often result in products that, while potentially effective, are lacking in many other aspects of the user experience. This may be due to the fact that the focus of most design approaches for applied games lies primarily on the use of game mechanics, neglecting other aspects of design that aim to shape and influence the player’s emotional journey. This article provides an exploratory effort in a different approach to creating applied games, namely through the design of user attention and by integrating the theory of attention into applied game design practice. This approach is tested in two ongoing applied game projects, from which preliminary guidelines for applied game researchers and practitioners are proposed.

With increasing technological capabilities, video games provide ever more expan-sive virtual worlds for players to explore. Designers employ various mechanics and level design principles to encourage such exploration. However, what moti-vates people to explore in virtual environments, and which approaches are success-ful, is not yet clearly established. Methods for measuring player experience often take place retroactively after a play session, relying on recall, and are thus prone to missing less salient events and their motivations. Journaling events as they occur allow promises to be a suitable method of collecting data, but presents a challenge in aggregating data points due to their freeform nature. This makes it difficult to identify overarching patterns of exploration behaviour. We present an exploratory study in devising a journaling protocol for gathering information during game-play sessions, focused on documenting moments of exploration in a manner that balances ease of data capture and data evaluation. We describe our efforts in proto-typing this journaling method and how we used it to analyse Cyberpunk 2077 and several other game designs. Our results show that exploration occurs in a pattern of event → expectation → resolution. The motivation to explore depends on the expectations that a game raises through its marketing and design. At the same time, exploratory behaviour going unrewarded by the game quickly reduces the desire to explore. When recording instances of exploration, the addition of emotion words is essential in order to properly contextualize the information. This arti-cle lays the foundation for documenting exploration in games, as well as other emotional or behavioural constructs that require in-the-moment data collection.

Although games are frequently described as ‘engaging’, what this means exactly continues to be subject of debate in game literature. Engagement is often defined through related concepts like immersion and positive emotions. However, this neglects the fact that applied games aim to provide more than an entertaining experience, and that engagement with the applied purpose can exist separately from engagement with the game's systems. To make this differentiation more apparent, this article introduces the Applied Games Engagement Model (AGEM), a theoretical model that distinguishes between an applied game's systems and its non-entertainment purpose. It poses that game systems and purpose can overlap in varying amounts, both from game to game, and from moment to moment within a single game. The value of the model is in the explicit acknowledgement that the attention necessary for engaging with content is a limited resource, and that measures for engagement in applied games need to consider that not all engagement is purposeful. The article lays the conceptual foundation for the study of engagement in applied games, and provides a framework for how to design for an applied purpose. It illustrates its use in analysing applied games and their designs through three case studies.

Validation of serious games tends to focus on evaluating their design as a whole. While this helps to assess whether a particular combination of game mechanics is successful, it provides little insight into how individual mechanics contribute or detract from a serious game's purpose or a player's game experience. This study analyses the effect of game mechanics commonly used in casual games for engagement, measured as a combination of player behaviour and reported game experience. Secondly, it examines the role of a serious game's purpose on those same measures. An experimental study was conducted with 204 participants playing several versions of a serious game to explore these points. The results show that adding additional game mechanics to a core gameplay loop did not lead to participants playing more or longer, nor did it improve their game experience. Players who were aware of the game's purpose, however, perceived the game as more beneficial, scored their game experience higher, and progressed further. The results show that game mechanics on their own do not necessarily improve engagement, while the effect of perceived value deserves further study.

Video games frequently feature 'open world' environments, designed to motivate exploration. Level design patterns are implemented to invoke curiosity and to guide player behavior. However, evidence of the efficacy of such patterns has remained theoretical. This study presents an empirical study of how level design patterns impact curiosity-driven exploration in a 3D open-world video game. 254 participants played a game in an empirical study using a between-subjects factorial design, testing 4 variables: presence or absence of patterns, goal or open-ended, nature and alien aesthetic, and assured or unassured compensation. Data collection consisted of in-game metrics and emotion word prompts as well as post-game questionnaires. Results show that design patterns invoke heightened exploration, but this effect is influenced by the presence of an explicit goal or monetary compensation. There appear to be many motivations behind exploratory behavior in games, with patterns raising expectations in players. A disposition for curiosity (i.e. 'trait curiosity') was not found to influence exploration. We interpret and discuss the impact of the conditions, individual patterns, and player motivations.

