Supporting Agile Development by Facilitating Natural User Interaction with Executable Formal Specifications

Agile development benefits from fast feedback from various stakeholders. If implemented in a suitable way, formal methods can enhance the agile development process. With an executable formal specification, it is possible to analyse and simulate the behaviour of the target system before it is being built. However, for the users' and developers' natural participation in the development process, it is necessary to use a real end-user interface and bind it to the execution environment being used in the simulations and animations. This requires, though, that the execution model used to simulate the specification is appropriately changed to facilitate the use of these user interfaces. The authors…

Blending in Hybrid Games: Understanding Hybrid Games Through Experience

The meaning of what hybrid games are is often fixed to the context in which the term is used. For example, hybrid games have often been defined in relation to recent developments in technology. This creates issues in its usage and limitations in thinking. This paper argues that hybrid games should be understood through conceptual metaphors. Hybridity is the blending of different cognitive domains that are not usually associated together. Hybrid games usually blend domains related to games, for example digital and board games, but can blend also other domains. Through this type of thinking, designers can be more open to exploring how their games can be experienced.

Hybrid Social Play Final Report

Simulation as a game design tool

In this paper we suggest using gameplay simulations on a logical event level as a design tool already in the early stages of the development process. The approach is centred on abstracting all unnecessary details of the gameplay to produce a highly simplified model of the game system. Compared to other kinds of intermediate design representations, such as sketches and prototypes, the simulations can reveal problems and opportunities in the longer term dynamics of possible gameplay. As an example we describe an implementation of a simulation model for the game Tower Bloxx using a simulation software package called DisCo.

Games as Blends : Understanding Hybrid Games

The meaning of what hybrid games are is often fixed to the context in which the term is used. For example, hybrid games have often been defined in relation to recent developments in technology. This creates issues in the terms usage and limitations in thinking. This paper argues that hybrid games should be understood through conceptual metaphors. Hybridity is the blending of different cognitive domains that are not usually associated together. Hybrid games usually blend domains related to games, for example digital and board games, but can blend also other domains. Through viewing game experiences as blends from different domains, designers can understand the inherent hybridity in various t…