Research

My research focuses on how new and cutting-edge technology affects the gaming experience.

I’m particularly interested in how the application of new technology changes how we design games, and how new technology can lead to new ways of designing gaming experiences. As part of this research I founded and acted as the director of the Novel Game Design Lab at Kennesaw State University between May 2021 and July 2024.

Below you will find a list of my past and present research projects, as well as a list of publications.

Research Projects

  • Relic

    How can we strike a balance between developmental complexity and maintaining a strong user experience for generative content in games?

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  • TechnoWizard

    How do we design and build virtual reality experiences that rely on the human body as an input device?

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  • Minecraft Settlements

    How do we create generative settlements that are both beautiful and provide an interesting gaming experience?

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  • Non-Player Characters

    What are the design criteria for procedurally generated non-player characters in games?

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 Academic Publications

  • Henrik Warpefelt. "The Case for Naive and Low-Fidelity Narrative Generation". Games and Narrative: Theory and Practice. Eds: Barbaros Bostan. Springer. 2022.

    Magnus Johansson, Björn Strååt, Henrik Warpefelt, and Harko Verhagen. "Analyzing the Social Dynamics of Non-Player Characters". Frontiers in Gaming Simulation. Eds: Sebastiaan A. Meijer, Riitta Smeds. Springer. 2014.

    Magnus Johansson, Björn Strååt, Henrik Warpefelt, and Harko Verhagen. "Analyzing AI in NPCs: An Analysis of Twelve Games". Multiplayer: The Social Aspects of Digital Gaming. Eds: Thorsten Quandt, Sonja Kröger. Routledge. 2013.

  • Jean-Baptiste Hervé, Christoph Salge, and Henrik Warpefelt. “An Examination of the Hidden Judging Criteria in the Generative Design in Minecraft Competition”. IEEE Transactions on Games. 2024.

    Henrik Warpefelt and Magnus Johansson. "Understanding the user experience of AI through the lens of game studies". ELUDAMOS. Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 183-195. 2019.

    Henrik Warpefelt and Harko Verhagen. "A model of non-player character believability". Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds. Volume 9, Number 1, pp. 39-53. Intellect Ltd. 2017.

  • Henrik Warpefelt. "A Gap in Games Research". Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. 2022.

    Henrik Warpefelt. "Developing the Relic Series: Exploring the Effects of Remediating Natively Generated Narrative". Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. 2022.

    Henrik Warpefelt. "Micro-level examination of games using Indicator Analysis". Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. 2020.

    Henrik Warpefelt and Björn Strååt. "Towards a Narrative Driven Understanding of Games User Experience". Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. 2019.

    Björn Strååt, Harko Verhagen, Henrik Warpefelt. "Probing user opinions in an indirect way: an aspect based sentiment analysis of game reviews". Proceedings of the 21st International Academic Mindtrek Conference. 2017.

    Henrik Warpefelt, Harko Verhagen. "A Typology of Non-Player Characters". Social Believability in Games Workshop. 2016.

    Henrik Warpefelt, Harko Verhagen. "Towards an updated typology of non-player character roles". Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Game and Entertainment Technologies. International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS). 2015.

    Henrik Warpefelt. "Cues and insinuations: Indicating the accordances of non-player characters using visual indicators". Proceedings of DiGRA 2015: Diversity of play: Games - Cultures - Identities. Digital Games Research Association. 2015.

    Björn Strååt and Henrik Warpefelt. "Applying the Two-Factor-Theory to the PLAY Heuristics". Proceedings of DiGRA 2015: Diversity of play: Games - Cultures - Identities. Digital Games Research Association. 2015.

    Björn Strååt, Magnus Johansson, and Henrik Warpefelt. "Evaluating Game Heuristics for Measuring Player Experience". Proceedings GAME-ON'13 - The 14th International Conference on Intelligent Games and Simulations. 2013.

    Henrik Warpefelt, Magnus Johansson and Harko Verhagen. "Analyzing the believability of game character behavior using the Game Agent Matrix". Proceedings of the sixth bi-annual conference of the Digital Games Research Association: Defragging Game Studies. Digital Games Research Association. 2013.

    Henrik Warpefelt and Björn Strååt. "Breaking immersion by creating social unbelievabilty". AISB 2013 Convention. Social Coordination: Principles, Artefacts and Theories (SOCIAL.PATH). The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour. 2013.

    Henrik Warpefelt and Björn Strååt. "A Method for comparing NPC social ability". Proceedings of the 5th Annual International Conference on Computer Games and Allied Technology. Global Science and Technology Forum. 2012.

  • The Non-Player Character - Exploring the believability of NPC presentation and behavior. Doctoral dissertation. 2016.

    Mind the Gap - Exploring the social capability of non-player characters. Licentiate thesis. 2013.

    Colorblind computer gaming. Magister (one year master) thesis, co-authored with Björn Strååt. 2010.