Affection games require players to flirt, hug, kiss or make love to meet their goals. Big Huggin' is an affection game, but there are lots of other Affection Games in the world. Read below to learn more about this emerging genre.

Why not Give A Hug?

Big Huggin' is a game designed for use with a custom teddy bear controller. Players complete the game by providing several well-timed hugs to a 30-inch teddy bear. Instead of firing toy guns at countless enemies or revving the engines of countless gas-guzzling virtual cars, why not give a hug? 

"It is proof the world is not awful" - Kill Screen Magazine

 

Read about Affection Games:

Grace, L. 2014. Understanding Digital Affection Games as Cultural Lens, love not war as play experience. The Journal of the International Digital Media Arts Association, volume 10, #1. IDMAA.

Grace, L. D. 2015. "The Rise of Affection Games: The Private Lives of Mobile Devices," In M. Willson & T. Leaver (Eds.), Social, Casual, Mobile: Changing Games, Bloomsbury Press, NY.

Grace, L. 2015. Objects of Affection: Kissing Games on Mobile Devices. Foundations of Digital Games (FDG), Society for the Advancement of the Science of Digital Games, Pacific Grove, California, USA [online]

Grace, L. 2014. Playing with Affections Digitally. In proceedings of 2014 Meaningful Play conference, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

Grace, L. 2014 Critical Gameplay: Equal Opportunity Affection Games, Critical Design in Stolen Kisses
9th Annual Foundations of Digital Games, Society for the Advancement of the Science of Digital Games, Santa Cruz, California

Grace, L., 2013. Affection Games in Digital Play. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference of the Digital Research Association (DIGRA) (Atlanta, Georgia: Georgia Institute of Technology, August 26-29, 2013)

Grace, L., 2013. Big Huggin' A Case Study in Affection Gaming. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference of the Digital Research Association (DIGRA) (Atlanta, Georgia: Georgia Institute of Technology, August 26-29, 2013)

Grace, L. 2013. Big Huggin' Affection Gaming. In Proceedings of the 31st of the international Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Paris, France, April 29 - May 2, 2013). CHI EA '13. ACM, New York, NY, 3025-3030.

Additional Reading:

Enevold, Jessica, and Esther MacCallum-Stewart, eds. Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection. McFarland, 2015.