Control Device Configuration Usability

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 a good configuration usability of simulation games in order to ensure the best possible realism independent of the available hardware.

For the purpose of getting the best experience out of playing simulation games, it often is critical to use input devices that mirror real-world control devices and provide additional forms of sensorimotoric feedback, e.g., force feedback, about the current status of the simulation. For instance, playing realistic racing simulations with a 900 degrees of rotation force feedback racing wheel results in a higher immersion and better driving performance as the force feedback provides sensorimotoric feedback about the car’s status and the 900 degrees of rotation enables players to even perform slight and minimal steering inputs. As a result, players can control the virtual racing cars more efficiently and accurately thus experiencing a higher degree of realism.

However, it is also important that the simulations allow for an easy way to configure various input devices as well as the linearity of control inputs to provide the best possible realism independent of the input device’s construction and functions. Currently, I try to achieve a good flight experience using X-Plane 10, but, unfortunately, I constantly encounter issues with the linearity of my inputs. For instance, a slight joystick movement often results in a steep banking of the airplane which especially is problematic during a final approach. The same problem applies to the function of adjusting the trim: instead of gradually increasing or decreasing the trim rudder, the simulation changes the trim to either one of the maxima when I touch this button just a bit too long. Of course, X-Plane 10 provides many options to configure the game controls, but as the menus and sliders are not very intuitive, a lot of trial-and-error is needed which, thus far, has not reduced the negative effects, unfortunately.

In sum, simulation games not only have to directly and accurately encode the underlying physical principles but also provide a good usability to configure the available hardware to enure a realistic gameplay and avoid breaking the immersion.

Learning from mistakes

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 need for good tools to analyze the own gameplay for the purpose of developing an in-depth understanding of a game’s underlying principles.

Recently, I had to start a new game in Transport Fever because I made too many mistakes during my first attempt of successfully establishing a transport business and, as a result, I was about to go bankrupt. Of course, this was not a surprise to me as I already expected to encounter some issues the first time I play the game as I needed to develop an in-depth understanding of the functionality of the game’s game mechanics.

Transport Fever

However, before I started the new game, I took some time to analyze my steps and decisions that ultimately caused me to lose the game. In the end, I found out that I focussed on the wrong types of cargo at the start of the game. The ultimate goal of a player is to satisfy the needs of virtual cities by delivering the demanded products. For this purpose, the player must satisfy the requirements of those industries that produce the demanded products. This can become quite challenging as some factories demand multiple types of materials and stop to accept additional deliveries over time when not all requirements are satisfied or their final products are not shipped. As a result, a player can not just focus on the transport of one specific good but has to satisfy the entire supply chain for the final product that is demanded by the cities. Unfortunately, I was not aware of this game mechanic and, as a result of this, I ran out of money as my transport lines ceased to generate revenue over time.

While analyzing my first failed Transport Fever game was simple, other games are much more complex and hence it is much harder to learn from the own mistakes as too many variables play a role. Therefore, in order to allow players to learn from their failures, it is important that computer games provide many statistics or even a replay function at the end or even during the game that allow for a good analysis of the own performance.

This, of course, is even more important when the game is intended to help learners to learn or practice new knowledge. Without a good way to learn from the own failures, it is much harder to find the correct solution to a specific problem and hence makes the entire learning process more complicated or can even cause a high degree of frustration.

As a conclusion, allowing players to analyze their gameplay after a failure greatly helps them to develop an in-depth understanding of the underlying principles which ultimately can result in a better gameplay performance or learning outcome.

Emotional Gameplay

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 my experiences I made as I played Life is Strange for the first time.

Recently, as I was looking through my Steam library in order to find a short but still very atmospheric game I could complete over the course of the Easter holidays, I rediscovered Life is Strange. Since the release of it in January 2015, I wanted to give this game a try as it was rated as very atmospheric and emotional. Unfortunately, I had not the time to play it right away and so I postponed the purchase. At some point, however, I got the game as I bought a Humble Bundle game bundle. Since then, it was waiting in my library for the right moment.

Life is Strange

After downloading and installing Life is Strange, I was immediately amazed by its atmosphere and immersive effect. In this adventure game, the players takes control over Max Caulfield, a photography senior who, at the start of the game, experiences a very real daydream and suddenly wakes up in the middle of a photography seminar. During the exploration phase, Max is controlled from a 3rd person perspective and can interact with the environment as well as with other non-player characters. That way, the user can explore the environment and search for items that are needed in order to solve the game’s puzzles. However, once a player begins a conversation, the game changes to cutscenes that take advantage of settings used in movies.

