Please welcome our youngest team member, Julius Tietenberg! Julius has worked at the ECG for several years as student assistant and now we are happy to have him with us as researcher!  read more ››

ECG @ SeGAH 2023

06.09.2023

Last week, our colleague Linda was at the Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health in Athens and presented the paper "MATS - An ADHD-specific Mental Health App: Evidence-based Recommendations for Designing Assistive Applications for ADHD Families" about our MATS project. For more impressions, check our Insta account!       read more ››

Prof Masuch was one of the speaker at the "Virtual Reality in der Medizin - kennen lernen und erleben" event at the University of Witten/Herdecke. His talk was about the use of Virtual Reality Games in medicine, introducing our project VR-RLX and the Penguant trainer! Next time you can listen to Prof. Masuch's talk at the "XR Symposium - Virtuelle und erweiterte Realität in der Medizin" in the University Hospital in Essen at the 23rd of August. For more information visit the website.   Linda Graf will also present our new project DEVIA!     read more ››

Please welcome our youngest team member, Marius Grießhammer! Marius has worked at the ECG for several years as student assistant and is now leading the ELI project. We are happy to have him with us!  read more ››

ECG meets ESA

10.11.2022

Last week Prof. Masuch visited the ESA for some interesting new projects! The ESA is the European Space Agency that contains the European Astronaut Center, the central facility for the training of astronauts, located in Köln-Lind. "Wir sind die ESA. Wir sorgen dafür, dass Weltraumforschung allen zugutekommt. Wir bauen und starten Raketen und Satelliten, bilden Astronauten aus, wachen über die Erde, erforschen das All und beschäftigen uns mit der Beantwortung der großen wissenschaftlichen Fragen des Universums." We are very excited what the future will bring us, so stay tuned...     read more ››

The Pingunauten Trainer has won the XR Science Award 2022 in the category "Athletic Performance, Psychology and Health"! Woohoo! We are so happy! The XR Science Award is awarded by the German Institute for Virtual Reality (DIVR) in 4 categories. This year the award ceremony took place at DASA in Dortmund. Read more here!   read more ››

We present our project at this year's Kongress für Kinder- und Jugendmedizin in Düsseldorf and won one of three Best Poster Awards! In the course of the award ceremony, this short interview with Dr. Oliver Basu was made: Youtube Video Many thanks to the jury for the appreciation of our work! The poster is available on our Website or on ResearchGate.  read more ››

On September 30th the faculty of engineering opens the labs for anybody who is interested - be it former or future students, families and friends as well as interested citizens. Out chair will also be represented and will offer the possibility of experiencing AR and VR technology.  read more ››

This week Linda Graf gave a talk at MuC 2022! The “Mensch und Computer” (MuC) conference, launched in 2001, is the largest conference series on human-computer interaction in Europe. Linda presented a joint research work on the development and validation of a German version of the Player Experience Inventory. The paper received one of the honorable mention awards - Congratulations! You can find the paper here.     read more ››

On Thursday, 25.8.22, Prof. Masuch gave a talk at the Gamescom Congress on the topic of "Games in Medicine" (Games in der Medizin: „Daddeln für die Gesundheit?“ oder welche Möglichkeiten liegen tatsächlich in Health Games?). After two years of online conference, 265.000 guests came to Gamescom in Cologne. Here you can listen to an interview with Prof. Masuch and Deutschlandfunk Kultur!  read more ››

Our longtime member Dr. Stefan Liszio leaves the Entertainment Computing Group after almost 10 years. He dedicates himself to new professional challenges from now on. We sincerely wish him all the best for his further path and hope for one or the other cooperation. Thanks Stefan!  read more ››

Congratulations to our longtime member Felix Born on his successful doctorate!  Felix leaves the Entertainment Computing Group and dedicates himself to new professional challenges from now on. We sincerely wish him all the best for his future path.  read more ››

In the upcoming summer semester of 2022, Prof. Masuch will be on a research semester. During this time, he will not teach any courses and will not be available for student concerns.  The lecture "Digital Media" will be held by Dr. Liszio. Please contact Dr. Liszio via email if you have any questions about the lecture. For all other issues please contact our secretary Ms. Roseneit.  read more ››

Team Update!

