Publications

A few featured papers, then my full papers with short summaries and links to the PDF and publisher's version, followed by short papers, workshops and Dagstuhl reports. Filter by theme. For a complete, citation-ranked list, see Google Scholar.

Full papers 28

Journal articles and full conference papers.

2026

Teaser figure: Generative AI in game development, a qualitative research synthesis of 10 studies. Nine themes are shown with icons: human-in-the-loop refinement, ideation scaffold, contested efficiency claims, pipeline and integration, socio-technical role, access and adoption, risks and ethics, governance, and authorship.

ConferenceCORE A*2026 · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'26)

Generative AI in Game Development: A Qualitative Research Synthesis

Ternar, D. A., Denisova, A., Cunha, J. M., Kultima, A., & Guckelsberger, C.

Generative AI is changing how games are made, but the early qualitative studies of its use are scattered and rarely build on each other. We brought together the qualitative research published between 2020 and 2025 using meta-ethnography.

Indie developers and the games industryHuman–AI interaction through play

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: MAV-C audio-visual complexity framework. Audio features (temporal, spectral and spatial entropy) and video features (edge gradients, colour uniqueness, optical-flow motion) are compressed and weighted into sub-scores C_A(t) and C_V(t), then fused into a single complexity score C_AV(t) between 0 and 1. Validated on synthetic stimuli, synthetic sweeps and 60 gameplay clips.

Conference2026 · Proceedings of the AES 6th International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games (AVARIG 2026)

MAV-C: A Framework for the Joint Objective Estimation of Audio-Visual Complexity in Immersive Virtual Environments

Resti, L., Gully, A., McLoughlin, M., Kearney, G., & Denisova, A.

MAV-C estimates how complex an immersive virtual environment is to see and hear. It combines audio features (temporal, spectral and spatial) with visual features (edges, colour and motion) into a single score that changes over time, without needing a reference recording.

Game audio

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version)

Teaser figure: Seeing your own mind playing out on the screen. A model from interviews with 17 players links the player (personal difficulties, lived experiences, needs and skills) with game aspects such as challenge, characters, choice, environment and narrative. These lead to coping mechanisms (processing emotions, reframing thoughts, seeking temporary refuge, developing self-understanding, building competence) and to coping outcomes, which feed back into future play. The games discussed were Disco Elysium, Darkest Dungeon and Stardew Valley.

JournalSJR Q12026 · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI PLAY 2026)

Seeing Your Own Mind Playing Out on the Screen: A Constructivist Grounded Theory of Video Games as Dynamic Coping Systems

Mirhadi, S., Iacovides, J., & Denisova, A.

Video games can help people cope during periods of personal difficulty, but we know little about exactly how they do so. In this constructivist grounded theory study, we interviewed 17 players of Disco Elysium, Darkest Dungeon and Stardew Valley about their lived experiences, and developed the Games as Dynamic Coping Systems model.

Games for goodEmotional challenge and meaningful play

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: Spherical Acoustic Spatial Entropy (SASE). The method splits the space around the listener into equal-area regions, weights each source by perceived loudness and measures how evenly sound is spread. In a listening experiment (N = 21), SASE best predicted perceived complexity (R² = 0.714), ahead of energy and spectral entropy; together with spectral variability it explained 84.4% of the variance.

Journal2026 · IEEE Open Journal of Signal Processing

Spherical Acoustic Spatial Entropy: Predicting Acoustic Scene Complexity in Virtual Environments

Resti, L., Gully, A., McLoughlin, M., Kearney, G., & Denisova, A.

How complex a soundscape feels depends not only on which sounds are present but on where they are. We introduce Spherical Acoustic Spatial Entropy (SASE), a measure that predicts how complex a virtual acoustic scene sounds from how loud each sound source is in each direction around the listener.

Game audio

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: What we talk about when we talk about agency. A Venn diagram of 77 studies shows 50 frame agency as a system affordance, 45 as a subjective experience, and 18 as both. Bar chart of game elements studied: interaction 26, narrative 21, characters 20, environment 15. Only 33 studies addressed player experience, and few used validated measures.

JournalSJR Q12026 · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI PLAY 2026)

What We Talk About When We Talk About Agency: A Systematic Review of Agency in Video Games

Xu, X., Beeston, J., & Denisova, A.

Agency, players' capacity to make meaningful choices and see their consequences, is widely discussed in games research but has no agreed definition. We systematically reviewed 79 peer-reviewed articles to map how agency in video games is defined and measured.

