Guidelines for the Design of Movement-Based Games and Their Relevance to HCI

Abstract

Movement-based digital games are becoming increasingly popular, yet there is limited comprehensive guidance on how to design these games. In this article we discuss a set of guidelines for movement-based game design that were initially presented at CHI 2014 (Mueller & Isbister, 2014). These guidelines were developed through reflection upon our research-based game development practice and then validated and refined through interviews with 14 movement-based game design experts with experience in the academic, independent, and commercial game development domains. In this article, we provide an in-depth contextualization and explanation of the research process that led to the creation of the final guidelines and discuss what human–computer interaction researchers and designers might learn from the guidelines beyond entertainment contexts. The primary contribution of this research is a body of generative intermediate-level knowledge (Höök & Löwgren, 2012) in the design research tradition that is readily accessible and actionable for the design of future movement-based games and other movement-based interfaces.