26.10.2021

Our team has grown! We welcome our newest ECG member Patrizia Ring, who will support us in our research as a research assistant and PhD student. We are also happy to announce that Stefan Liszio has successfully completed his PhD! Congratulations!  read more ››

Finally, the Pengunaut Trainer is officially released on Google Play and in the Apple App Store!Many thanks to our developers at the nix company for their awesome work and to Child's Play for their financial support!Over the last few months, we've been giving the Pengunaut Trainer a refresh. We have worked on improving the visual quality of the virtual world (light, shadows and textures, new and nicer models), corrected various bugs, reworked the menu and the intro scene.Also, we were finally able to release an iOS version for iPhones in addition to the Android version!We are very happy that we could finally accomplish these tasks and are already looking forward to the next challenge: The production of a French and a Spanish translation.In this spirit: Allons-y, go Pingunautas!  read more ››

Dear students of the 1st semester,  Since in the current situation only a virtual welcome on our part is possible, we would like to do this with our welcome video for the virtual O-week.We wish you a good start to your studies! See the video here!  read more ››

Together with the Entertainment Computing Group and the Tu Dortmund, the Meister Cody team is developing an eTherapy app for children with ADHD as part of the MATS project. For this we want to learn from behavioral therapists how they would like to integrate digital treatment methods into their practice. If you are interested in participating in a 60-minute telephone interview, please contact our partner Meister Cody directly.  read more ››

Our dear colleague and friend Dr. Katharina Emmerich leaves the Entertainment Computing Group and takes up her new position in Prof. Krüger's team. We wish her the best for her future and thank her for the great work in the last years. We will miss you!  read more ››

Fantastic news in these stormy times! Our VR game for children to prepare for the examination in the MRI - Pingunauten Trainer - was nominated for the Deutscher Computerspielpreis 2020 in the category "Best Innovation and Technology"! We are really proud of the nomination and are looking forward to the award ceremony on April 27th, 2020, so keep your fingers crossed! See here all information about the award and all other nominees: https://deutscher-computerspielpreis.de/presse/deutscher-computerspielpreis-2020-nominiert-die-besten-spiele-0     read more ››

Corona Regulations

17.03.2020

 ++ Englisch Version Below ++ Aufgrund der fortschreitenden Ausbreitung des neuartigen Corona-Virus setzen wir auf Empfehlung der Hochschulleitung unsere Lehrveranstaltungen und Prüfungen bis zum 20.04.2020 aus. Das Rektorat hat in Abstimmung mit dem Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft NRW (MKW NRW) entschieden, den Semesterbeginn auf den 20. April 2020 zu verschieben. Dies bedeutet, dass der Lehrbetrieb in Präsenzform bis dahin vollständig eingestellt ist. Dies betrifft alle Lehrveranstaltungen, Übungen, Tutorien, Praxis- und Forschungsprojekte. Darüber hinaus können wir zurzeit keine neuen Abschlussarbeiten anmelden. Die Bekanntgabe der Noten der Klausur „Multimediale Systeme“ (WS 19/20) verzögert sich ebenfalls. Mehr Informationen können hier gefunden werden. Wir bemühen uns sicherzustellen, dass Ihnen in dieser besonderen Situation keine zusätzlichen unbilligen Nachteile entstehen und versuchen für bestimmte Fristen, Prüfungssituationen und insbesondere laufende Abschlussarbeiten eine individuelle Lösung zu finden. Das Team vom Lehrstuhl für Medieninformatik | Entertainment Computing hat sich überdies entschlossen, den Empfehlungen der Universität zu folgen und bleibt bis auf Weiteres im Homeoffice. Insbesondere bleibt das Sekretariat vorerst unbesetzt. Bei Rückfragen zu Lehrveranstaltungen, Prüfungen, etc. wenden Sie sich bitte direkt per E-Mail an die zuständigen Mitarbeiter/innen. Wir hoffen, durch diese Maßnahmen einen möglichst guten Schutz für alle Angehörigen der UDE sicherzustellen und die Ausbreitung des Virus zu verlangsamen. Gleichzeitig möchten wir auch an dieser Stelle noch einmal darauf hinweisen, dass jede und jeder Einzelne durch Einhaltung von Hygiene-Maßnahmen und die Reduzierung sozialer Kontakte maßgeblich zum eigenen Schutz und dem anderer Menschen beitragen...  read more ››

