Modifications

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 categorization of game modifications.

Many computer games feature a modification support and thus can be modified in various ways by the players in order to enhance the game’s functionality, change the game’s audiovisual impression or to add new contents to it. Aside from the fact that this approach allows the players to personalize their gameplay and to experience a unique story, it also greatly increases the replayability of the game. In general, modifications can be classified in three different categories.

The first category does not change the gameplay, but adds useful features that are not part of the original game. Additionally, this category includes modifications that changes the audiovisual impression of the game. On the one hand, these modifications usually help the players to play the game in a more efficient way by displaying additional information, such as statistics about the player’s status, performance and progression, or by adding additional camera modes that provide the players with a better overview. For instance, most of the World of Warcraft modifications allow the players to display additional information about their performance or to reallocate all the user interface elements in order to play the game in a more efficient way. On the other hand, these modifications also allow the players to personalize the visual appearance of the game by exchanging the textures and/or models that are used in the game. For example, Minecraft features a lot of texture packs and allows the players to create custom skins for their avatars.

The second modification category changes and/or enhances the gameplay of the game by modifying the settings and/or the balance of it. Additionally, modifications of this category even add new elements to the game that allow the players to perform new interactions with the game world. For example, some of the Kerbal Space Program (KSP) modifications add new parts to the game that allow the players to perform completely new experiments or to build more enhanced vehicles. The KSP modification ‚Remote Tech‘ even adds the feature of radio communication to the game. Players who use this modification are required to establish a satellite network that relays radio communication signals in order to constantly control a robotic mission.

The third modification category does not alter the gameplay of the original game. Instead, modifications belonging to this category utilze the core functionalities of the game in order to create a completely new game that has no connection to the original content. Players of these modifications experience a completely new gameplay and new game mechanics. Popular examples of this category are Counter Strike and Day Z.

Visualization of the own learning process

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 open world building games are a perfect environment to visualize the own learning progress.

Normally, I do not look up any information when I start to play a new game. The only thing I do is to take a look at the keybindings in order to get a basic idea about the things I can do in the game. Subsequently, I start to play it from scratch and to improve my gameplay based on the experiences I make. Depending on the genre of the game, this approach sometimes involves to start over again after having learned how to properly play the game. However, in the case of an open world (building) game, I often continue to play my very first game as the outcomes of the initial phase of my gameplay are an important part of my story in this particular game.

This approach is especially interesting when the game in question is an open world building game such as Minecraft or Cities: Skylines. During the gameplay of these two games, players can construct and design buildings and/or build even huge cities. All the time I start playing such a game for the first time, I start with a small project in order to gain my very first experiences with the game. After gained some experience and learned how to realize a project and solve issues, I move on to the next more ambitious project. Over time, my very first game world features a lot of different projects that represent the different phases of my gameplay and also act as a timeline of my learning process. Finally, I can begin to incorporate the earlier projects into later projects in order to create a well rounded environment which still shows my progression through the game.

Serious traffic issues in Cities: Skylines

Recently, I began to build my very first city in Cities: Skylines. During the gameplay of Cities: Skylines, players create gigantic cities by placing and connecting roads, creating building zones and establishing a solid infrastructure. As the city grows, the traffic becomes more and more the central game mechanic the players have to deal with. At first, many crossroads and intersections might look useful, but over time they will cause a serious congestion and, as a result of this, the players have to find more efficient solutions.

Trying out a different street layout

As I developed my very first virtual city, I learned how to deal with the virtual traffic the hard way. The oldest part of my city features many crossroads and has serious traffic issues. After I noticed the problem, I moved to a different location in the virtual world and built a new district with a more efficient street layout. At some point, however, the increased traffic also became a problem for this layout and so I learned from my mistakes and built a third city district. As my city growed, I began to connect the districts and to combine them into one huge city and thus my city shows my learning progress.

The highway helps to control the traffic

Personally, I think this visualization of the own learning progress throughout the gameplay is really motivating as it shows how we can get better, if we analyze issues and learn from our own mistakes. It can even help us to build up some confidence that mistakes are not necessarily a bad thing as we can learn from them. Moreover, especially in the case of a virtual city, the constant change in the layout makes everything look more natural and more interesting.

Language learning with computer games

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 a computer game can educate players in a foreign language.

