Motion-Based Games and Play

Dear Colleagues,

Moving our bodies is one of the most natural things to do as human beings. We engage in movement from early childhood, and it can be an extremely powerful, joyful experience. Looking at sports, artistry, and dance, the level of control, mastery and virtuosity can be truly baffling, deeply engaging both the performer and the audience.

With this special issue, we want to address the question of how to design complex, engaging, and inherently pleasant motion-based games that capture the positive elements of movement. Further, we aim to explore their application in settings that aim to improve player wellbeing, along with tackling other relevant challenges in their development:

• What is the relationship between movement-tracking technology and playful experiences? How can novel technologies contribute to richer, more enjoyable movement-based interaction? Moving beyond movement tracking to feedback, what are the benefits of integrating additional elements such as haptics?
• How can we design playful experiences that truly capture the inspiring nature of real-world movement, e.g., sports or dance? How can we incorporate movement not only as input for games, but also as a visual element that provides players with an immersive, rewarding experience?
• How can motion-based games be designed to provide inclusive and engaging experiences for all audiences (including young children, older adults, people with disabilities, and individuals with specific health needs)?

Specifically addressing the challenge of leveraging movement-based play to improve well-being, games for health are one important focus area of this issue, and there are many more specific questions, for example: What are the main challenges when integrating movement-based play in healthcare settings, for example, to support rehabilitation in hospitals or in the home? Are there design challenges specific to movement-based games for health that contradict design approaches for regular motion-based games and play? How do we need to design movement-based games to not only meet the needs of patients, but also those of healthcare staff?

We welcome submissions covering technical aspects, but also design studies and guidelines. While motion-based games for health are certainly one focus of this special issue, we are determined to showcase the full breadth of this important area, and thus invite submissions discussing motion-based games in general, or adopting interdisciplinary perspectives such as examples from the area of play in the performing arts.

We are looking forward to many interesting contributions,

Assist. Prof. Marc Herrlich
Assist. Prof. Kathrin Gerling
Guest Editor

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• Motion-based games
• Physical play
• Games for health
• Exertion games
• Exergames
• Natural user interfaces
• Physical computing