On the 12th November 2019, Katharina Emmerich successfully defended her PhD thesis Investigating the Social Player Experience: Social Effects in Digital Games. She received the top mark summa cum laude and is now Dr.-Ing. Her thesis examines the constituents of the social player experience and investigates the relation between game design aspects, social entities, and the emergent social play. By looking at the topic from various angles, the thesis entails considerations and studies guided by the main research question: how do social entities such as co-players and virtual characters affect players’ experience of playing digital games? The thesis is published online.  read more ››

Please welcome our youngest team member, Linda Graf! She just returned from NYC to start her Ph.D. at our research group. Together with Katharina Emmerich she will lead the MATS project. She will also be in charge of the lab course "Spielerisches Training kognitiver Fähigkeiten für Kinder mit ADHS" this winter semester. We are happy to have her with us!  read more ››

We are happy to announce that our project VR-RLX will be extended for another six months. We gathered so many exiting results and learned so many lessons. However, there is still a lot of work to do. Our next steps will be the polishing and disseminating of our work.  read more ››

It's noisy, tight and scary - that's how children feel about a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. Because they are scared, they are often too fidgety and anxious during the procedure, causing the images to blur or the scan to be stopped. Researchers have now developed a VR app called Pingunauten Trainer that’s designed to gently prepare the little patients for MRI scans. In this MEDICA-tradefair.com interview, Stefan Liszio talks about the problems that arise when children have to undergo an MRI scan, explains the importance of gamification in healthcare and describes how penguins help children overcome their fear of MRI exams. Read the full interview here: English Version, German Version   read more ››

  We are looking for new team members to support our upcoming Project:  MATS -  Development of a mobile attention training software to support the therapy of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) Your Tasks: Our research project MATS aims at developing and evaluating a playful, digital learning and attention training software to support the ADHD therapy of children. Your task is to support our team, particularly in the conception of suitable game scenarios and their prototypical implementation with Unity3D.   Your Qualifications: Ongoing study or completed Bachelor degree in Applied Cognitive and Media Science, Computer Science or comparable  Good programming skills in C#, preferably experience in working with the Unity3D Game Engine You have an affinity for digital games and a good sense for game design aspects Your way of working is conscientious and independent, you are a team player You are creative, interested and engaged into this topic and the target group   Amount of Work:  (Weekly) working hours: up to 10h per week Contract term: 6 months (extension option striven for total project duration of 3 years) Expected starting date: as soon as possible   Your Application:  Please contact Katharina Emmerich: katharina.emmerich@uni-due.de including personal details and a short letter of motivation.  read more ››

We are looking for new team members to support our upcoming Project:  MATS -  Development of a mobile attention training software to support the therapy of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) Your Tasks: Our research project MATS aims at developing and evaluating a playful, digital learning and attention training software to support the ADHD therapy of children. Your task is to support our team, particularly in the conception of suitable game scenarios and in evaluating different design aspects and game mechanic in user studies. Your Qualifications: Ongoing study or completed Bachelor degree in Applied Cognitive and Media Science, Computer Science or comparable  Safe handling in technical literature and empirical examination/investigation methods Your way of working is conscientious and independent, you are a team player You are creative, interested and engaged into this topic and the target group Experience in the development of an interactive Application and an affinity for games are advantageous Amount of Work: (Weekly) working hours: up to 10h per week Contract term: 6 months (extension option striven for total project duration of 3 years) Expected starting date: as soon as possible Your Application: Please contact Katharina Emmerich: katharina.emmerich@uni-due.de including personal details and a short letter of motivation.  read more ››

