RANA JAHANI
Game Designer specializing in Level Design and Technical Design
Game User Research Projects
As a game designer who designs games to create specific player experiences, part of my focus is to carry out research on player behavior through collecting and analyzing their actions during gameplay or by conducting interviews, and administering surveys.
I'm also interested in designing games with impact, games that are designed to improve lives or solve real-life problems, which led me to design and develop games for healthcare and education. I explored this even further as an Entrepreneur Lead at MIT for developing an educational game for medical trainees via customer discovery in the I-Corps program.
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Here you can find some of my research projects:
VR Two-gether
A Cross-platform Cooperative Game
About Project: VR Two-gether is a cross-platform cooperative game in which one player uses a VR headset and controls and the other player plays on a PC. Both players need to collaborate and solve cooperative puzzles in order to progress through the game.
My Role: Creative Director, Level Designer, User Researcher, Project Manager
My Responsibilities:
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Designed and modeled two levels for the PC and VR based on their affordances and modeled them in Unity game engine​​
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Designed cooperative challenges for the PC and VR characters
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Designed tutorial game beats for the PC and VR
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Managed tasks for the team on Trello
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Contributed to survey administration, data collection and analysis, and paper documentation
Effect of User Interface on the Experience of Horror in Games
About Project: This usability project, we looked at how different types of user interface (UI) affect player experience in the horror video games, especially how the presence of a heads-up display (HUD) or lack of it would engage a player in the games. We sent out surveys to the players of these games and asked them to express their level of satisfaction with the games’ UI. We also conducted interviews with players to see their overall player experience with the game. It is our perspective that the presence of a HUD increases the overall enjoyment and quality of the player's gameplay experience, and that the lack of a HUD UI is detrimental.
My Role: Game User Researcher
Responsibilities:
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o Analyzed horror games’ user interface
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Administered a usability survey for horror games
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Analyzed survey results
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Contributed to drafting the paper
Who’s Playing Who: Addictive Game Mechanics and Player Awareness
About Project: This qualitative project we explored the psychological dimensions of video games addiction via analyzing a range of mechanics in games identifiable as addictive. We assessed how the dynamic behaviors of addiction emerge from players gaming habits and use player interviews to probe how these mechanics are understood by the population in general. This research gives greater context for views on video game addiction, and suggests
possible solutions to the societal issue.
My Role: Game User Researcher
Responsibilities:
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Analyzed addictive elements in video games
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Interviewed the participants
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Contributed to writing the paper
Empathy in Action: Research Study on Emotional Response in Game Design
About Project: In this research we explored the efficacy of gamification for the study of the psychological concept of emotion in children. Our intent was to elicit and record the emotional responses of our players in order to study how they think about and project an empathic response on the world around them. We designed a series of games which draw on the empathy of our participants (children aged 5-11) and incorporated these game designs into a survey utilizing StudyCrafter. In this way, we introduce players to the visual context of endangered species, allowing them to share in the experience of the animals through our games, and then record their feelings and interpretations of these experiences throughout their gameplay . Initial testing of this gamified research suggests that the educational format of our prototype, as well as the empathetic reaction children have toward animals provides a successful combination of game design with the psychological concept of emotion
My Role: Game User Researcher, Game designer
Responsibilities: ​​
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Designed an educational game for children about environmental issues
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Analyzed data collection results
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Contributed to drafting the paper
Effects of Educational Games on Orthopedic Surgery Training - A Systematic Review
About Project: With the collaboration of Northeastern University and Massachusetts General Hospital, this project aims at finding the effects of educational games in Orthopedics training.
My Role: Lead Researcher
Responsibilities:
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Led the research team, coordinate the research pipeline with the team
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Wrote proposals for ECOTE grants
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Set up the search strategy for the systematic review
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Conducted title screening, abstract screening, full-text review, and data extraction using Covidence
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Contributed to drafting the paper
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More information will be available after the paper being published.
Monitoring Medical Residents’ Mental Health and Burnout through a Serious Game
About Project: With the collaboration of Northeastern University and Massachusetts General Hospital, this project aims at monitoring medical residents mental health via gamification methods as an alternative to the traditional methods.
My Role: Lead Researcher
Responsibilities:
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Administered a survey for medical residents burnout
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Contributed to drafting IRB for the project
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Gamified the burnout survey to monitor residents burnout in a serious game
More information will be available after the paper being published.