Research / Related theme

Immersion and game features

How camera perspective, power-ups, soundtracks and impossible spaces change what players experience.

Studies of how specific game features and set-ups affect immersion and other experiences, including camera perspective, time manipulation, power-ups, soundtracks, impossible spaces and biofeedback-driven difficulty.

Papers

Teaser figure: Non-Euclidean video games. Snake and Asteroids were rebuilt in flat (Euclidean), spherical and hyperbolic space; time-lapse images show the snake turning in each. In a within-subjects study with 22 players, mastery was lower in curved spaces in both games except hyperbolic Snake, ease of control differed across spaces and was highest in Euclidean Asteroids, and immersion and challenge did not differ.

Journal2025 · IEEE Transactions on Games

Non-Euclidean Video Games: Exploring Player Perceptions and Experiences inside Impossible Spaces

Osudin, D., Denisova, A., & Child, C.

Non-Euclidean spaces can contain layouts that are impossible in the physical world. We adapted Snake and Asteroids to flat, hyperbolic and spherical spaces and asked each player to try all three versions.

Designing games and interactive media

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.

Measuring player experience

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

Short papers

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.

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

Other publications

Also relevant

Papers whose main theme is elsewhere but which also contribute here.