I briefly discussed the idea of using computer games for the purpose of language learning in Finding of the week #118 [1]. In this article, I like to present a computer game that demonstrates an ideal way to teach a foreign language to computer game players.

The computer game Lifeless Planet [2] puts the player into the role of an astronaut who is stranded on an unknown planet. After a long journey through the vastness of space, the astronaut and his other crew members had a crash landing on the planet which they wanted to explore. After the astronaut regained consciousness, he is sitting alone in the capsule and as he leaves the spacecraft, he finds human footprints leading away from it. In contrast to all the observations made by scientists, the planet is not a lively world. Instead, it is a complete desert and the atmosphere has not enough oxygen to keep the astronaut alive without his space suit. A couple of minutes later, the astronaut discovers a leak in his space suit–the fight for survival has begun.

Lifeless Planet

During the story of game, the astronaut encounters a mysterious woman and starts to follow her as she seems to know how to survive on this hostile planet. Although the astronaut tries everything to speak to her, she always runs away and does not allow him to approach her. The chase continues until the astronaut has to traverse a very dangerous area. Just in the moment as he enters the area, the woman stops him from running into his doom and helps the player to move through this area by giving additional advice.

Aside from giving hand signals, she also shouts commands in order to guide the player through the dangerous area. However, these commands are not in the language the player has selected for the game as the woman only speaks Russian. As a result of this, the player starts to learn some basic commands like „Stop“ and „Go“ in Russian while he plays the game.

This special game mechanic of guiding the player using a foreign language presents an ideal way of introducing learners to a new language. The immersive effect of the game gives those commands a special meaning and thus increases the player’s motivation to listen and to understand what the woman shouts. Additionally, the woman uses hand gestures in order to provide a common ground that helps the player to understand her words. Furthermore, the woman repeats the commands and, as a result of this, the player has the chance to memorize these phrases due to repition.

This game mechanic can easily be enhanced and reused in different contexts in order to expand the language proficiency of the learners. Moreover, the amount of spoken words can be increased over time and thus help the learners to understand the grammar of the language. Additionally, the learning effect can also be enhanced by providing subtitles in order to present the spoken and written word at the exact same time.

In the end, computer games could be an ideal environment for the purpose of language training as they can present the language in a vivid and engaging way.

Learning a race track

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 a player can learn to master a race track in a racing simulater, and, by doing so, also practice to drive on the real race track.

A few weeks ago, I finally started to play Assetto Corsa (AC) [1] again [2]. Assetto Corsa is a very authentic racing simulation due to a very realistic physics and graphics engine [3]. Playing this game creates the immersion of actually driving a race car along a race track as the behavior of the different race cars, that are available in the game, feels really authentic and it is often very demanding to keep a car under control when it is driven at its very limits. This immersive effect is even supported by the realistic graphics engine which presents the race cars and the race tracks with almost photo-realistic details.

Aside from enjoying the immersive effects of AC, it is also very interesting to observe the own improvement while practicing to drive on a certain race track. At first, the player has to figure out how the car reacts when he steps on the break or drives through different types of curves. However, after a short period of time, the player gets used to the behavior of the car and can start to improve the own performance on a certain race track. In order to do so, the player needs to learn and to understand each part of the race track. He has to figure out the braking points and the right speeds for each turn. Finally, the player has to find the right flow in order to connect all the turns so that he can operate the race car at its limits in order to achieve a great lap time.

Apart from getting a feeling for the race track, the player is also motivated by the indication of the own lap times. Every time the player finishes a lap, he gets an immediate feedback about the own performance, hence can follow his own progress.

„Eau Rouge“ in Assetto Corsa

As a side effect of practicing laps in a realistic racing simulator like AC, the users are driving on a virtual version of the real world race track, and, as a result of this, they potentially learn how to drive on the real race track. For instance, driving on the Spa race track allows the players to experience the famous „Eau Rouge“, and after having driven through the virtual version of this curve, players could be able to drive through this turn in the real world without any issues. At least, if they are used to the car they are driving.

Own experiences can enhance the immersive effect

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 our own experiences could increase the immersive effect of a computer game.

