Bram has been designing and researching serious games since 2015, starting during his bachelor’s in International Game Architecture and Design and continuing through his master’s in Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence. He is fascinated by how game experiences, team dynamics, and performance emerge and how to design better games, simulations, and other XR-mediated experiences to elicit these. He is developing a research methodology and tools to better understand and capture these phenomena as part of his ongoing PhD project at Tilburg University.

While designing games at &Ranj and doing research into MR-games, Bram saw the need for deeper insight into the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms behind gameplay. This led to his mission to bridge the gap between game design and scientific research.

At Breda University of Applied Sciences, Bram is focused on advancing games and simulations (G&S) research and providing tools for better design and understanding. Being a designer of educational experiences by trait, he is also passionate about teaching and is developing as a lecturer, aiming to improve education in data science, AI, and game development through project- and game-based learning.

Expertise

• Game Design
• Cognitive Science
• Project Management

Teaching

• Specialization Projects, Y3

Education

• M.Sc. Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Tilburg University, 2020
• B.Sc. International Game Architecture & Design, Breda University of Applied Sciences, 2018

Publications

• ​​Peters, E., Heijligers, B., de Kievith, J., Razafindrakoto, X., van Oosterhout, R., Santos, C., Mayer, I., & Louwerse, M. (2016). Design for collaboration in mixed reality: Technical challenges and solutions. 2016 8th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES), 1–7.
• Harald Warmelink, Igor Mayer, Jessika Weber, Bram Heijligers, Mata Haggis, Erwin Peters, and Max Louwerse. 2017. AMELIO: Evaluating the Team-building Potential of a Mixed Reality Escape Room Game. In Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ‘17 Extended Abstracts). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 111–123.