Of Mice and Pants - Queering the Conventional Gamer Mouse for Cooperative Play

Explore a conference talk that challenges conventional game design by queering the computer mouse for cooperative play. Delve into the critique of traditional HCI practices and their potential for marginalizing users outside the norm. Examine the concept of queering as a strategy to address conservatism in HCI through mischievous, spaceful, and oblique design principles. Analyze the conventional computer mouse in videogames as an example of an input device optimized for limited interactions. Review HCI discourses on the mouse within technology studies, game culture, and queer game studies. Discover three experimental game design strategies used to queer the mouse controller in "The Undie Game," a cooperative wearable mouse-based installation. Learn how this unique game speculates on disrupting conventional gaming expectations by creating a social, silly, and potentially daunting play experience. Understand how reinterpreting mouse affordances can bring subjects like consent, failure, and ambiguity into focus in game design.