Starting with the summer term 2019, we renew the process for thesis application at our research group. If you consider writing your thesis at ECG, please check the updated Requests for Supervision page. We now request applicants to write a short exposé about their preferred topic in advance. Soon, we will add some examples on our website, too. If you have any questions about the new process in advance, feel free to contact any of our team members.  read more ››

Maic Masuch presented the potential of computer graphics in paediatrics and youth medicine at the second symposium of paediatric research at the University of Leipzig on the March 2, 2019. Among other things, he surprised the audience with video games to sensitize young cancer patients in taking their medication, to make victims of fire forget their pain while re-bandaging, to take away childrens fear of a MRI scan in a playful way, or to enable the experience of social interaction in spite of depression. Read the full news article (german) here.  read more ››

Pingunauts on Air!

01.03.2019

Yesterday, the local TV channel WDR broadcasted a TV report about our MRI training app "Pingunauten Trainer"! The WDR Lokalzeit Ruhr team visited us in our lab as well as Dr. Oliver Basu at the Essen University Hospital (UKE). At the UKE they talked to young Leonie and her mother about how our app helped her to overcome her fear and pass a relaxed and trouble-free MRI scan. We love to hear stories like Leonie's which boost our motivation to continue our mission! Watch the full clip here: https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/lokalzeit-ruhr/video-entspannt-in-die-roehre-neue-app-fuer-mrt-100.html  read more ››

There are still capacities for students in our Lab Course Personal Space in Multi-User VR Games ! The weekly appointment is not defined yet. Please feel free to contact philipp.sykownik@uni-due.de for further information.   read more ››

Wofür: Die Kinderklinik will im Rahmen eines Projektes die Angst von Kindern vor einer MRT Untersuchung mit Hilfe einer VR Brille senken. Kinder sollen durch eine VR-Applikation die Gelegenheit bekommen, eine MRT Untersuchung schon vorher kennenzulernen und zu erleben. Dazu benötigen wir jemanden, der Kindern diese Anwendung erklärt und die Angst der Kinder Mittels Befragung erhebt. Zusätzlich sollte die studentische Hilfskraft das Team bei den weiteren Aufgaben im Projekt unterstützen, wie z.B. beim Schreiben von Texten oder Berichten, sowie das Aufsetzen von IT-Hard- und Software. Eigene Ideen und Kreativität sind dabei ausdrücklich erwünscht.   Was muss man können: Man sollte gut mit Kindern und Eltern umgehen können, ein freundliches Wesen haben sowie eher ein geduldiges Naturell haben. Ein Faible für neue Medien und sehr gute PC und Windows Kenntnisse sind genauso Voraussetzungen wie die Fähigkeit komplizierte medizinische Prozesse in kindgerechten Texten zu erklären. Im optimalen Fall haben Sie bereits Vorerfahrungen im medizinischen Bereich sammeln können, vielleicht im Rahmen einer vorherigen Tätigkeit z.B. als Pflegekraft oder waren selbst einmal länger Patient.   Bewerbungen richten Sie bitte bis zum 20.8.2018 an Dr. Basu  o.basu@uk-essen.de    read more ››

Last week Katharina Emmerich presented her recent work at the CHI 2018 conference in Montreal, Canada! The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction and an important forum to discuss current trends and research results in the field of entertainment computing and digital games. Katharina presented her paper “Watch Me Play: Does Social Facilitation Apply to Digital Games?“ (25th April 2018). The paper is available in the ACM digital library (here).  read more ››

The Entertainment Computing Group participates in this year’s places _ Virtual Reality Festival in Gelsenkirchen. This free VR event takes place at several locations in Gelsenkirchen-Ückendorf from 19.04. – 22.04.2018. On Friday, 20.04., Stefan Liszio will give a talk about VR in Medicine and Healthcare. The presentation will start at 9:35 at the Wissenschaftspark (Plenarsaal). For detailed information check out our events section and the places _ festival website and program! http://places-festival.de  read more ››