Physical activity plays a fundamental role in contrasting physiological deconditioning during ageing. Considering the complexity of the modifications that can occur in the physical activity domain, international guidelines recommend that older adults engage in a combination of aerobic, strength, flexibility, and balance training to promote active ageing and maintain adequate health status. For this reason, virtual coaches must be designed to prescribe appropriate physical activity plans in each of the specific target sub-domain. Technological solutions based on wearable devices and digital games are promising can be the key to a successful system. This chapter describes the physiological bases and the technological approaches implemented by the NESTORE system to evaluate users’ functional abilities and to propose a comprehensive and individualised coaching plan in the physical activity domain according to the internationally recognised guidelines. The main technological NESTORE components, co-designed together with users to monitor their status and behaviour and coach them to perform effective physical activity, are (i) the NESTORE wristband that will assess the users’ performances and monitor the main physiological parameters during aerobic activity and (ii) the NESTORE Pocket Odyssey mobile game that will engage the users during physical activities in the strength, flexibility and balance domains.

Research has found that successful game-based learning (GBL) is dependent on several factors, e.g. students, parents, teachers and educational setting. Nevertheless, many existing GBL solutions primarily consider the student. Similarly, they focus on imparting and assessing content-specific knowledge rather than encouraging students to become intrinsically motivated learners. This paper presents CURIO, an educational game kit that involves teachers as game masters'. It encourages inquisitive mindsets in students and helps to structure discussions when introducing a new topic in class. It informs the teacher of students' pre-existing knowledge so that they can better shape upcoming classes to their needs. A pilot study with a class of 25 primary school students and their homeroom teacher evaluated a prototype of CURIO. The paper concludes with guidelines learned from creating and testing CURIO that can help with the development of tools for teachers using the same design philosophy.

Virtual Coaches, also known as e-coaches, are a disruptive technology in healthcare. Indeed, among other usages, they might provide cost-effective solutions for increasing human wellbeing in different domains, such as physical, nutritional, cognitive, social, and emotional. This paper presents a systematic review of virtual coaches specifically aimed at improving or maintaining older adults' health in the aforementioned domains. Such digital systems assume various forms, from classic apps, to more advanced conversational agents or robots. Fifty-six articles describing a virtual coach for older adults and aimed at improving their wellbeing were identified and further analyzed. In particular, we presented how previous studies defined their virtual coaches, which behavioral change models and techniques they adopted and the overall system architecture, in terms of monitoring solutions, processing methods and modalities for intervention delivery. Our results show that few thorough evaluations of e-coaching systems have been conducted, especially regarding multi-domain coaching approaches. Through our analysis, we identified the wellbeing domains that should be addressed in future studies as well as the most promising behavior change models and techniques and coaching interfaces. Previous work illustrates that older adults often appreciate conversational agents and robots. However, the lack of a multidomain intervention approach in the current literature motivates us to seek to define future solutions.

Curiosity is considered an important aspect of human life, but understanding the circumstances that cause a person to become curious poses a challenge for research. This paper proposes video games as a stimulus for the experimental study of curiosity. For this purpose, we conducted a survey with the goal of assessing what video game titles and genres could be considered reliable instruments for invoking curiosity. To involve different types of curiosity, we included the Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale (5DC) questionnaire. The survey was completed by 113 participants, and resulted in 301 game suggestions that warrant further analysis. Exploration and Social Simulation games in particular were found to rank high in triggering curiosity. To explain this result, we present a first analysis of potential game patterns that help trigger curiosity within these genres.

Curiosity is a strong motivator for human action, but the circumstances under which one becomes curious are not clear. This paper builds on the assumption that video games can be used as a stimulus for the experimental study of curiosity, and forms a basis in examining the type of curiosity motivated by spatial exploration. A video game was created that incorporates five proposed ‘game design patterns’ that may induce curiosity in players. The game, Shinobi Valley, was tested in a pilot study with 24 participants. Participants responded positively to the game and exhibited exploratory behaviour while playing without specifically being prompted to do so. The presented results suggest which of the patterns are most promising in inducing curiosity, and show that the game is of sufficient quality to be used in larger studies.

Curiosity is an important aspect of life, but studying it is challenging without reliable stimuli. Digital games provide an ideal stimulus to investigate the circumstances that trigger curiosity and how it is expressed. A survey was conducted with the goal of assessing what game titles and game genres should be analysed to further the study of curiosity. To consider different types of curiosity, we included the Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale (5DC) questionnaire. The survey was completed by 113 participants, and resulted in 301 game suggestions that warrant further analysis. Exploration, social simulation, and collecting tasks within games were found to rank high in triggering curiosity. We further found that social curiosity in individuals correlates with having curiosity triggered by social simulations.

This paper describes the ongoing design process of Pocket Odyssey, an online multi-player game suite designed for mobile phones that supports older adults in maintaining their physical, social, and mental well-being. It has been designed to provide engaging gameplay that supports positive emotion, fosters online social connections between players, enables play with others in a player’s physical surroundings, and integrates tasks that exercise physical and cognitive skills. This paper discusses the user-centered design approach that takes entertainment preferences, views on technology, and aspects of life that older adults consider meaningful as a basis. Based on the results of an exploratory survey and a series of workshops with the user group, this paper presents the initial game concept and the rationale behind its design. Finally, it describes early prototyping efforts and future activities.