Understanding audio game experiences: perspectives and guides for design

Abstract

Audio games are computer games that use sound as the primary feedback modality instead of visuals. In a way, their appearance and experience is flipped compared to videogames, where visuals are of crucial importance and sound complements the experience. While video gaming is a multi-billion industry targeted at mainstream consumers, audio gaming is a niche product created by amateur communities and some academics. It is of particular relevance, since it allows people with visual impairments to participate in computer gaming. However, audio gaming is an under-researched discipline and practice. The aim of this thesis was to investigate two aspects of audio games that deserve further attention. For one thing, it is a striking research gap that only few genuine audio gamers have been involved in audio game research to date. That is, while researchers invited participants in user-centered design projects, these people were volunteers who have not played or designed audio games before and thus lack a deep experience in and natural passion for audio games. For another, while there are some scientific papers with design recommendations or design rules to support the audio game design process, this process itself that is, how people go about when they create audio games, how they make use of tools, and so on has not been investigated in the related literature before. To be able to address these two gaps, the research in this thesis is based on three independent but mutually supportive strands. (1) An in-depth literature analysis informed (2) an intensive interview study with experienced audio gamers as well as (3) our own design experiments. In other words, we sought to understand the people, who (passionately) play audio games and the audio game design process by conducting ethnographic work combined with our own practice-based design research and accompanied throughout the endeavor by an ongoing literature research. This enabled us to draw on authentic user needs as well as our own experience of what it takes to design audio games, while at the same time considering the state-of-the-art literature. The research endeavor resulted in several core contributions. Among other results, we created a literature review about the past 20 years in audio game research. In addition, we built a grounded theory about the audio game experience of genuine players drawing on our interview data. The practice-based design research led to a set of anti rules for design, as we learned through hands-on experiments that prescribing design rules in audio games might in some cases be contra-productive. Moreover, based on the feedback of the participants, we created an online platform for creating and sharing audio games. Thus, this online platform represents a ‘living specification of our insights about the sort of tools designers need in order to advance the audio game design process. As we published this online platform or online audio game editor under an open-source license, we sought to ensure the sustainability of this thesis work on two levels. On the one hand, we contributed 8 scientific publications to the scientific community. On the other hand, the audio game editor can be freely used, modified, and advanced by the community of audio game designers (amateurs and researchers alike).