Wir suchen eine Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft (Bachelor-Absolvent/-in) zur Unterstützung bei der Organisation und -durchführung der Master-Vorlesung "Digitale Spiele" im Sommersemester 2018.  Anstellungszeitraum: Stunden: 7 Stunden pro Woche, Anwesenheit bei der Veranstaltung vorausgesetzt (Montags, 14-18 Uhr)Dauer: 3,5 Monate (09.04.2018 - 20.07.2018) Ihr Profil: Abgeschlossenes Bachelor-Studium im Fach Angewandte Kognitions- und Medienwissenschaften oder Angewandte Informatik und Immatrikulation an einer deutschen Hochschule.Erfahrungen im Schreiben wissenschaftlicher Publikationen und Konferenzerfahrungen sind wünschenswert aber nicht verpflichtend.   Ein hohes Maß an Engagement und Motivation wird erwartet. Bewerbungen mit aktuellem Notenspiegel senden Sie bitte an Herrn Stefan Liszio.  read more ››

This week Felix Born and Philipp Sykownik gave their talks at ACE 2017 in London, UK! ACE is an international multi-disciplines conference in the area of entertainment computing. It attracts people across a wide spectrum of interests and disciplines including computer science, design, arts, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and marketing. Felix presents his current work “Increasing Presence in a Mixed Reality Application by Integrating a Real Time Tracked Full Body Representation“  (14th December 2017) and Philipp presents his paper about „Exploring Patterns of Shared Control in Digital Multiplayer Games“ (16th December 2017). All publications  read more ››

The Department of Genetic Psychology at Ruhr Universität Bochum (RUB) invited Stefan Liszio to give an overview about his latest research on the relaxing effects of Virtual Reality technology on Monday, 23.10.2017. Since VR technology is not only an entertainment product but a helpful tool for psychologists and stress researchers, many interesting opportunities for collaboration were discussed.  read more ››

Last week Katharina Emmerich gave her talk at CHI PLAY 2017 in Amsterdam, Netherlands! CHI PLAY is the largest conference focusing on research regarding digital games and a great forum to discuss current trends and research results in the field of entertainment computing and digital games. Katharina presented her current work “The Impact of Game Patterns on Player Experience and Social Interaction in Co-Located Multiplayer Games“ (18th October 2017). Additionally a project in cooperation with the chair for High Performance Computing with the topic VR Controller Interface, was presented through Andrey Krekhovs talk: “Self-Transforming Controllers for Virtual Reality First Person Shooters“. You can download both paper in the ACM digital library for one year free! Therfore, have a look if you are interested at these topics. The Impact of Game Patterns on Player Experience and Social Interaction in Co-Located Multiplayer Games Self-Transforming Controllers for Virtual Reality First Person Shooters   read more ››

Philipp Sykownik will visit the recently opened Library Lab in Düsseldorf to present our research topics and teaching approaches to a broader public audience outside the university. Because of our common interest in gaming as a cultural asset that goes far beyond mere playing for fun, we decided to cooperate with the Library Lab in the future. ECG@LibraryLab: 18th of October 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. Düsseldorf Zentralbibliothek Bertha-von-Suttner-Platz 1, Düsseldorf   read more ››

Our research project "VR-RLX" has received an honorable mention as "Project of the Month August 2017" and is introduced as a "good example of practice" in an article on the EFRE website. Follow this link to the article (in German):  https://www.efre.nrw.de/daten-fakten/gute-praxisbeispiele/  read more ››

Free to play is a new dominant trend in the game industry. Though playing for free might be appealing and motivating for a broad audience, there is a downside to this. In this short report of 3Sat, Prof. Dr. Masuch reflects and questions the idea of free to play and gives a short insight about the motivation of the game industry.   read more ››

