Preparing a community event for a small Minecraft server

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about initial challenges of introducing a server wide community event.

Recently, I came up with an idea for a community event on a small Minecraft server. As the event has not yet started, I can not analyze its outcomes, but I like to start discussing a few of the challenges I encountered during the initial preparation phase.

Spreading the news. In order to have its full effect, the existence of a community event must be propagated to the current server’s population to raise their awareness. However, as such a gamified event should be fully integrated in the setting of the game, it is also important that the information are spread in a subliminal way. Therefore, the potentially best way would be to allow the server’s members to accidentially get in contact with elements of the community event that will ultimately provide them with a lead that an event is about to begin.

For this purpose, as the server is also used as a stage for video creation, I decided to introduce the community event in one of my videos. During the video, I will encounter the first signs of a server wide conspiracy which will become more and more prevalent as time progresses. This will be achieved by providing new indications of such a conspiracy at frequently visited locations on the server to give each member the chance of learning about the upcoming event.

Timing. Also, the timing of the initial steps of a community event is critical. The story should not progress too fast as this might result in the fact that some players might miss out on important steps. On the other hand, the time between two steps should not be too long as this might result in the problem that players do not see a connection between the individual steps. Therefore, more signs indicating an upcoming event will be released shortly after the initial video goes live and, after a few days have passed, more signs will follow to complete the community event’s introduction.

Inviting and involving all the members. Finally, it is important to invite everyone on the server to take part in the event. Therefore, some key players of the server will encounter individual intermediate events that will personally involve them in the event’s narration. The idea behind is that the members will start to discuss what happened to them, thus spreading the news about the upcoming event. Hence, it is also necessary to monitor the communication in order to adjust the story’s progression accordingly.

The first strike. Eventually, after the initial introduction is completed, the community event will begin with the first major event that will put all initial signs into perspective and allow the players to draw initial conclusions.

This article is the first part of the analysis of such an event which will be continued as the event progresses.

The gamification of programming

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the way how Human Resource Machine teaches players the basics of programming.

Algorithms and loops are the key concepts of programming as they provide methods to systematically carry out operations until a certain condition is reached. However, correctly developing algorithms and repeating them with loops in order to carry out a given task is often hard to understand and requires a lot of practice. In order to successfully transform a task into an algorithm, a user has to analyze the task and segment it into single steps that subsequently can be sequenced as an algorithm.

Recently, I played the computer game Human Resource Machine that challenges a player with small tasks that can be solved by programming a little office worker. For instance, one puzzle challenges the player to grab every numbered block from the inbox and to put it into the outbox. However, if a number is negative, the player must remove its negative sign first. This puzzle requires the player to grab a block from the inbox, to check its sign and, dependent on the result, put it into the outbox or change its sign before putting it into the outbox. For this purpose, the player has several commands, such as ‚grab from inbox‘, ‚jump if negative‘, ‚jump‘, ’subtract‘, ’store‘ and ‚put into outbox‘, to program the little office worker in order to carry out the developed algorithm.

Human Resource Machine

Aside from correctly developing an algorithm, it is also important to keep the programming code as short and efficient as possible. This can be achieved by looping certain parts of an algorithm and checking if certain sequences can be jumped. These two goals are also a part of Human Resource Machine as the player can achieve bonus goals by not exceeding a certain amount of lines or reducing the amount of steps the little office worker has to carry out to a minimum.

In the end, Human Resource Machine teaches players the basics of programming in an engaging and entertaining way without requiring them to learn a certain programming language first. Once the players have understood the general concepts of programming, they might have fewer issues when they start to learn an actual programming language.

Let’s Play Edutainment

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about how Let’s Play videos can be used to address serious topics, thus resulting in edutainment content that is appealing to a younger audience.

Let’s Play videos (LP) usually document a player’s gameplay and enhance it with an additional story arc due to the player’s commentary. Depending on the type of the game, the player’s story arc can also be used to tell the viewers a unique story. This is mostly the case when an open world sandbox game is being played as such a game can act as an empty stage for the player’s performance.

For instance, the sandbox game Minecraft provides the players with a procedurally generated environment that they can explore or use as a building site to construct impressive buildings. Independent of the player’s approach, each play session will be unique and allow the players to tell a unique story. Furthermore, content creators can use the game as a movie set and produce exciting movies with the help of video editing.

However, utilizing a computer game as an empty stage also offers the opportunity to produce edutainment content. During the gameplay, the content creator can discuss serious topics, thus delivering the content in a way that is appealing to a younger audience and computer game players in general. Hence, they will pay more attention to what the content creator is discussing and potentially start to get interested in the topic being thematized.