After a very long break, I finally managed to play Assetto Corsa (AC) [1] again. Of course, I would have liked to play it on a more frequent basis as it is a very realistic and fun racing simulator, but the aspect of being a realistic racing simulator requires more or less a steering wheel in order to fully enjoy the gameplay. In this case, playing AC needs all the time some preparation as I have to set up the steering wheel before I can start playing it. Furthermore, after I have finished driving along virtual race tracks, I need to remove the steering wheel as it would otherwise occupy too much space of my desk. In other words, playing AC is not as easy as playing other games.

Yesterday, I took the time to set up my racing wheel and I finally was able to experience the fun of speeding along a race track, again. This is especially interesting as AC utilizes a very realistic physics engine and graphics engine, hence driving a virtual car in the game feels almost like driving a real car. The only thing that breaks a bit the immersion are the missing forces on the own body. Nevertheless, playing AC results all the time in a very intense immersive experience. However, this time I noticed another interesting component of the immersion of this computer game.

Usually, I used AC to experience a ride on one of the famous Formula One race tracks. This time, however, I decided to explore the hill climb course „Trento – Bondone“ which is based on one of many small mountain roads that can be found in the Alps. The track itself consists of a narrow road that changes between more or less straight parts and serpentine roads featuring several tight hairpin curves.

Assetto Corsa – Trento-Bondone

As I was driving along this track for the very first time, I noticed that the immersive feeling was increased in relation to the immersive effect of driving on a virtual version of a real race track. The reason for this could be the fact that I was driving along such kind of serpentine road during my skiing vacation in the Berchtesgaden Alps. In this case, I was able to connect my real world experience of driving on a serpentine road with the virtual experience of driving along a similar serpentine road.

Connecting our own experiences with the experiences we make during the gameplay potentially adds another dimension to the immersive aspect of computer games as we are able to compare our expectations to the results of our gameplay. It can also explain why driving along the hill climb course had an even stronger immersive effect than driving on one of the race tracks: I never had the chance to drive on a real race track, hence I do not have any experience I can compare to the experiences in the game.

Now, I need to get the chance to drive on one of the real world race tracks that are implemented in AC in order to examine if this will also enhance the immersive effect of driving on this track in AC.

First time experiences

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 importance of first time experiences.

The first time of doing something can be a very exciting experience. For example, riding down a steep slope, driving a special car or just visiting a new location for the first time causes in most of the cases a special first time experience. The excitement of these first time experiences comes mostly from the fact that we are experiencing something unknown and we are not really sure about how things will evolve. Of course, driving a special car for the second time can be still very exciting, but at this point, the driver has already gained some experience about the behavior of the car and can rely on this knowledge.

An even better example might be the landing of an airplane on a short runway. Although the length of the runway provides more than enough space for a safe landing, it might look really unusal for the pilot who lands on it for the first time. He knows that it is no a problem at all to land on the runway, but he has never done it before and thus experiences something unknown. If the same pilot does the landing on the same runway for the second time, it might still look really short, but at this point, the pilot can rely on the knowledge he has gained during the first landing.

These special first time experiences do also occur during the gameplay of a computer game. Computer games evolve around certain challenges and tackling these challenges for the very first time can be a very intense moment. For instance, surviving the first night ever in Minecraft [1] can be a very scary and intense feeling. The first day passes relatively quickly and the player has only a limited amount of time to prepare for the first night as evil creatures are spawning in the darkness. A new Minecraft player has no idea how to deal with this situation, hence the first night is a unique experience. After having survived the first night, the player has gained some knowledge on how to deal with this situation. This will not decrease the danger of a night in Minecraft, but it will allow the player to act differently as he no longer deals with an unknown situation.

Minecraft

These special first time experiences do not only result in great memories but provide a special meaning for certain activities. The experience of driving a special car will provide a special meaning to the general activity of driving. This is also true for computer games, as the computer game that has caused the special first time experience will always cause a special feeling once the user starts to play it again.

Kerbal Space Program (KSP) [2] is one of those games that causes all the time a special feeling once I start playing it. Every time I start this game, I have to think back to my humble beginnings and the first landing on the „Mun“. Although it is no longer that adventurous to land a spacecraft on a celestial body, playing this game still brings back the great memories of discovering spaceflight.

Successful landing on Minmus

In the end, these great first time experiences are causing a passion for our favorite activities as we do like to gain more of these first time experiences.