Measuring player experience

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2025

Five design guidelines for emotionally challenging games for older adults: meaningful choices, life experiences, uplifting narratives, fitting challenge and participatory design.

ConferenceCORE A*2025 · Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'25)

Emotionally Challenging Games Can Satisfy Older Adults' Psychological Needs: From Empirical Study to Design Guidelines

Zhou, M., Peng, X., Liu, B., Denisova, A., Barathi, S. C., Li, Z., Xie, X., Huang, J., & Tian, F.

Retirement and living alone can make it harder for older adults to meet their psychological needs. We studied whether emotionally challenging games could help, first with a commercial game (Detroit: Become Human) and then with a game scenario designed for older adults.

Emotional challenge and meaningful playGames for goodDesigning games and interactive media

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: The (placebo) effect of AI dialogue. A screenshot of the murder-mystery RPG built for the study, where players type free-text questions to villagers. In a 2 by 2 study (N = 52), players were told the dialogue was AI-generated or hand-written, and played either version. Players told it was hand-written reported more positive player experience (p = .012) and higher immersion (p = .040), whichever version they played; the real AI dialogue raised autonomy (p = .001) but did not change overall player experience.

Conference2025 · IEEE Conference on Games (CoG'25)

Exploring the (Placebo) Effect of an AI-Powered Dialogue System on Player Experience

Sridharan, S., Villa, S., Denisova, A., & Pirker, J.

Does AI-generated dialogue change how players experience a game, or is it what they believe about it? In a murder-mystery game, we varied both the dialogue players actually got (AI-generated or human-written) and how the game was described to them (labelled as AI or as human-written), and measured overall player experience, immersion and perceived autonomy.

The placebo effectHuman–AI interaction through playDesigning games and interactive media

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: Sound propagation in games. An online survey of professional game sound designers (110 responses, 20 retained). Top priorities were staying within CPU limits and seamless transitions between environments; highly accurate physical calculation ranked lowest. Top challenges were extensive manual editing and computational cost, and only one designer validated against physical measurements. 54% wanted a balance between physical accuracy and creative control, and 53% felt low-pass filtering is enough for diffraction. Implications: optimise for perception over physics, build better tools, and work across disciplines.

Conference2025 · IEEE Conference on Games (CoG'25)

Perspectives of Sound Designers on Real-Time Sound Propagation in Games

Han, Y., Denisova, A., Vasiliou, C., Schembri, D., Jones, M., & Murphy, D.

Realistic sound propagation, how sound travels through and around a virtual space, matters for immersive game audio, but getting it right means balancing physical accuracy against creative design. We reviewed physics-based techniques for real-time sound propagation and surveyed professional game sound designers (20 complete responses after screening) about their approaches, priorities and the challenges they face.

Game audioIndie developers and the games industry

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Framework separating autonomy from agency over time: self-efficacy before the game, then autonomy before each action and agency after the game's feedback, with competence updated throughout play.

Conference2025 · Proceedings of the Digital Games Research Association Conference (DiGRA'25)

Redefining Play: A Novel Framework for Differentiating Agency and Autonomy in Video Games

Xu, X., Beeston, J., & Denisova, A.

Player agency is often confused with autonomy. Drawing on the literature, we propose a framework that separates the two, built around a single completed player action, and clarifies how self-efficacy and competence relate to them.

Immersion and game featuresMeasuring player experience

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2024

BANGS, the Basic Needs in Games Scale: six subscales measuring satisfaction and frustration of autonomy, competence and relatedness, validated across 5 studies with 1,246 participants.

JournalCORE A2024 · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

The Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS): A new tool for investigating positive and negative video game experiences

Ballou, N., Denisova, A., Ryan, R., Rigby, C. S., & Deterding, S.

Existing measures of players' basic psychological needs often ignore need frustration and struggle to capture relatedness in single-player games. The Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS) measures both satisfaction and frustration of autonomy, competence and relatedness in games.

Measuring player experience

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: Democratising games user research. Interviews with 13 indie games professionals revealed five themes of playtesting challenges: early playtesting, recruiting players, choosing methods, analysing data and acting on feedback. These are hard because of lack of resources, lack of GUR expertise and wearing multiple hats.