Versuchsteilnehmer/-innen gesucht!   Was erwartet Euch? Eine VR Experience (Oculus Rift) und anschließend Ausfüllen von Fragebögen. Voraussetzung: - Bitte 30 Minuten vor dem Versuch nichts essen und trinken! - Ihr habt nicht an der Bachelor-Studie von Linda Graf (Februar 2017) teilgenommen. Eckdaten: - Dauer: ca. 90 Minuten - Vergütung: 1,5 VPS oder Gutscheinverlosung                   (2 x 20€ Amazon oder Steam Gutschein) - Termine: ab dem 10.7.17 gibt es wöchentlich neue Termine - Weitere Informationen: stefan.liszio@uni-due.de Zur Anmeldung!  read more ››

We are happy to announce the launch of our project's websitehttp://www.vr-rlx.com/!  For now, there is only a version in German language, we're sorry for that. An international version is coming soon, so stay tuned! Do you want more information about VR-RLX? Check out our project description here.   read more ››

Within this symposium of the innovation platform Hospital Engineering Prof. Dr. Maic Masuch will give a speech about user-oriented development of Virtual Reality-Systems for the reduction of anxiety in the pediatrics.  Thursday, 09.02.2017, 12.30 – 19.00 (Prof. Masuch's speech: 17.00)DASA Arbeitswelt Ausstellung, Friedrich-Henkel-Weg 1 – 25, 44149 Dortmund For more information:Click here   read more ››

New Showcases

02.12.2016

We added a bunch of cool new stuff to our "Showcase" section! Go und learn about the awesome stuff we are creating with our students in our research and student's projects!  read more ››

Great news: Our paper The Influence of Virtual Agents on Player Experience and Performance presented by Katharina Emmerich at CHIPLAY 2016 was awarded as the best paper of the conference! We are happy to receive the Best Paper Award, especially given the high quality of all submissions and the great works in competition.  read more ››

New Project: VR-RLX

19.10.2016

Our new research project "VR-RLX" in cooperation with our Partners LAVAlabs Moving Images, Unversitätsklinikum Essen, MRI-STaR and Medintec, is about using Virtual Reality technology to reduce stress and anxiety of children during medical treatments. We believe in an innovative use of entertainment technology for the improvement of the healthcare and the subjective comfort of the patient while reducing potential risks. Therefore developing effective strategies to reduce anxiety and stress by identifying and implementing immersive media will be the main task for the core concept of this future-oriented project. For more information please check our "projects" section. Here you can find the official press release (german).  read more ››

This week Katharina Emmerich is attending the CHIPLAY Conference in Austin, Texas! CHIPLAY is the largest conference focusing on research regarding digital games and a great forum to discuss current trends and research results in the field of entertainment computing and digital games. Katharina will present her current work on social effects related to virtual agents in digital games within her presentation of her paper “The Influence of Virtual Agents on Player Experience and Performance” today (17th October 2016). The paper is available in the ACM digital library and free to download for one year, so have a look if you are interested at the topic!  read more ››

This week the Entertainment Computing Group is visiting the International Conference on Entertainment Computing (ICEC) in Vienna! At ICEC current trends and research results in the field of Entertainment Computing are presented. Prof. Maic Masuch is going to speak about “Success Factors for Applied Game Projects - An Exploratory Framework for Practitioners” on wednesday (09/28/2016). Stefan Liszio will present his current work in the context of Virtual Reality Games within his presentation of his paper “Designing Shared Virtual Reality Gaming Experiences in Local Multi-Platform Games” on Thursday (09/29/2016). Both papers are published in the conferenc proceedings and are available through Springer Link.  read more ››

We kindly invite you to our colloquium on the 5th of October, featuring two final master thesis presentations: Andre Hellwig is going to talk about his work on a two-player game for children which is supposed to increase social and emotional skills and to prevent bullying. Philipp Sykownik is going to present his research on shared control in multiplayer games and its influence on player experience and need satisfaction. Everyone who is interested in these topics and the work of our team is welcomed to join the colloquium!  read more ››

