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The Acagamic

The Acagamic

User Experience Research & Design in Games

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Lennart Nacke's Blog Posts

About Lennart Nacke

Professor Nacke teaches User Experience, Human-Computer Interaction, and Game Design at the University of Waterloo. As part of the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, the Department of Communication Arts, and the Games Institute, he is researching player experience in video games, immersive VR environments, and gameful applications. As a truly interdisciplinary researcher, he is cross-appointed and supervises graduate students in the Department of Systems Design Engineering, the Department of English Language and Literature, and the Cheriton School of Computer Science. Together with co-researchers, he published the PXI?—?player experience inventory, gamification user types hexad scale, guidelines for biofeedback and sound design in games, and a book on games user research. Professor Nacke has served on the steering committee of the International Game Developers Association Games Research & User Experience Special Interest Group in the past, was the chair of the CHI PLAY conference steering committee from 2014–2018. His publications have won Best Paper Awards at the CHI, CSCW, and CHI PLAY conferences. He has published more than 100 scientific papers, which have been cited more than 10,000 times. He strongly believes in understanding users first to build more engaging games and compelling player experiences.

The CHI 2019 hashtag is picture with Dr. Nacke peeking through a Unicorn photo stand.

The CHI Paper Writing Podcast is live

September 15, 2019 by Lennart Nacke

After months of working on it and on our own CHI papers in the HCI Games Group, I finally had time to cut and edit together the first episode of the How to Write CHI Papers podcast with many insightful interviews from 14 CHI rockstars Susan Dumais, Andrés Lucero, Erin Solovey, Effie Law, Andy Cockburn, …

Read moreThe CHI Paper Writing Podcast is live
Clan Combat Draft

Communication and Game Design Documents

October 27, 2014 by Lennart Nacke

Welcome to week seven in the course: Basic Introduction to Game Design. Make sure to read the syllabus and course information before you continue. In this post, we discuss communication and game design documentation. While most textbooks discuss creating game design documents in some way, I feel that, given the scope of a game design class, no truly …

Read moreCommunication and Game Design Documents
Conceptualization

Conceptualization and Idea Generation

October 20, 2014 by Lennart Nacke

Welcome to week six in the course: Basic Introduction to Game Design. Make sure to read the syllabus and course information before you continue. In this post, we will discuss the conceptualization process in game design. This text follows closely from our textbook (Game Design Workshop, Chapter 6). After having discussed game systems, and the roles that skill, …

Read moreConceptualization and Idea Generation
Challenge-Skill-Dota2

Chance and Skill in Game Design

October 15, 2014 by Lennart Nacke

Welcome to the fifth week of class in the course: Basic Introduction to Game Design. Make sure to read the syllabus and course information before you continue. Today, we are going to discuss chance and skill in game design. This text follows closely from our textbook (Challenges for Game Designers, Chapter 5 and 8). I …

Read moreChance and Skill in Game Design
CoD-MW3-Transmission

Game System Dynamics

October 1, 2014 by Lennart Nacke

Welcome to the fourth week of class in the course: Basic Introduction to Game Design. Thanks for coming over from GameCareerGuide if you read my guest post there. Make sure to read the syllabus and course information before you continue. Today, we are going to discuss system dynamics in games. This text follows closely from our …

Read moreGame System Dynamics
Borderlands Zed

Dramatic Elements of Games and Narrative Design

September 19, 2014 by Lennart Nacke

In week 3 of the introduction to game design course, we discuss narrative design, elements of a story and dramatic elements of games in general.

Read moreDramatic Elements of Games and Narrative Design
Pac-Man Things

The formal systems of games and game design atoms

September 12, 2014 by Lennart Nacke

In the second week of my Basic Introduction to Game Design, we talk about games as systems, their formal structure and the elements that make games games.

Read moreThe formal systems of games and game design atoms
Game Design

What’s the role of game designers?

September 6, 2014 by Lennart Nacke

Today, we are going to discuss the role of a game designer when completing a game and find out a little more about what game design actually is. Game designers craft the core mechanics of a game. This means that they are responsible for deciding how games work.

Read moreWhat’s the role of game designers?

Introduction and Course Syllabus

September 4, 2014 by Lennart Nacke

Welcome to the class: Basic Introduction to Game Design. My name is Dr. Lennart Nacke. I help people understand how to design and evaluate games. I am teaching this class in the Fall 2014 at UOIT (INFR 1330). Today, I am going to show you how this course works and how you are going to benefit from the …

Read moreIntroduction and Course Syllabus
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