Leino, O., Hao, Y., & Möring, S. (2026, June). Sketch for a Phenomenology of Gameplay (as) Performance: Bodies, Systems, Worlds. In Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2026. Olli Leino and Morgan Yu This ongoing work contributes to performance studies by extending concepts ofembodiment, co-presence, and liveness into environments shaped by algorithms andplatforms. It contributes to game studies by offering a phenomenological account ofgameplay as performance that does not rely on d

Barroso, D. (2026, June). The'Chinese'Non-city: Thematic (in) coherence and level design in Sifu. In Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2026. Diego Barroso The fragmentary nature of Sifu’s (Sloclap 2022) game world, underlying its thematic design, leads us to an overwhelming question: 1. Can a video game with discrete levels/stages construct a coherent and cohesive (all-encompassing) spatial environment, such as a city? And, more importantly, is this urban environment actually con

Barroso, D., & Huang, Z. (2026, June). The final frontier of space in video games. Spatio-narrative design in Judgment by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. In Proceedings of DiGRA 2026. Diego Barroso and Zidong Huang In video game environments that hold a referential relationship to preexisting spaces, such as Kamurocho from the Yakuza/Judgment series and Kabukicho in Shinjuku, the narrative and ludic content in the virtual world reflects the personal urban understanding/experiences of t

Barney, C., Björk, S., & Holopainen, J. (2026, June). Twenty Years of Design Patterns in Games. In Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2026. Jussi Holopainen The introduction of Alexandrian design patterns into the discipline of game development was proposed twenty-five years ago by Bernd Kreimeier (2002). In the quarter-century since its introduction, a significant number of scholars and developers have explored possible implementations of these concepts. This work has reached a l

Huang, Z., & Barroso, D. (2026, May). Ludoforming strategies in small-scale open worlds. The design philosophy of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. In Foundations of Digital Games 2026 (FDG 2026): Research through Games; Research for Games. Association for Computing Machinery. Zidong Huang and Diego Barroso This study examines how the ludoforming strategies of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio (RGG Studio) serve not only as methods for translating real urban spaces into virtual environments but also

Barroso Sánchez, D. (2025). Queering Hong Kong: Modded History in A Summer’s End: Hong Kong 1986. Digital Culture & Society, 11(1), 187-210. Diego Barroso Hong Kong has seen its fair share of portrayals in video games (over 300) – some, where it plays a more central role than others; however, academia has shown little interest in exploring how the city’s history and people are represented in video games. While there is historiographical value in how the city is portrayed in n

Leino, O. T., & Möring, S. (2025). Existential ludology: Computer games as worlds. In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Games (pp. 90-108). Routledge. Olli Leino In this chapter, we propose existential ludology as a general framework and a method for understanding computer games and play. We cross-expose insights from a branch of game studies known as ludology with insights from a branch of continental philosophy known as existentialism. Our resulting approach is ludolo

Huang, Y., Xiang, K., Sharma, G., Rabbi, R., Ju, R., & Holopainen, J. P. (2025, November). Meet Daiyu in The Era of GenAI: Using LLMs to Remediate Classics into Interactive Digital Narratives. In International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (pp. 29-47). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. Yuxuan Huang, Kexin Xiang, Ran Ju and Jussi Pekka Holopainen In this paper, we explore the integration of large language models (LLMs) in interactive digital narratives (IDNs)

Wang, Z., Ma, L., Lc, R., & Holopainen, J. (2025, November). Design, Reflect, Create: Game Poem Practices with Generative AI Tools. In International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (pp. 113-129). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. Wang, Ziyi, Jussi Holopainen et al. Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools are transforming creative practices, yet their role in game poem design remains largely unexplored. Game poems serve as a bridge between interactive

Barroso, D., & Huang, Z. (2025). Urban (Re) Development for Video Games. Effective Ludoforming and the Work of Ryu Ga Gotoku. CEEGS 2025 Landscapes Cities Localities. Diego Barroso and Zidong Huang There are multiple reasons to use preexisting spaces in fiction, from nostalgia to faithful simulation. Cities are sometimes used as settings for books, films, and video games, with their own completeidentities. Still, more often than not, those cities are an inspiration, their ess

Holopainen, J., Huang, Y., Shin, J., Nissinen, E., & Lucero, A. (2025, July). Infinity book: speculating literary expressions in the age of generative ai. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (pp. 1430-1454). Jussi Holopainen and Huang, Yuxuan This paper explores the ethical, social, political, and philosophical implications of generative AI (GenAI) on human creativity, contributing to the current discussions on the impact of AI. We use spec

Huang, Y., Liu, H. X., & Holopainen, J. (2024, June). "Infinity Book": Critical Speculation on How Generative AI Shapes the Socio-Material World. In ICCC (pp. 387-391). Yuxuan Huang and Jussi Holopainen Recent advancements in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and its promising impact on shaping humancomputer co-creativity relationships have attracted speculation on this issue. Despite a call for more design-oriented research and many works using critical and speculat

Ip, Y. Y., Fan, K., Shaw, J., Rodríguez, H., & Leino, O. T. (2024). Cinema After Cinema. Yuk Yiu IP and Olli Leino Reflecting cinema beyond its traditional screen-based form, CINEMA AFTER CINEMA reviews the media art project CINEMA 2.0, a decade-long showcase that explores cinema as a method and worldview co-curated by Ip Yuk Yiu and Kattie Fan. The book contains an anthology of writings by Ip, with additional contributing texts by Jeffrey Shaw, Hector Rodriguez, Olli Tapio L

Huang, Y., Shea, J., Howe, D. C., & Holopainen, J. (2025, June). Lyric Poetry in the Face of Posthumanism: An Analysis of Generative AI-Assisted Poetry Writing. In Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Creativity and Cognition (pp. 762-773). Yuxuan Huang and Jussi Holopainen Generative AI seems poised to transform a wide range of endeavors once thought to be solely the domain of humans—from journalism to legal practice to creative expression—into collaborative activities invo

Gopinath, K. K., & Holopainen, J. (2025, June). Temporal Agency and Timeplay in Video Games. In Conference Proceedings of DiGRA 2025: Games at the Crossroads. Karthik Kuduva Gopinath and Jussi Holopainen This paper examines temporal agency in video games, referred to as the player's ability to manipulate time within the game world, to make decisions, and to observe their consequences. Building on existing scholarship about ludic agency and ludic temporality, this paper utiliz

Ma, L., Pan, M., Siu, V., Chang, X., Holopainen, J., Li, J., & LC, R. (2025, May). Follow My Logic: Generative AI Workflows in Designing for Serious Table-Top Games. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 153-172). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. Jussi Holopainen Creating compelling and engaging tabletop games is a challenging process that requires deep understanding of game mechanics and aesthetic considerations. To facilitate novice game designers

Aarseth, E. (2025, May). A Bubble Inside an Anomaly: Looking Back at New Media (3000 BCE–2024 CE). In Texts, Authority, and Authorship: From Ancient Scribal Culture and Oral Traditions to Digital Media. Espen Aarseth If it takes around fifty years for a new media technology, for example the printed book, to find its form (and longer for the waves of upheaval it creates to calm down), what kind of observations can we make if we zoom out, say, an order of magnitude or two? Boar

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

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