Dear Students, due to many requests, we want to give you the following information about the cancellation of the lecture Multimedia Systems in next winter semester (WS16/17):Prof. Masuch will have a research semester and therefore the lecture as well as the tutorials will not be offered. Hence there will not be any events that could be visited and there will not be any possibility to acquire bonus points.  In the examination period of the winter semester (WS16/17) a regular re-exam for Multimedia Systems will take place, which will be related to the contents of the last course (WS15/16 lecture + tutorials). The form of the examination is not fixed yet and it depends on the number of participants. It could be a usual written exam, but we reserve to do an oral exam instead.     The exam in WS16/17 is especially for students, who have already visited the lecture in a past semester and who have been taught the contents of this lecture. Bonus points, that were collected in WS15/16, exceptionally remain unchanged (Because there is no possibility for a new acquisition) and will be applied for the exam in this winter semester. We are obligated to provide the examination for all students, therefore also for students, who have never attended the lecture before. There will not be any extra materials. But we explicitly discourage to write the exam without any previous experience. If you want to participate in spite of having any previous experience, it is your own responsibility to study the contents of lecture and tutorials on your own. You can send a mail to Katharina Emmerich to ask for the access key to the old Moodle course with all the learning materials. We regret your inconveniences, that result in this situation, but we could not find any substitute, in spite of intensive efforts.The lecture Multimedia Systems will be regularly offered in winter semester 2017/18.     read more ››

Wir suchen dringend noch Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer für unsere Virtual Reality Studie! Es gibt neue Termine!   Am Lehrstuhl laufen zur Zeit zwei Studien zu denen wir dringend noch Probanden suchen!  In der ersten Studie geht es um die Erforschung von Konzentration in Virtual Reality. Hier haben Sie die Möglichkeit eine VR-Brille (Oculus Rift) zu testen und uns bei unserer Forschung zu unterstützen! Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter folgendem Link.   Die zweite Studie befasst sich mit kollaborativen Computerspielen. Zusammen mit einem Freund oder einer Freundin können Sie in Wohnzimmeratmosphäre ausgieb zocken und helfen damit den Masterstudierenden unseres aktuellen Forschungsprojekts! Hier gibt es die vollen Infos. Die Studie ist beendet.  read more ››

Cologne, 17-21/08/16  The game Shairit, developed by Philipp Sykownik during his Master Thesis, is shown at gamescom 2016. On Friday 9 am - 1 pm visitors of the business area can play it in the Gaming Area of Medienland NRW stand (Hall3.2, C-014/B-015). The stand is a cooperation between Medien Cluster NRW and Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and gives developers from NRW opportunity to get into the games market. More details on the homepage of Medien Cluster NRW.   read more ››

The Entertainment Computing Group will attend this year’s gamescom in Cologne. On Thursday, 18.08.2016, Katharina Emmerich will pitch her PhD-research and the group’s scientific focus at gamescom congress. She will also contribute in a panel discussion about digital game research (14:45 – 15:30, Congress Centrum Nord).   read more ››

  Last week students from schools in Düsseldorf and Duisburg participated in a game design workshop by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Maic Masuch with the topic of a software-project called „Town history told different“.Within the project an app is developed that playfully gives an understanding of history, culture and sights od Duisburg. It is solely developed by students. This project idea arose at the “NRW Hackathon – Hack für Deine Bildung” in February 2016, where the concept of a multilingual city guide based on Open Data as game app won the first prize. Since then, the development of the app is supported by the project International Junior Councillor Advisor of the city of Duisburg in cooperation with the city of Nijmegen. Within the workshop the students discussed about design & development like defining the right target group for the app and their expectations of the game structure, the art-design and the scale of implementation relating to the current mobile technology. Here you can find the official press release (german).  read more ››

In March 2016, we started our new research project "Therapy Assist" in cooperation with our Partners Cesys, Gebiom, Lavalabs and the Hochschule Düsseldorf. In this three years project, we develop a playful system to support patients in their physical therapy at home. Using several methods to track and analyze the patient's movements in conjunction with the advantages of gaming, we want to motivate and educate patients to train autonomosly at home. Therepists are included into the process as they will be able to assemble an individual training plan with the patient. For more information please check our "projects" section. Here you can find the official press release (german).  read more ››

