Combiform: beyond co-attentive play, a combinable social gaming platform

Authors:
Edmond Yee;Josh Joiner;Tai An;Andrew Dang
Affiliations:
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA;University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA;University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA;University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
Venue:
CHI '12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Year:
2012

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Abstract

Combiform is a novel digital gaming console featuring four combinable handheld controllers. It is a new and unique tangible gaming interface that stresses the importance of co-located, co-attentive social interactions among players. In particular, multiple players may freely combine and lock together their handheld game controllers, thereby creating a very flexible collective and transformable tangible interface. Combiform emphasizes social interaction through controller-to-controller contact. The platform and its 10 games introduce novel, tangible and physical co-attentive experiences that are not found in traditional co-located gaming platforms using 'embodied' controllers (e.g. Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect). Based on observations, this new interactive technique has successfully transformed typical co-located social play experiences into a multisensory physical activity.