Jigsaw together: a distributed collaborative game for players with diverse skills and preferences

Abstract

Presently it is very hard (or even impossible) to allow multiple players with highly diverse characteristics (including age, skills, and preferences) to collaboratively share and play a single jigsaw puzzle. Towards this end, the work presented in this paper aims to expand the capabilities of digital jigsaw puzzles in 3 directions: (a) multiplayability by a large number of players; (b) accessibility by people with handmotor and visual impairments; and (c) concurrent playability by people with highly diverse characteristics. In this context, we present an electronic puzzle game which supports single player as well as distributed multiplayer sessions by people with diverse characteristics. The paper introduces the background against which the work is based and describes the key design features of the resulting game's user interface and gameplay.