JournalSJR Q12024 · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI PLAY 2024)

Towards Democratisation of Games User Research: Exploring Playtesting Challenges of Indie Video Game Developers

Denisova, A., Bromley, S., Mirza-Babaei, P., & Mekler, E. D.

Playtesting is a core games user research method, but recommended practices often assume resources and expertise that indie developers lack. We interviewed 13 indie games professionals about how they playtest and what gets in the way.

Indie developers and the games industry

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2023

Teaser figure: ChallengeDetect. 32 players played Fallout 4 while five physiological signals were recorded (ECG, skin temperature, respiration, EMG and electrodermal activity). After pre-processing, feature extraction (80 features, 24 most informative) and machine learning (13 models), the best model detected cognitive challenge with 86.8% accuracy, emotional and physical challenge with 85.1%, and decision-making challenge with 87.3%.

ConferenceCORE A*2023 · Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'23)

ChallengeDetect: Investigating the Potential of Detecting In-Game Challenge Experience from Physiological Measures

Peng, X., Xie, X., Huang, J., Jiang, C., Wang, H., Denisova, A., Chen, H., Tian, F., & Wang, H.

Questionnaires only capture challenge after play has ended. ChallengeDetect explores whether perceived challenge can instead be detected from players' physiological signals, moment to moment.

Measuring player experienceChallenge and adaptationEmotional challenge and meaningful play

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Six player experience dimensions for tabletop role-playing games: cognitive challenge, immersion, agency, attachment, group dynamics and refereeing.

Conference2023 · Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG'23)

The Challenge of Evaluating Player Experience in Tabletop Role-Playing Games

Liapis, A., & Denisova, A.

Evaluating player experience could help game masters, players and designers of tabletop role-playing games, but no formal method exists. We compared player experience measures from digital games with what happens around the table.

Challenge and adaptationMeasuring player experience

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2022

Teaser figure: Board games with a soundtrack. Photos of the cooperative board game Fuse and its timer app. Fourteen players compared silence, time announcements, and a full soundtrack. The full soundtrack brought more enjoyment and tension than announcements alone, announcements gave no gain over silence, and players described sound as creating atmosphere.

ConferenceCORE A*2022 · Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'22)

The Effects of a Soundtrack on Board Game Player Experience

Farkas, T., Denisova, A., Wiseman, S., & Fiebrink, R.

Board games are increasingly augmented with apps and soundtracks, but little is known about how this changes play. We ran a mixed-methods study of how music and sound effects affect the experience of playing a board game.

Game audioImmersion and game features

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2021

Four themes from interviews with 14 indie designers: design vision, creating room for interpretation, experiential fine-tuning, and the gap for player experience research.

ConferenceCORE A*2021 · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'21)

"Whatever the Emotional Experience, It's Up to Them": Insights from Designers of Emotionally Impactful Games

Denisova, A., Bopp, J. A., Nguyen, T. D., & Mekler, E. D.

Research on emotionally impactful games has mostly studied players. We interviewed 14 indie game designers about their values and practices when creating emotionally impactful games.

Emotional challenge and meaningful playIndie developers and the games industry

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2020

Teaser figure: A palette of deepened emotions. Photos of a participant playing on a PC and another in VR. Experiment 1 (N = 28) compared conventional and emotional challenge in Fallout 4 scenes; Experiment 2 (N = 40) added emotional challenge to the same scene. Radar charts of 24 emotions show VR enhanced emotional responses, appreciation, immersion and presence.

ConferenceCORE A*2020 · Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'20)

A Palette of Deepened Emotions: Exploring Emotional Challenge in Virtual Reality Games

Peng, X., Huang, J., Denisova, A., Chen, H., Tian, F., & Wang, H.

Emotional challenge asks players to deal with difficult emotions rather than difficult gameplay. Across two experiments we compared emotional challenge, alone and combined with conventional challenge, in virtual reality and on a PC.

Emotional challenge and meaningful play

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

CORGIS, the Challenge Originating from Recent Gameplay Interaction Scale: 30 items measuring four kinds of perceived challenge (cognitive, performative, emotional and decision-making), developed from a literature review and interviews, a 60-item pool, factor analysis with 394 players and validation with nearly 1,000 players.

JournalCORE A2020 · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Measuring Perceived Challenge in Digital Games: Development & Validation of the Challenge Originating from Recent Gameplay Interaction Scale (CORGIS)

Denisova, A., Cairns, P., Guckelsberger, C., & Zendle, D.