Ultimately, this approach can help to raise the general awareness for important problems as it delivers the content in a way many young people can identify with. In addition, watching a LP can be more immersive than watching a small news report on TV.

Keeping players immersed

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the implementation of a new user interface in The Long Dark that improves the game’s immersion.

Keeping players constantly immersed in a computer game is one of the biggest goals in game development. A constant immersion can only be achieved if the gameplay results in a continuous flow that is rarely disrupted as a disruption will negatively influence or even break the immersion in most of the cases.

However, players need to be informed about important values and, dependent on the type of the game, need to have a means to select different tools allowing them to interact with the game world in order to successfully play the game. Communicating those critical information to the players is mostly done via the user interface (UI) which ultimately displays all the relevant values and choices. Therefore, one of the most critical elements of keeping players immersed in a game is the design of the UI.

Hence, the main goal of the UI design is to provide the players with all relevant information without distracting them from the game world. This is especially critical for computer games that provide a first-person perspective which gives players the actual feeling of being a part of the game world. The immersion of such a game would immediately break or be reduced, if a player suddenly sees a static screen or a static display of information in a vivid virtual environment. Therefore, the main challenge in UI design is to create an UI that provides all relevant information and is as transparent as possible to reduce its distracting effect.

The Long Dark

A great example for a good UI design is the survival game The Long Dark (TLD). In TLD, the player is lost in the Northern Canadian wilderness and has to survive in this harsh and cold environment by searching for valuable resources that will help the player to stay alive. As the game realistically simulates the fight for survival, the player must be informed about critical values such as the own body temperature, the calories stored and the apparent air temperature. With the release of version v.321, TLD received a new UI that informs the players about all the relevant information without compromising too much the immersive experience of TLD.

The Long Dark – Status Screen

Previously, the player’s only option to access those important information was to open a static overview screen that immediately broke the player’s immersion. Additionally, the same static screen had to be accessed in order to carry out certain interactions with the game world such as crafting a basic camp or healing a wound.

The Long Dark – Improved Status Display

This was changed with the implementation of a new UI that allows the players to directly display all critical stats in the lower left corner of the first-person view without switching to a static screen. In addition, the information are not constantly displayed and will fade out after a couple of seconds removing any distraction from the player’s first-person perspective. A similar solution was found for the most important interactions which can now be accessed via a radial menu that is directly displayed in the center of the player’s view. This menu allows the player to carry out all relevant interactions without the need to switch to a static screen first. The only static screen that is left in the game is the inventory management. However, this is not really affecting the immersion as accessing the own backpack will also distract the player in the real world and thus works without breaking the immersion.

The Long Dark – Radial Menu

In the end, the new interface allows the players to access all relevant information without breaking the immersion of the game. Moreover, the player’s view is not compromised as the information are only displayed for a short amount of time.

The 4096 pixels you are made of

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about different methods of avatar customization.

An avatar is a player’s representation in a virtual world and enables a player to interact with this environment. Hence, the customization of the own avatar is an important part of playing a game as players often like to use an avatar they can identify with. For this purpose, most games that provide an avatar game mechanic allow players at the beginning of a new game to design their avatars by customizing their visual appearance. The degree of the customizability is dependent on the style of the game and can range from a selection of predefined attritubutes to a gradual customization of facial elements as well as the physical appearance.

Although the latter method of customizing the own avatar allows for the creation of really unique avatars, the choices that can be made are still finite. However, there are also a few games that allow players to import custom made textures into the game and subequently use those so-called skins to design their avatars. Despite the fact that the uniqueness is a bit limited by the 3D model the textures are applied to, this approach gives players full control over the avatar customization process.

One of these games is the sandbox game Minecraft. At the beginning of the customization process, players can chose between two different 3D models that are distinguished in their size. Subsequently, players can start to edit a 64×64 pixels texture template for the 3D model chosen in order to customize their appearance. The customization process is finished once the user has uploaded the texture to the Minecraft skin server. From this point on, Minecraft will always apply the custom made texture to the chosen 3D model in order to represent the player in a Minecraft world.

A Minecraft avatar using the unchanged texture template.

Ultimately, this customization approach allows players to completely distinguish themselves from all the other players sharing the same world. Moreover, this approach resulted in the fact that famous Minecraft video creators are recognized by their personal skins.

Sandbox story telling

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the ’storyteller‘ game mechanic in RimWorld which tells the player a unique story every time the game is played.

The colony simulator RimWorld tells the story of a few survivors who survived a crash of their spaceship and are stranded on the surface of a different planet. The most impressive think of the game is its authenticity, as RimWorld simulates a very vivid and detailed world by utilizing many different variables that store a vast amount of information about the player’s virtual colony. However, despite the attention to detail, the game is still very enjoyable and does not overwhelm the player as it can be successfully played without managing every aspect of the game.