Game Control Standards

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 continue think about the different ways of controlling a computer game and why it might be important to come up with a new control device.

In Finding of the week #107, I wrote about the innovative game mechanic of selectively controlling the arms of B.U.D. in Grow Home. Furthermore, I wrote about the control standards of computer games and how gamers got used to navigate through the virtual worlds by harnessing their mouses and keyboards.

These control standards are an ideal solution for the majority of the current games. It becomes almost natural to move through the virtual world via keyboard inputs, while looking around or focussing on one spot is performed with the mouse. Additionally, the mouse buttons are used to trigger certain events like activating switches or shooting a weapon. Some computer games are played from a static camera angle and can be even played without the mouse or with a game pad.

However, there are also some games that utilize different control standards that allow the precise control of special parts. These games are mostly simulation games such as flight simulators or racing simulations. Players of these simulation games like to accurately control their vehicles and enjoy playing these games with special devices like a joystick or a racing wheel. The simulation control standards allow the direct control of all the different elements of the simulated vehicle like all the different aerodynamic control surfaces of an airplane.

Apart from these simulation games, most games realize movement as a continous flow that is triggered by keeping one key pressed. Players do not need to seperately control the different body parts of their avatars. They just need to trigger a certain activity in order to fully perform it inside the game.

Innovative games like Grow Home demonstrate the limitations of the control standards. Controlling both arms of B.U.D. via the two main mouse buttons works well, but it is still a strange feeling of utilizing both of his arms with only one hand. The developers of this game recommend playing it with a game pad. This allows the control of each arm with the respective hand, but it is still a step away from becoming a natural feeling.

Grow Home has presented a new way of interacting with the game world. Now, I am looking forward how this approach will evoke some new control devices that allow a more realistic control of our virtual avatars.

Arm Control

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 game mechanic of being required to selectively control the arms of B.U.D. in Grow Home.

Computer game players control the actions of their avatars during the gameplay of a computer game. In most of the cases, the avatars can walk, run, jump, croach, climb, carry around objects or activate switches in the game world. Instead of being required to control the avatar’s limbs, the players just have to press the respective key in order to perform these actions with the own avatar.

Although the avatar control is not a full body control, it never felt strange to me. The reason for this could be that all of these activities are daily life activities and they are normally performed without a conscious effort. Our own decision to perform one of these activities subconsciously triggers the execution of it. Controlling an avatar in a virtual world shares similarities with our own natural way of moving through the world.

Recently, I discovered the computer game „Grow Home“ and started playing it. In Grow Home, the player takes control over a droid called B.U.D. which has the task to grow a plant to a certain height by connecting its shoots with energy sources. The game is played from a third person perspective and follows to a certain degree the usual control standards. However, Grow Home introduces a new way of controlling the arms of B.U.D.. Players are required to selectively use the left or the right arm in order to climb up high walls or to carry around an item.

B.U.D.

Depending on the used peripherals, the player has to select the arm by pressing the respective key. In the case of playing the game with a keyboard and a mouse, the player has to press the left mouse button to activate the left arm and the right mouse button to activate the right arm. If the player likes to grab an item with B.U.D.’s left arm, he has to approach this item (pressing „W“ lets B.U.D. move forward) and then press the left mouse button in order to finally grab the item.

Climbing up a wall requires the timed combination of both armes while performing a forward motion which is initiated by keeping the W key pressed. Furthermore, the player has to make sure that B.U.D. has always a firm grip at the wall. In order to climb up a wall, the player starts with pressing the left mouse button when B.U.D. stands in front of a wall in order to grab it with the left arm. Subsequently, he starts to move upward by pressing the W key and finally he has to press the right mouse button in order to grab the wall at a higher position with the right arm. After having a firm grip with the right hand, the player can release B.U.D.’s left arm, move upward a bit and finally grab the wall with the left arm again. In summary, the activity of climbing upwards is performed by keeping the forward button pressed and alternating between the two arm control buttons. This special way of controlling B.U.D. can even allow the players to get into a state of „flow“.

Climbing in Grow Home.

At first, this new game mechanic of controlling B.U.D.’s arms felt a bit strange, but over time I got used to this mechanic and it even enhanced my experience of controlling an avatar in a computer game. Being required to actively alternate between B.U.D.’s two arms resulted in a completely new dimension of interacting with the virtual game world.