Players can find a game challenging in more ways than needing quick reflexes. This paper presents CORGIS, the Challenge Originating from Recent Gameplay Interaction Scale: a questionnaire that measures how challenging players found the game they just played. Its items came from a review of games user research, game design and game AI literature, and from interviews with researchers and players.

Measuring player experienceChallenge and adaptationEmotional challenge and meaningful play

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2019

PUGS, the Player Uncertainty in Games Scale: a general player uncertainty factor with internal uncertainty about decision-making, taking action and problem-solving, plus external uncertainty and exploration, which reduces uncertainty.

Journal2019 · International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction

Lost at the Edge of Uncertainty: Measuring Player Uncertainty in Digital Games

Power, C., Cairns, P., Denisova, A., Papaioannou, T., & Gultom, R.

Uncertainty makes games engaging, but it can feel good or bad, and there was no way to measure it. Using survey data from over 700 players, we developed a questionnaire of how players experience uncertainty and validated it with a commercial puzzle game.

Measuring player experience

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: Deceptive expectations. A screenshot of the trick-or-treat game. A schematic shows that players told the game adapts reported higher immersion whether or not adaptation was on. Study I (N = 120) used an adaptive or standard timer with no, partial or full information; Study II (N = 60) showed the effect held over longer play.

Journal2019 · Entertainment Computing

Player Experience and Deceptive Expectations of Difficulty Adaptation in Digital Games

Denisova, A., & Cairns, P.

Does telling players that a game adapts to them change their experience, whether or not it really does? In two studies with two games using different performance-based adaptations, we varied both what players were told and whether adaptation was present.

The placebo effectChallenge and adaptationImmersion and game features

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: Power-ups in digital games. Screenshots of five power-ups: laser cannon, double gun, laser gun, health and life. With 36 players, both real and placebo power-ups (which looked the same but did nothing) gave higher immersion and autonomy than no power-ups, with no difference in competence or challenge.

Conference2019 · Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY'19)

Power-Ups in Digital Games: The Rewarding Effect of Phantom Game Elements on Player Experience

Denisova, A., & Cook, E.

Power-ups are everywhere in games, but their effect on player experience is poorly understood. We compared playing with power-ups, without them, and with 'placebo' power-ups that did nothing at all.

The placebo effectImmersion and game features

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2015

Short papers and work in progress 6

Late-breaking work, short papers, posters and doctoral symposium papers.

2017

Teaser figure: challenge-related items in nine existing questionnaires, from 10 in eGameFlow to 3 in several others; proposed cognitive, physical, emotional and social challenge types; and gaps found, such as no statistical validation.

ConferenceShort paper 2017 · Extended Abstracts of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA'17)

Challenge in Digital Games: Towards Developing a Measurement Tool

Denisova, A., Guckelsberger, C., & Zendle, D.

Reviews how challenge in games is defined, what types of challenge exist and how they relate to player experience, drawing on game design, HCI and game AI. This review laid the groundwork for the CORGIS questionnaire.

Challenge and adaptationEmotional challenge and meaningful playMeasuring player experience

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: the four factors of the PUG questionnaire (disorientation, exploration, prospect and randomness) with item counts and reliability, and the development steps from a 146-item pool to a survey of 674 players.

ConferenceShort paper 2017 · Extended Abstracts of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA'17)

Measuring Uncertainty in Games: Design and Preliminary Validation

Power, C., Denisova, A., Papaioannou, T., & Cairns, P.

An early version of the uncertainty questionnaire that became PUGS. The 66-item scale, refined through player interviews and expert review and tested in an online survey, showed four factors: disorientation, exploration, prospect and randomness.

Measuring player experience

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2016

Teaser figure: correlations between total scores on the IEQ, GEQ and PENS (r = .80, .81 and .69) from 270 players, with further findings on overlapping immersion items and PENS loading on two factors.

ConferenceShort paper 2016 · Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY'16)

The Convergence of Player Experience Questionnaires

Denisova, A., Nordin, A. I., & Cairns, P.

Compares three widely used player experience questionnaires (IEQ, GEQ and PENS) using 270 players' reports of their most recent game. The three overlap considerably, leaving room to refine them into one broader measure of game engagement.

Measuring player experience

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2015

Teaser figure: Adaptation in digital games. A screenshot of the time-limited shooting game. For 22 of 42 players the timer secretly adapted: it sped up by 1.4 times when they were doing well and slowed down when they struggled, checked four times per game. Immersion was higher with the adaptive timer, F(1, 40) = 7.41, p = .010, while perceived challenge did not differ.

