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Exploring Emotional Design Features for Virtual Reality Games

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Serious Games (JCSG 2024)

Abstract

Recognizing the importance of emotion for learning in general, and for VR games in particular, we investigated three emotional design features, including two visual features (background lighting and particle effects) and an interaction feature (available actions). Our findings revealed the affective quality of these three design features, showing that particle effects and actions significantly increase positive emotion, while dark background lighting induces slightly negative emotions. Action, however, also increased the perceived level of cognitive load. Only action had an effect on perceived presence, whereas background lighting and particle effects did not. We discuss the implication of our findings for the design of VR games for learning.

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Correspondence to Jan L. Plass .

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Shao, Y., Hang, Y., Froehlich, F., Homer, B.D., Plass, J.L. (2025). Exploring Emotional Design Features for Virtual Reality Games. In: Plass, J.L., Ochoa, X. (eds) Serious Games. JCSG 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15259. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-74138-8_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-74138-8_21

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