Exploring the relation between game experience and game mechanics for bodily-kinesthetic players

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a research on investigating whether tailoring the game mechanics and interaction modality of a game has an impact on the game experience of the player in the case of players with a high bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (with respect to the theory of Multiple Intelligences). For this purpose, we designed and developed a game called LeapBalancer, and evaluated it with a group of kinesthetic and a group of non-kinesthetic players. The results of the evaluation show that considering the intelligences of the players during game design matters and affects their game experience. In addition, we analyzed the players’ in-game behavior to explain the results. The finding are also important for learning games, since research suggest that good game experience is positively correlated with improved learning.