DungeonMaker: Embedding Tangible Creation and Destruction in Hybrid Board Games through Personal Fabrication Technology
Abstract
Hybrid board games (HBGs) augment their analog origins digitally (e.g., through apps) and are an increasingly popular pastime activity. Continuous world and character development and customization, known to facilitate engagement in video games, remain rare in HBGs. If present, they happen digitally or imaginarily, often leaving physical aspects generic. We developed DungeonMaker, a fabrication-augmented HBG bridging physical and digital game elements: 1) the setup narrates a story and projects a digital game board onto a laser cutter; 2) DungeonMaker assesses player-crafted artifacts; 3) DungeonMaker's modified laser head senses and moves player- and non-player figures, and 4) can physically damage figures. An evaluation (n=4x3) indicated that DungeonMaker provides an engaging experience, may support players' connection to their figures, and potentially spark novices' interest in fabrication. DungeonMaker provides a rich constellation to play HBGs by blending aspects of craft and automation to couple the physical and digital elements of an HBG tightly.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2403.09592,
title = {DungeonMaker: Embedding Tangible Creation and Destruction in Hybrid Board Games through Personal Fabrication Technology},
author = {Evgeny Stemasov and Tobias Wagner and Ali Askari and Jessica Janek and Omid Rajabi and Anja Schikorr and Julian Frommel and Jan Gugenheimer and Enrico Rukzio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.09592},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
16 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Accepted to ACM CHI 2024 (ACM CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)