A RimWorld colony.

Aside from simulating an authentic world, the game tells a unique story every time it is played. In contrast to other sandbox games, RimWorld utilizes so-called ’storytellers‘ that generate random events on an irregular basis. As a result, the fate of the player’s colony does not only depend on the player’s decisions, but is also affected by the random events as well as their severity.

For instance, the storyteller can generate a severe attack of the colony. However, all attacks are different as they are completely randomized as well. In order to experience the depth of this game mechanic, I waited for such an event to occur and subsequently reloaded an autosave that was made just a couple of minutes before that event.

The first time, my colony was attacked by a group of animals that exploded and caused a spreading fire once they were killed. This resulted in a huge fire in the center of my colony which then burned down completely. The second time, my colony was attacked by a group of pirates who started a siege and, due to their large group, killed all my colonists. The third time, my colony was attacked by a group of mechanoids that can cause an incredible amount of damage over a very long range. The fourth time resulted in an attack of a group of boars which injured all my colonists but were easy to handle in contrast to the three other events.

In the end, the game told a different story each time I reloaded the autosave. From a player’s point of view, this approach results in a unique experience each time the game is played. In combination with the high amount of different variables that can be affected by the outcome of a random event, the game has always a different outcome.

In conclusion, providing random events that have a significant impact on the player’s gameplay results in a very strong and exciting experiences as the player can never predict what the outcome will be. Therefore, utilizing such a system can increase a sandbox game’s replayability and entertainment. However, the game should also include the option to disable the random events as nothing is more frustrating than seeing the own progress being destroyed.

Constant practice required

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the requirement of complex computer games to constantly practice the own skills in order to perform well.

Practice is not only needed when we want to acquire a new skill, but is also necessary in order to maintain a certain skill level. Naturally, some activities are easier to master than others, but in general, we have to continuously practice every activity to perform well at it. Furthermore, cognitive demanding and/or complex activities require more practice as they involve more skills that have to be practiced.

The demand for a constant practice applies to computer games as well. Depending on the genre, different skills are needed in order to successfully play a computer game and hence those skills must be continuously practiced. In addition, the required skills are also dependent on the computer game’s content which can range from a very simplistic game to a complex and cognitive demanding simulation. However, as most games of a particular genre use the same input game mechanics, the required skills can often be trained by playing any game belonging to a certain genre.

For instance, most First Person Shooter (FPS) games utilize the mouse in order to look around, determine the direction of movement and aim at a target. The player’s movement is controlled by the W, A, S and D keys that enable the player to move forward, sideways or backwards. Hence, by playing one FPS game, a player trains most of the skills which are relevant for all FPS games.

However, as soon as the game’s content is more complex or provides game mechanics that have a unique skill requirement, a player can only practice the relevant skills by playing the computer game requiring those skills. Additionally, the demand for the relevant skills is also dependent on the game’s difficulty level. A game that provides no room for error has a very high demand thus demanding a player to constantly pracitice the required skills in order to excel at the game.

DiRT Rally

One of those computer games is the realistic racing simulation DiRT Rally. Due to the high complexity of rallying, the game has already a high demand for various skills. In addition, the game provides no room for error thus making practice a mandatory activity in order to perform well at the game. Personally, I noticed that even a two weeks long break can have a significant impact on the own performance.

Although it might be an unusual thing for a computer game to require constant practice, it is also one of the most rewarding experiences to train in such a demanding environment. Becoming better at such a demanding game feels like a real accomplishment and motivates the player to continue to practice it.

In the end, I really enjoy playing DiRT Rally as it challenges me on a very high level and constantly allows me to improve my own skills.

Great memories

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the effect of old video games to bring back great memories we have experienced as we played them back in the days.

Recently, I watched a Let’s Play video showing the gameplay of „Donkey Kong Country“ which was published on November 1994 by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Watching this video and hearing the sound effects as well as music brought back amazing memories of my childhood as I played this game a lot in coop-mode with a friend. In addition, I was really surprised that the gameplay still seemed familar to me. Finally, watching this video also brought back memories of all the other entertaining SNES games I played more than 20 years ago.

The great thing about seeing the gameplay of old video games is that they have not changed since the were played back in the days. Over the period of 20 years, many things can have changed and often it can be hard to return to places which were important during our childhood. Naturally, great experiences are always vivid in our memories but we can rarely re-experience them. Of course, playing a 20 years old game will never cause the same experiences, but as it has not changed, it can immediately refresh our memories and bring back past times.

