Friction in Games and Computational Media (Editorial)

Abstract

The issue is organised into four groups: Play; Art; Human; More-than-Human. The articles in the first group, Play, aim at exploring roles and expressions of friction within play and games. In Exploring Friction in Refugee Narratives: The Cases of Bury Me, My Love and Nour’s Choice, Cátia Ferreira explores how friction in interactive narrative games reflect and critiques sociopolitical issues by means of their game mechanics, providing insight on how friction deepens player engagement and challenges dominant game conventions. In Meaning in Videogames: Ludonarrative Loops, Friction, and Philosophical Play, João P. Ribeiro explores how friction can contribute to the creation of meaning in videogames, proposing a new theoretical lens centred on what he terms “ludonarrative friction”. In Video Game Frictions: Grammars of Normativity, Aesthetics of Trouble, Brice Roy examines the tension between seamless and friction-based game design, arguing that friction, often seen as a flaw, can be a powerful aesthetic and political tool, revealing the unstable nature of the digital medium.

The second group, Art, explores how media become hypermediated, thus creating friction in their use. In Bizarre Love Triangle: Generative AI, Art, and Kitsch, Dejan Grba explores expressive flaws in Generative AI art, introducing into professional artists’ work kitsch, superficiality, feeble critique, and overreliance on AI as a cultural signifier, highlighting the normalisation of these issues within the art world. In Chiasmic Play: Exploring Embodied Experience Through Live Haptic Theatre, Jung In Jung, Haocheng Yang, Naman Merchant, Navis Binu Mariya Dass, Ecem Berfin Ince, and Andrea Szymkowiak present an experimental live theatre performance that uses haptic technologies to create a multisensory environment, researching how it influences narrative perception, engagement, and empathy.

The third group, Human, provides insight on how friction strategies can place humans at the centre of the design process. In The Generative Value of Friction in Digital Media: Neuroscience, Education, and Play, Agnese Rosati, Keren Ponzo, and Leonardo Silvagni challenge the notion of “zero friction” in digital design, arguing for friction as a valuable resource for learning, engagement, and transformation. They explore how friction, often seen as a hindrance, can stimulate attention, meaning, and critical interaction, enriching human experience beyond mere efficiency. In Provoking Value Reflection Through Play and Speculative Design, Ricardo Melo, Inês Silva, Joana Couto Silva, and Diana Liebetrau, explore how healthcare technology design can be informed by value systems. Through ethnographic fieldwork, a value elicitation game, and speculative design workshops, the research proposes a bottom-up methodology for value identification, prioritising patient perspectives. Their findings aim to advance human-centred design beyond efficiency and usability, and towards more value-sensitive user experiences. In Productive Friction: An Interdisciplinary Framework for Critical Thinking in Digital Media, Vincenzo Galatro, Ema Di Petrillo, and Alfonso J. López Rivero propose “productive friction” as a design principle in human-centred design, introducing challenges to activate metacognition, creativity and critical reflection, and presenting a conceptual framework that categorises types of friction, identifies psychological and pedagogical mediators, technical mechanisms, and evaluative metrics.

Finally, the texts in the fourth group, More-than-Human, look at how friction challenges human-centred designs. In Perspectives for a More-than-Human Design Practice, Fabrício Fava and Camila Mangueira explore more-than-human design practices that challenge anthropocentrism and promote ecological interconnectedness. They examine biomimetic, interspecies, and speculative design approaches, highlighting projects that foster ethical engagement and mutual benefits between humans and nonhuman agents. In Friction Matters: Exploring Friction in Non-Anthropocentric Gameplay, Filipe Pais explores friction in interactive media design, particularly in non-anthropocentric game studies, arguing that friction, when applied thoughtfully, can challenge human-centric perspectives and highlight more-than-human experiences.

This issue has been invaluable for our learning on the design of friction and on its conceptual development, contributing to expand the state of the art and to problematise friction as a design resource in the four groups of action in which it is practised – Play, Art, Human, More-than-Human – with distinct purposes and methods, and to find a community of people working on friction design. We would like to thank all the authors who submitted their papers, the reviewers whose invaluable expertise improved its quality, and to the editorial team at JDMI. Further thanks go to i2ADS for housing this project, FCT for funding it, and to the project’s consultants – Miguel Sicart and Laura Beloff – and partners – DigiMedia, Fraunhofer AICOS, and INESC TEC.