Creating social, physical, and authoring games

Computer games have become increasingly cooperative social activities that are often being played with several collocated gamers, frequently in front of spectators who react and participate in the gameplay experience. Physical controllers are enriching the gaming interface by allowing players to use their bodies to control the game. We highlight another gameplay theme: in-game authorship of content, the ability to create new expressive content as part of the gameplay. We propose a new design framework for cooperative games that encompasses these three themes: social engagement between players, expressive physical interaction within the game environment, and in-game creation and authoring of sharable content. These elements may be combined in various ways, and we propose prototypes for three games based on these themes: a comic strip game, a movie karaoke game, and a virtual competition game.