LEINO, O. T., & Yu, H. A. O. (2025, April). Toward a Phenomenology of Gameplay (as) Performance. In Current Perspectives in Game Studies Spring/Summer 2025. Olli Leino and Morgan Yu

Lecturer: Karin Kukkonen 26 March 2025 Games were a common entertainment in the salons of seventeenth-century Paris. The salonnières drew on existing games and also invented new ones for the writers, intellectuals and artists who assembled in their salons. The JEUX project investigates how novelists from the period used these games to rethink their narrative and creative practices. In this talk, I will reflect on the link between gameplay and creativity through the salon game

Aarseth, E. (2024, October). The Long Game: From Gamer Hermeneutics to Game Hermeneutics. In Central and Eastern European Game Studies conference (CEEGS 2024). Espen Aarseth

Leino, O. T. (2024, October). An existential-phenomenology of gameplay (as) performance. In Central and Eastern European Game Studies conference (CEEGS 2024). Olli Leino

Barroso, D., & Holopainen, J. (2024, September). Play to make a city. Cultural-historical identities and affordances in videogame versions of Hong Kong. In Conference Proceedings of DiGRA 2024 Conference: Playgrounds. Diego Barroso and Jussi Holopainen With the spatial turn in cultural studies of the 80s and 90s, the idea of (historical) narratives embedded in spaces gained traction. This spatial turn has also come to the fore in video games, as they both create previously no

Holopainen, J. P., Sun, X., & Hattler, M. (2024). A semiotic framework for understanding abstract animations. Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics, 10(1), 69-92. Jussi Holopainen, Xuqin Sun, and Max Hattler This paper presents a novel framework for understanding and analyzing semiotic processes in abstract animations. The framework builds on predictive processing, a paradigm in cognitive neuroscience proposing that perception, and consequently action and interaction, i

Yuk Yiu Ip LEVEL 66: the Arcade Project is an experimental field of play and a game-inspired performance that explores issues of complicity, performativity and the human condition in 10 playful acts. https://www.ipyukyiu.com/lvl66

Liu, S., LC, R., Fu, K., Wan, Q., Liu, P., & Holopainen, J. (2024, June). Dreamscaping: supporting creativity by drawing inspiration from dreams. In Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Creativity & Cognition (pp. 93-99). Jussi Holopainen Dreams are a source of inspiration for writers, artists, and creative professionals for generations, but recent Generative AI (GenAI) tools make it possible to use natural language to record details of dreams in image form for creativity su

LEINO, O. T. (2024, June). On the phenomenology of computer game play (as) performance. In Global Dialogues in Game Studies. Olli Leino Based on the premise that both stage performances and video games are "framed events"—vehicles of self-expression intended for an audience to observe—Lian Aili (Olli Leino) proposes adopting performance theory to examine game mechanics. He elaborates a phenomenology of games as performance across three dimensions: games as an existential real

Zhou, S., Hendra, L. B., Zhang, Q., Holopainen, J., & Lc, R. (2024, May). Eternagram: probing player attitudes towards climate change using a ChatGPT-driven text-based adventure. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-23). Jussi Holopainen Conventional methods of assessing attitudes towards climate change are limited in capturing authentic opinions, primarily stemming from a lack of context-specific assessment strategies and an

Yuk Yiu Ip <DBLtype> is an experimental video game that challenges your typing skills, English spelling, short-term memory and levels of complicity. https://www.ipyukyiu.com/dbltype

Aarseth, E. (2023). “Back to Reality”: The Case Against Ludo-Fictionalism. In Exploring Extended Realities (pp. 13-22). Routledge. Espen Aarseth In this chapter, the author defends a view developed since the 1990s that digital objects can be real and defends this view against rival fictionalist accounts of the metaphysics of virtual objects and simulated worlds. In order to do so, the author distinguishes between fictions, representations, props, and metaphors in order to def

Lyu, Z., Holopainen, J., & Björk, S. (2023, October). Goal playable concepts coupling gameplay design patterns with playable concepts. In Proceedings of the 26th International Academic Mindtrek Conference (pp. 57-66). Jussi Holopainen In this paper, we present experiences of designing and implementing a series of playable concepts based on gameplay design patterns for goals and goal structures. These playable concepts are coupled with existing gameplay design patterns to enab

Leino, O. T. (2023, October). Exploring Computer Games as Process Arts. In 2023 Central and East European Game Studies Conference (CEEGS 2023):" Meaning and Making of Games". Olli Leino

Leino, O. (2023, October). Existential Hermeneutics for Gameplay (as) Performance. In Nordic Workshops on the Philosophy of Games: Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Existentialism for Games. Olli Leino

Huang, Y. (2023, October). The future of generative ai: How genai would change human-computer co-creation in the next 10 to 15 years. In Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 322-325). Huang Yuxuan This study aims to explore how GenAI would transform human-computer co-creation in the next 10 to 15 years by means of design fiction and playful critical design. The study will involve (co-)speculative workshops utilizing design f

Aarseth, E. (2023). Game or Supernovel? Playing and Reading Massive Game Novels. European Review, 31(S1), S66-S76. Espen Aarseth For half a century, digital machines have lent their computational power to mediate text-based, diegetic worlds, in the shape of software that we call games, video games, or sometimes interactive fiction. Perhaps the first such was Gregory Yob’s simple labyrinth-monster game Hunt the Wumpus (1973), but ever since then the games (if that is what they

Liu, H. X., Huang, Y., & Holopainen, J. (2023, June). Call for Critical and Speculative Design in Human-Computer Co-creativity: An Overview Study. In ICCC (pp. 102-111). Yuxuan Huang and Jussi Holopainen The recent boom of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has demonstrated their potential to impact human-computer interaction (HCI) in general and humancomputer co-creativity in particular. Therefore, we want to provide a systematic literature overview of co

Karhulahti, V. M., & Aarseth, E. (2023, June). A Typology of Videogame Rewards. In Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2023 Conference: Limits and Margins of Games. Espen Aarseth Although component-driven structural approaches to videogames have been present at least since the 1980s (e.g., Ziegfeld 1989), the industries of game design and production evolve rapidly, thus tending to make many such contributions either relevant to a specific time or needing frequent updates (for typol

Leino, O. T., & Möring, S. (2023, June). Game Worlds at the Limits and Margins of Games. In Digital Games Research Association Conference 2023: Limits and Margins of Games. Olli Leino In this chapter, by drawing on existential philosophy, game studies, and recent work in the philosophy of computer games (Payne 2009; Rusch 2009; 2017; Leino 2009b; 2009a; 2010; 2012; 2013; 2014; Möring 2013; 2014; Möring and Leino 2016; Kania 2015; 2017; Gualeni and Vella 2020; Vella 2021), we