ConferenceShort paper 2015 · Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY'15)

Adaptation in Digital Games: The Effect of Challenge Adjustment on Player Performance and Experience

Denisova, A., & Cairns, P.

Good gaming experiences depend on balancing challenge against the player's skill. We tested a simple form of dynamic difficulty adjustment: changing a game's timer based on each player's performance, without telling players it was happening.

Challenge and adaptation

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

Teaser figure: mean IEQ immersion of 117.3 in first person versus 107.1 in third person after 15 minutes of Skyrim, with findings that preferred view did not change total immersion.

ConferenceCORE A*Short paper 2015 · Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'15)

First Person vs. Third Person Perspective in Digital Games: Do Player Preferences Affect Immersion?

Denisova, A., & Cairns, P.

Do players feel more immersed in first-person or third-person view? Participants played a role-playing game in one of the two perspectives and rated their immersion. First person was more immersive, whichever perspective players said they preferred.

Immersion and game features

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version

2014

Teaser figure: seven questionnaires used to measure engagement in games (IEQ, GEQ, PENS, SPGQ, GameFlow, Flow, Presence), the problems this causes, and a proposed study comparing the IEQ and GEQ.

ConferenceShort paper 2014 · The 7th York Doctoral Symposium on Computer Science and Electronics

Too Many Questionnaires: Measuring Player Experience Whilst Playing Digital Games

Nordin, A. I., Denisova, A., & Cairns, P.

Lists the questionnaires available for measuring engagement in digital games and argues that they need to be positioned against each other, so researchers know which aspect of experience each one measures.

Measuring player experience

Summary and key findings PDF (accepted version)

Other full papers 6

Earlier and collaborative full papers.

Workshops, SIGs and panels 9

Workshops I co-organised or contributed to, special interest groups and panels.

  • Designing for Playfulness in Human-AI Authoring Tools Liapis, A., Guckelsberger, C., Zhu, J., Harteveld, C., Kriglstein, S., Denisova, A., Gow, J., & Preuss, M. · 2023 · Proceedings of the Workshop on Human-AI Interaction Through Play at the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG'23) Publisher's version
  • Envisioning and Co-Creating Generative AI for Future Creative Workers in Gaming: A CHI PLAY 2026 Workshop Freeman, G., Toxtli, C., Panchanadikar, R., Hu, Y., Frommel, J., Mandryk, R. L., Guckelsberger, C., & Denisova, A. · 2026 · Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY Companion '26) Publisher's version
  • Leveling Up Leadership: Emerging Voices and Evolving Practices in the Games & Play Community Buruk, O. O., Birk, M. V., Altarriba Bertran, F., Denisova, A., Johry, A., Patibanda, R., Spors, V., Tong, X., & Wehbe, R. R. · 2025 · Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY Companion '25) Publisher's version
  • Evaluating Interactive AI: Understanding and Controlling Placebo Effects in Human-AI Interaction Villa, S., Welsch, R., Denisova, A., & Kosch, T. · 2024 · Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA'24) Publisher's version
  • Games and Play SIG: Connecting Games Research to the Broader HCI Context Mandryk, R. L., Mirza-Babaei, P., Denisova, A., Freeman, G., & Johnson, D. · 2024 · Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA'24) Publisher's version
  • Human-AI Interaction through Play Workshop Zhu, J., Preuss, M., Liapis, A., Harteveld, C., Denisova, A., Cooper, S., & Chanel, G. · 2024 · IEEE Conference on Games (CoG'24)
  • The Second Workshop on Eudaimonia in Digital Games Cole, T., Denisova, A., & Iacovides, J. · 2024 · Proceedings of the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG'24)
  • The First Workshop on Eudaimonia in Digital Games Cole, T., Denisova, A., & Iacovides, J. · 2023 · Proceedings of the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG'23)
  • The First Workshop on Human-AI Interaction through Play Zhu, J., Preuss, M., Liapis, A., Harteveld, C., Denisova, A., Cooper, S., & Chanel, G. · 2023 · Proceedings of the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG'23)

Dagstuhl reports and manifestos 7

Extended abstracts and manifestos from Dagstuhl seminars and workshops.

Thesis, preprints, posters and articles 5

My PhD thesis, preprints, posters and magazine articles.