ImGame Project: A Comprehensive Theory of Immersive Aesthetics and Innovation in Serious Gaming

Abstract

The study presents the authors’ research for the purpose of designing ImGame, a virtual environment inviting users to playfully learn about the concept of immersion and its historical antecedents. The authors describe ImGame’s current pre-production stage and examine the basic characteristics of the feeling of immersion. They intend to deepen the current understanding of the immersive experience in art, taking into account its broad cultural connotations. The article suggests that the aesthetics of immersion can be classified into two psychological modes that have not been explicitly defined in the discourse of immersivity: a calm reflection and one of awe. From the technical standpoint, the project offers a simple handling of triggering animations and events of the game as well as storing of their state in order to create gamification elements, interactions for quizzes and other activities for ImGame or any other game using the a-frame framework to create WebXR experiences.