These past times are also connected to the moments we shared with our friends and families while we were playing those games together. In the end, a video game can act a bit as a time capsule as its content will never change. It could be really interesting to observe the effects of re-experiencing important video games on elderly people as childhood memories can help them to feel happy, to create a connection from their past to their current lives and to remember their identities. In the end, this could be very important for people who start to suffer from dementia.

Playing a computer game is a complex task

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about a new player’s issues of successfully playing a computer game.

Recently, I demonstrated two computer games to a group of students and experienced researchers who had no previous computer game experience. The first game I presented was a serious game which is developed for the purpose of training a special part of the linear algebra. This game is played from a first person perspective and demands the users to solve 3D puzzles. The second game was Kerbal Space Progam that demonstrates the core principles of spaceflight in an engaging and vivid way.

After a short introduction into the general gameplay of the two games, the participants were allowed to play the games themselves. However, due to their lack of computer game experience, it was much harder for them to develop a basic understanding of the game controls and the gameplay in general.

For the participants, the most challenging part of playing the serious game was to understand how they can navigate through the 3D game world. It is natural for an experienced gamer that the mouse is used as a device to look around and to control the direction of the own movement. In addition, frequent gamers are used to walk through the game world using the W, A, S, D keys. The participants had not this basic knowledge and thus they needed some time to learn the basic controls before they were able to analyze how the serious game helps learners to practice complex knowledge. This is also one of the main challenges of designing a good serious game as developers have to implement ways for new gamers to learn playing a game [1].

Playing Kerbal Space Program was even more challenging for the participants as the game has a very steep learning curve due to the underlying physical principles. Not only that the participants had to understand how to successfully operate a rocket in the game, they were also challenged by the high knowledge demand of the game itself.

In the end, the demonstration showed how complex the controls of modern computer games for untrained players are. Using the mouse to change the view seems to be natural for experienced gamers but is an abstract knowledge for beginners. Before they can explore the virtual environments, they have to develop a basic understanding of those controls, thus facing an additional learning curve. The demonstration also revealed the importance of good tutorial scenarios that introduce untrained players into the basic controls of a game.

Turn-based Strategy

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I analyze the challenging gameplay of XCOM 2.

Aside from realistic simulations, turn-based strategy games (TBS) are my favorite type of computer games. As a TBS game has no time constrains for a player’s turn, I can thoroughly plan my next steps by analyzing the current situation and evaluating all my available options. Once I have found a good strategy, I can start to realize my plan by using all the actions of my units during the current turn.

In addition, a TBS game also provides a lot of surprises that can completely neutralize my initial plan by suddenly adding an unexpected enemy to the equation. This is, however, not a frustrating thing as it is really fun to adjust a strategy based on the development of a fight. In the end, a player has to be very flexible and accept the fact that even the best strategy can have a major flaw.

Recently, XCOM 2, the successor of XCOM – The Enemy Within, was released. Both games are TBS games and put the player in charge of a small organization that tries to defend the Earth against an alien invasion. Aside from managing the XCOM heardquarters by making important decisions, such as choosing future research projects and assigning new abilities to the soldiers, the player tackles difficult missions that can only be won if the player thoroughly plans the next steps and effectively combines the soldiers‘ abilities.

Revealing a new group of enemies.

For this purpose, the player sees the environment from an aerial perspective. However, the player can only see what the own soldiers are seeing. In this case, the player has to scout the environment carefully by sending the own soldiers from cover to cover in order to not expose them to a potential enemy that might be hidden in the shadows. Once a group of enemies is revealed, they will take cover as well. At this point, the player is challenged to move the own soldiers into positions from where they can flank the enemy or remove some of the enemy’s cover to expose them. This can be done by combining the different soldiers‘ abilities. For instance, one soldier can throw a grenade to remove an enemy’s cover. Subsequently, a second soldier can take out the exposed alien.

A soldier can belong to one of four different classes that allow further customization by unlocking skills from a skill tree after a soldier has accumulated enough experience points. The available talents during a mission dramatically influence a player’s tactic. For instance, the player can decide if a specialist can heal others or gets an additional attack. Furthermore, as a soldier can execute only two actions per turn, the player has to be very careful not to accidently expose a soldier to an enemy. Finally, soldiers and enemies can be on overwatch which will let them automatically attack if an enemy moves into their line of sight.

In the end, the player has to be very careful during a fight as the enemy tries to flank the player’s soldiers as well. In this case, the player has to constantly monitor the positions of the own soldiers and move them to other spots in order to keep them protected.

In sum, XCOM 2 challenges players with complex missions that demand and train decision-making and other cognitive abilities.