Dr Jacob Habgood PhD, BSc, PGCTLHE

Jacob now teaches on the Games Software Development degrees, including modules on 3D Game Prototyping for the PlayStation 4, Real-Time 3D Techniques using DirectX 11 and Research Methods. He is course leader for the MSc in Games Software Development and a member of the academic advisory board for PlayStation First and TIGA. Through that relationship with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Sheffield Hallam now have the largest PlayStation teaching facilities in the world.

He is studio manager of the Steel Minions game studio (www.steelminions.com), which provides work-based simulation for students on the MComp and MSc Games Software Development degrees. Steel Minions were the first university studio in the UK to release their own PlayStation minis title in 2012 (BounceBack) and were the first university studio in the world to publish a PS4 title in 2015 (PieceFall).

Jacob's research interests are in the field of game-based learning and he is particularly interested in the way educational games integrate their learning content into a game. He also has an academic interest in novice programming tools and has written two books on hobbyist game development using Game Maker.

Game-Based Learning

Department of Computing

Science, Technology and Arts

Steel Minions: www.steelminions.com

BounceBack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A7yX3jTOVg

PieceFall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vIORHIkOig

Software Engineering, Graphics and Multimedia

MSc Games Software Development

3D Game Prototyping

Real-Time 3D Techniques
Research Methods

Software Studio Planning

• Communication and Computing Research Centre
• Cultural Communication and Computing Research Institute

Outnumb3r3d

Zombie Division

The Effective Integration of Digital Games and Learning Content

Steel Minions

PlayStation First
Sumo Digital

Journal articles

Featherstone, M., & Habgood, J. (2018). UniCraft: Exploring the impact of asynchronous multiplayer game elements in gamification. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2018.05.006

Rose, S., Habgood, J., & Jay, T. (2017). An exploration of the role of visual programming tools in the development of young children’s computational thinking. Electronic journal of e-learning, 15 (4), 297-309. http://www.ejel.org/volume15/issue4/p297

Habgood, M.P.J., & Ainsworth, S.E. (2011). Motivating children to learn effectively:exploring the value of intrinsic integrationin educational games. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 20 (2), 169-206. http://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2010.508029

Habgood, M.P.J. (2010). Crossing the road: bringing legitimate peripheral participation to game development degrees (Guest editorial). International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 2 (3), i-vii. http://doi.org/10.4018/jgcms.20100701

Habgood, M.P.J., Ainsworth, S., & Benford, S. (2005). Endogenous fantasy and learning in digital games. Simulation and Gaming, 36 (4), 483-498. http://doi.org/10.1177/1046878105282276

Conference papers

Schrim, J., Tullius, G., & Habgood, J. (2019). Towards an Objective Measure of Presence: Examining Startle Reflexes in a Commercial Virtual Reality Game. In CHI Play 19, Barcelona, Spain, 22 October 2019 - 25 October 2019. ACM

Rose, S., Habgood, J., & Jay, T. (2019). Using Pirate Plunder to develop children’s abstraction skills in Scratch. In CHI 2019, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 4 May 2019 - 9 May 2019. ACM: http://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3312871

Melville, L., Habgood, M.P.J., Kyvelou, A., Smith, N., & Lacey, M. (2018). Building bacterial knowledge: Games as teaching aides for higher-order thinking skills. In Ciussi, M. (Ed.) Proceedings of the 12th European conference on games based learning, (pp. 404-413). Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited: http://www.academic-bookshop.com/ourshop/prod_6548565-ECGBL-2018-Proceedings-of-the-12th-European-Conference-on-GameBased-Learning-PRINT-VERSION.html

Mees, M., Jay, T., & Habgood, J. (2018). Designing an adaptive learner model for a mathematics game. In Ciussi, M. (Ed.) Proceedings of the 12th European conference on games based learning, (pp. 800-807). Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited: http://www.academic-bookshop.com/ourshop/prod_6548565-ECGBL-2018-Proceedings-of-the-12th-European-Conference-on-GameBased-Learning-PRINT-VERSION.html

