BlockTower: A Multi-player Cross-Platform Competitive Social Game

This research aims to explore the usability and gameplay experiences of a two-player game across three platforms. The game is based on a variation of the board game Jenga---a game played in social, casual settings. Our game requires spatial, tactical, and mental reasoning from players to win and consists of a tower of blocks piled on top of each other. Players take turns to remove one block at a time from the tower then place it on the top of the tower; the game ends when at least one block of the tower falls to the ground---the losing player is the one whose turn caused this fall. The game can be played by two players simultaneously through the use of virtual reality head mounted displays (HMD) like the Oculus RIFT or HTC Vive, two separate mobile tablet devices, or a shared television (TV) display. The first two platforms provide players with their own independent views of the game, whereas the third platform allows the players to use one single screen. This research is an attempt to better understand how virtual reality and mobile technologies can support multiplayer gaming experiences when gamers are engaged in a competitive casual game.