Multi-touch technology has become increasingly accessible with regards to cost and diversity of products available. The ability to understand the capabilities and appropriateness of this technology with respect to computer games is of paramount importance, as games are used for their intrinsic enjoyment value. Similarly, multi- touch enables the user to interact with the device through the use of gestures, which has been shown to provide a more natural means of interaction compared to other traditional input techniques. As games have traditionally been implemented using direct manipulation interfaces, it is crucial to investigate whether gestures can pro- vide a better means of interaction compared to direct manipulation.
The objective of this report is to investigate the use of gestures in games, as well its effects on game genre and identifying user characteristics required for ges- tural interaction. A gesture recognition engine has been developed, which uses a state-machine with grouped nodes, as well as strategy game, where the objective is to capture three enemy towers using controllable units. User experiments were conducted, where participants were grouped based on their touch device and gaming experience, and played three versions of the game, where each version had either a direct manipulation, gestural or mixed interface. The experiment results show that gestures are the most appropriate means of interacting with games with respect to flow, and that the use of gestures is dependent on game genre. The test also shows that the use of gestures relied on participant touch and gaming experience and not on external factors.