Rose, S., Habgood, J., & Jay, T. (2018). Pirate plunder: game-based computational thinking using scratch blocks. In Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Games Based Learning, (pp. 556-564). Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited: https://www.academic-conferences.org/conferences/ecgbl/

Habgood, J., Moore, D., Alapont, S., Ferguson, C., & van Oostendorp, H. (2018). The REVEAL educational environmental narrative framework for PlayStation VR. In Ciussi, M. (Ed.) Proceedings of the 12th European conference on games based learning, (pp. 175-183). Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited: http://www.academic-bookshop.com/ourshop/prod_6548565-ECGBL-2018-Proceedings-of-the-12th-European-Conference-on-GameBased-Learning-PRINT-VERSION.html

Habgood, J., Moore, D., Wilson, D., & Alapont, S. (2018). Rapid, continuous movement between nodes as an accessible virtual reality locomotion technique. In IEEE VR 2018 Conference, (pp. 371-378). IEEE: http://doi.org/10.1109/VR.2018.8446130

Habgood, J., Wilson, D., Moore, D., & Alapont, S. (2017). HCI Lessons From PlayStation VR. CHI Play 2017, 125-135. http://doi.org/10.1145/3130859.3131437

Mees, M., Jay, T., Habgood, J., & Howard-Jones, P. (2017). Researching adaptivity for individual differences in numeracy games. Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play - CHI PLAY '17 Extended Abstracts, 247-253. http://doi.org/10.1145/3130859.3131315

Pivec, M., Gründler, J., Admiraal, W., Alemi, M., All, A., Almeida, A., ... Magnussen, R. (2017). Preface. Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Games Based Learning, ECGBL 2017, viii-x.

Habgood, M.P.J. (2015). Zombie Division : a methodological case study for the evaluation of game-based learning. In 9th European Conference on Games Based Learning : ECGBL 2015, Steinkjer, Norway, 8 October 2015 - 9 October 2015. http://academic-conferences.org/ecgbl/ecgbl2015/ecgbl15-home.htm

Habgood, M.P.J., Jones, C., & Mallinson, D. (2015). Outnumb3r3d : intrinsically motivating mathematics for the PlayStation 4. In The 9th European Conference on Games Based Learning : ECGBL 2015, Steinkjer, Norway, 8 October 2015 - 9 October 2015. http://academic-conferences.org/ecgbl/ecgbl2015/ecgbl15-home.htm

Ainsworth, S., & Habgood, J. (2009). Exploring the effectiveness of intrinsic integration in serious games. In EARLI 2009 : Fostering communities of learners : 13th Biennial Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, The University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 25 August 2009 - 29 August 2009. http://www.earli2009.org/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=1

Baker, R.S.J.D., Habgood, M.P.J., Ainsworth, S.E., & Corbett, A.T. (2007). Modeling the acquisition of fluent skill in educational action games. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 4511 LNCS, 17-26.

Habgood, M.P.J., Ainsworth, S., & Benford, S. (2005). Intrinsic fantasy: motivation and affect in educational games made by children. In 2005 AIED workshop on motivation and affect in educational software, Amsterdam. http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/users/gr20/aied05/finalVersion/JHabgood.pdf

Habgood, J. (2018). Unpacking effective learning through game analytics. In CHI 2018 Data-driven educational game design, Carnegie Mellon University, 21 April 2018.

Book chapters

Habgood, M.P.J. (2011). Maintaining an ethical balance in the curriculum design of games-based degrees. In Bissett, A., Ward Bynum, T., Light, A., Lauener, A., & Rogerson, S. (Eds.) Ethicomp 2011 : the social impact of social computing : Proceedings of the twelfth international conference. (pp. 202-209). Sheffield Hallam University Press

Books

Anglin, S. (Ed.). (2010). The game maker's companion. New York: APress.

Habgood, J., & Overmars, M. (2006). The game maker's apprentice: game development for beginners. Berkeley, California: APress.

http://www.shu.ac.uk/mediacentre/dr-jake-habgood