Professor Emmanuel Guardiola is a veteran of the video game industry with over 30 major titles released for publishers such as Ubisoft and independent studios such as Dontnod Entertainment. He has contributed to licenses in various genres, for example, Far Cry, Prince of Persia, Rainbow6, Life is Strange, Ghost Recon, and even Frank Herbert’s Dune. At Ubisoft, after directing research on game design and the conveyance of emotion and meaning, Emmanuel became involved as one of the creators of the Game For Everyone brand, which focused on the way to bring real-life benefits to the users.

The main objective of Emmanuel’s seminars aims to confront the students with the connection between the intention conveyed by their games – whether they be emotions, narrative context, a message, or educational objectives – and the formal elements on which they choose to build the game. This process, repeated with more and more complexity through the semesters, assists them in practicing the actual “Mise en scène” of video games. To achieve these ends, the students must also come to understand many aspects of the player and practice user-centered design.

In the field of game design research, Emmanuel focuses on models, processes, and characteristics of the gameplay experience, and how we can apply these findings to education, health, psychology, or humanitarian causes. Regularly funded by National, European, and International grants, Emmanuel has earned several awards, such as the Games For Change Europe award, the eVirtuos R&D award or the Interactive Author of the Year award by the SACD (French Dramatic Author and Composer Society).

Antura & the Letters, laureate of the international Norad call for projects, EduApp4Syria, is Emannuel’s most recent, major work. The Antura project addresses refugees from the Syrian refugee crisis and uses mobile gaming to provide Arabic literacy and psychosocial well-being support to children affected by this turmoil. Antura is developed and distributed in collaboration with partners such as the Video Game Without Borders nonprofit organization. The game is currently in an exhibition on the field. In 2019, the game reached more than 250 000 users, 8000 Facebook followers, and Youtube videos in excess of 1 million views. ‘Antura’ received 7 international awards in the fields of education and humanitarianism. The project also initiated the publication of research contributions in the field of design, education, and psychology. This project is currently in a phase of scaling to several new languages in order to address the lack of education structures in many countries.

Solve, funded by the BMBF, is a project in collaboration with the psychology department of the Catholic University of Applied Science NRW. The goal is to address young teenagers with parents addicted to hard drugs, helping them to face their situation and avoid succumbing to the addiction cycle. 

Books: 

• Guardiola, E. (2000).  Ecrire pour le jeu (Writing for game). Paris, Dixit. ISBN: 284481025X

Chapters: 

• Czauderna, A., & Guardiola, E. (2021). Remote Collaboration in Higher Game Development Education. Online Practices and Learning Processes of Students between Professional Routines and Psychosocial Challenges. Higher Education Studies. 11(2), 1-19.
• Guardiola, E./Czauderna, A./Samur, Y. (2019). Player-Centred Educational Game Design. The Case of Antura and the Letters. In: Bresges, A./Habicher, A. (eds.): Digitalisierung des Bildungssystems. Aufgaben und Perspektiven für die LehrerInnenbildung. Münster: Waxmann, S. 179-200 
• Guardiola, E (2019). Antura and the Letters (Arabic). In K. Schrier, (Ed.) Learning, education & games vol. 3: 100 games to use in the classroom and beyond. Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press (Carnegie Mellon). 
• Guardiola, E. & Natkin, S (2017) Game Design Mise-en-scène practice: intention and means in JEU SERAI. In Lankoski, P. and Holopainen, J., eds. Game Design Research: An introduction to theory & practice. Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press.
• Guardiola, E., & Natkin, S. (2015). A game design methodology for generating a psychological profile of players. In Loh C.S., Sheng Y. & Ifenthaler D. (Eds). Serious Game Analytics. Berlin, Springer.
•  Guardiola, E. (2006). L’histoire que nous faisons vivre au joueur: la structure ludo-narrative. (The story we let the player experience: the ludo-narrative structure).  In S Genvo (ed), Le Game Design de Jeux Vidéo. Approches de l’expression vidéoludique. Paris, L’Harmatan. ISBN: 2747591034

Proceedings: 

• Guardiola, E. (2019).Game and Humanitarian: From Awareness to Field Intervention. Best paper and Proceedings of the Game On Conference 2019, Breda, Netherlands
• Guardiola, E (2019). Gameplay Definition: A Game Design Perspective. Proceedings of the Game On Conference 2019, Breda, Netherlands
• Guardiola, E & Czauderna, A. (2018). Merging Gameplay and Learning in Educational Game Design: The Gameplay Loop Methodology in Antura and the Letters. Proceedings of the ECGBL 2018, Nice. 12th European Conference on Game Based Learning
• Guardiola, E (2016). The Gameplay Loop: a Player Activity Model for Game Design and Analysis. In: Proceedings of the ACE 2016. New York, ACM
• Guardiola, E., & Natkin, S. (2010). Player’s Model: Criteria for a Gameplay Profile Measure. In Proceedings ICEC 2010, Seoul. Berlin, Springer
• Guardiola, E., & Natkin, S. (2005).  Game Theory and video game, a new approach of game theory to analyze and conceive game systems. CGAMES’05, Angoulême 01/2005. In Proceedings, CGAMES’05.  Wolverhampton, University of Wolverhampton.
• Bianchini, S., & Guardiola, E. (2005). Image Partagée: Système de représentation et système de jeu. In proceedings of H2PTM’05, Paris. Paris, Hermes Sciences.

Articles: 

• Tatiana de Jesús Olvera Pablos, María Teresa Fernández Nistal, Sonia Verónica Mortis Lozoya, David Bonilla, Adriana Peña Pérez Negrón, Emmanuel Guardiola (2019). Conócete: Serious game for self-knowledge in the process of Vocational Guidance. in Research and development of new technology  Eugenia Erica Vera Cervantes and Olga Leticia Fuchs Gómez Eds . ISBN BUAP: 978-607-525-651-1 ISBN UA Journals: 978-84-949828-5-9
• Mader S., Dupire J., Natkin S. & Guardiola E. (2012).  Designing therapeutic games for seniors: case study of “le village aux oiseaux” (birds village). Modelling, Measurement and Control. 01/2012; 73(3).
• Guardiola, E., Natkin, S., Vrignaud P. & Soriano D. (2012). Du jeu utile au jeu sérieux : un exemple le projet JEU SERAI (From useful game to serious game : case study JEU SERAI).  Hermès, La revue. 01/2012; 62:85-92.