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Matchmaker: Interpersonal Touch in Gaming

  • Conference paper
Learning by Playing. Game-based Education System Design and Development (Edutainment 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 5670))

Abstract

Acts of interpersonal touch – a touch shared between two people – are used by couples to communicate in a simple and emotionally intimate way. In this paper, we argue that the intimacy afforded by acts of interpersonal touch can be used in computer entertainment to support enjoyable and engaging activities for couples. To support this notion, we have developed Matchmaker; a two-player, cooperative tabletop video game based on themes of love and romance. Matchmaker’s gameplay is directly controlled by a set of collaborative tabletop interaction techniques, as well as by acts of interpersonal touch between its players. In this paper we present a detailed description of Matchmaker’s design and the results of an exploratory user suggesting that Matchmaker is enjoyable to play and that its use of interpersonal touch contributes to players’ enjoyment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Cody Watts & Ehud Sharlin

  2. BioWare Corp., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Peter Woytiuk

Authors
  1. Cody Watts
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  2. Ehud Sharlin
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  3. Peter Woytiuk
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing and Information Systems 1200, Athabasca University, 10011-109 Street, T5J-3S8, Edmont, Canada

    Maiga Chang

  2. Department of Digital Design 369, Ming Dao University, Wen-Hua Dr., Peetow, 52345, ChangHua, Taiwan

    Rita Kuo

  3. School of Computing and Inforamtion Systems, Athabasca University, 1 University Drive, T9S 3A3, Athabasca, AB, Canada

    Kinshuk

  4. Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Central University, 300, Jhongda Rd., 32001, Jhongli City, Taiwan

    Gwo-Dong Chen

  5. Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, 113-8656, Tokyo, Japan

    Michitaka Hirose

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Watts, C., Sharlin, E., Woytiuk, P. (2009). Matchmaker: Interpersonal Touch in Gaming. In: Chang, M., Kuo, R., Kinshuk, Chen, GD., Hirose, M. (eds) Learning by Playing. Game-based Education System Design and Development. Edutainment 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5670. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03364-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03364-3_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03363-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03364-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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