Dear student, we are looking for participants for the evaluation of a new framework for a virtual reality game design. If you have always wanted to wear a virtual reality head-mounted display (Oculus Rift) and interact with a virtual environment, this study is made for you. Afterwards, you'll just have to fill in a few short questionnaires about the usage. Your reward will be 1 Versuchspersonenstunde (1 hour for taking part in a psychological study). Duration: ca. 60 min Appointments: 1st of February – 19th of February 2016, you can choose a time from 09:00 - 17:00. Registration: http://udue.de/ecg2016lost Here you can find an overview over all possible appoinments and your way of registration. Please chose your desired date and register there with your email address. We will email you to confirm your date! Contact: vrgamedesign@gmail.com Study ID: ecg_2016_lost Please note, that you cannot take part in this study if you are pregnant, suffer from epilepsy, or have other neurological diseases. Also, there is a possibility of experiencing “simulator sickness” (comparable with motion sickness) while using a virtual reality head-mounted display. If you are prone to such kind of sickness, you should rather not participate. If you have questions regarding your individual capability, feel free to ask under which circumstances you might still take part in the study. We are looking forward for your participation!  read more ››

Last Wednesday a student development team presented their work on “Anxiety Storm”, a digitally supported prevention program against performance anxiety in primary schools. After six months hard work they pushed the digital prototype to an advanced state that gives future groups a head start and opens options to evaluate the project in schools. Print materials such as documentations, exercises and a concept for the integration of “Anxiety Storm” support the in-class use and open doors for discussions with teachers and school authorities. We thank all participants and supporters of the project so far, especially the Albert-Schweizer primary school in Ratingen and the department of school psychology, Düsseldorf. For more information on the project, visit http:/www.leistungsangst-praevention.de (in German) or contact ralf.schmidt@uni-due.de.  read more ››

We kindly invite you to our colloquium on the 2nd of December, 16:00 in LE 222. Agenda:  -"VR for Kids - Entwicklung eines graduellen Interaktionskonzepts für kindgerechte Virtual Reality Applikationen" (Thesis Presentation of Jasmin Kirchhübel). -"Gestaltungsrichtlinien für immersive Multimedia-Applikationen zur Ablenkung von Patienten während medizinischer Behandlung" (Thesis Presentation of Marvin Holtermann). - Final Presentation of the Lab Course "Leistungsangst"   Everyone who is interested in these topics and the work of our team is welcomed to join the colloquium!  read more ››

VR Lab established

18.11.2015

With joint forces the team Social Psychology: Media and Communication (Prof. Dr. Krämer) and the Entertainment Computing Group (Prof. Dr. Masuch) established a new laboratory for empirical Virtual Reality research. The new VR Lab is equipped with latest VR-hardware and can be used by students of both workgroups for carrying out studies within their theses or courses. For more information please contact Stefan Liszio, M.Sc. (ECG) or Katharina Alt, B.Sc. (Social Psychology).    read more ››

We kindly invite you to our colloquium on the 4th of November, featuring two final master thesis presentations: Marco Boldt is going to talk about his work on social game analytics, in which he developed social metrics for assessing social in-game behaviour. Carina Gansohr is going to present her approach of an innovative tangible communication tool for persons living in long distance relationships or physically separated family members. Everyone who is interested in these topics and the work of our team is welcomed to join the colloquium!  read more ››

New Website

02.11.2015

With the start of the new semester, we launched our new webpages. Besides a completely new structure and design, we introduce the new domain http://www.ecg.uni-due.de. However, the old domain http://medieninformatik.uni-due.de remains active.As you might have noticed, some parts of the page are still under construction. We apologize for any inconvenience and promise to finalize everything as soon as possible. We are looking forward to present our new showcase-section! We hope you like our new website and encourage you to send us your feedback via e-mail!  read more ››