Aside from solving puzzles and exploring the virtual word, players can also access Max’s journal which is beautifully decorated with pictures, drawings and other remarks thus adding an additional emotional layer to the game’s story. The journal is used in order to document a player’s decisions as Life is Strange provides multiple endings depending on the player’s choices throughout the gameplay. Hence, the journal actually reflects the actions a player did inside of the game.

Moreover, the game uses the journal-drawing style as a general style for the game: all text in the game (main menu items, confirmation screens) use the same handwriting font that is also used in the journal. Also, the mouse cursor looks like as if it was drawn with a pencil.

Making decisions is the most important aspect of Life is Strange as Max is able to rewind time in order to change the topic of a conversation or even save someone’s life. That way, the game incorporates the idea of the butterfly effect that even a small change can have a significant impact on other things in the future. This is even emphasized as, during the initial part of the game as the player gets introduced to this game mechanic, Max is about to take a picture of a blue butterfly.

In addition to Max’s personal journal, players are able to hear the girl’s thoughts on recent events which are presented in a very personal and subjective way thus causing the players to feel with the game’s main character and often to develop an emotional connection to her. The emotional aspects of the game are even emphasized as the game uses a very emotional indy music.

The music not only increased the game’s atmosphere and emotional aspects, but was also used to immerse the player in the game: at the end of the seminar, Max puts her earphones on and starts to listen to some music. Right in this moment, the game also started to play a song at a higher volume thus suggesting that the player itself is listening to the music via earphones. Personally, I experienced exactly this moment as a very immersive part of the gameplay.

Lastly, the game’s story creates a very dense atmosphere and, at least for me, provides many points where players can associate with when they already experienced those situations themselves.

In sum, by presenting and providing Max’s feelings and thoughts in a direct way, Life is Strange achieves a very immersive, atmospheric and emotional gameplay. It is easy for players to associate with her, especially when they have experienced some of her stories themselves.

The Joy of Incompleteness

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 special entertaining aspect that can occur when an early access game is played.

Early access computer games are a special form of games as they are still in development and hence lack integral game mechanics that will be implemented in the future. Despite not being complete, early access computer games can already be very entertaining and provide players with an interesting and often even innovative gameplay. The main reason for early access games to exist is a result of the good availability of powerful game engines and the emergence of independent game designers who develop games without being supported by a computer game publisher and hence use the revenue generated by selling early access games for the purpose of funding their developments. In addition, early access games are also used in order to improve the quality of a computer game as players often provide useful feedback about the current status of the game.

Despite being incomplete, the gameplay of those games often is not that different to the gameplay of full-fledged games. The reason for this is that the gameplay of any computer game is a result of a player’s interactions with the game world by executing the provided game mechanics. Naturally, a player of an early access version might not have the same possibilities like a player of the game’s final version, but this does not affect the enjoyment of the game’s current early access version. However, playing early access games can also result in some unexpected problems that are a result of the game not being polished and finished.

This especially is problematic when some errors and bugs result in the game being instable or even unplayable. In such a case, players rarely enjoy the gameplay as they get annoyed by the game constantly crashing on them or showing severe performance issues. However, experiencing errors and discovering not fully polished gameplay elements can also result in some hilarious moments when certain actions lead to completely unexpected outcomes, such as hostile creatures getting stuck on tiny obstacles due to issues with their path finding routines or game objects breaking the laws of physics due to errors in the game’s physics engine.

As a result of this, players, depending on their interest in exploring the game world, dedicate a large part of their early access gameplay to the exploration of the virtual worlds in order to test a game’s limits and experience events that were not intended by the designers. This, however, is not unexpected as the explorer trait of computer game players often goes along with the desire to develop an in-depth understanding of the game’s underlying principles and mechanics.

In sum, early access games have shown that games do not need to be complete in order to be enjoyable. Instead, the factor of incompleteness can even cause a different aspect of entertainment as players are able to experience hilarious moments that will not be a part of the final game as they are a result of an error.

The Joy of Failures

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 computer games present failures in an entertaining way that even encourages players to retry the game with a different approach.

Experiencing failures is an integral part of playing computer games. At the beginning of a new game, a player must develop an understanding for the game’s game mechanics which quite frequently goes along with experiencing failures and problems that, in the end, provide the player with valuable feedback about the underlying principles and rules. Once players have developed an understanding for the game mechanics, failures can still be a regular thing when they start to put their skills to a test and/or try to reach the limitations of the game world.

Normally, when we experience a failure in real life, then it often feels like a huge setback. Our expectations, ideas or dreams were proven wrong, crushed or, at least, pushed back thus requiring us to try a different approach which often is time consuming or at least requires additional resources. Although this is not different in a game world, a computer game makes experiencing failures more enjoyable as it is mostly very easy to start over again with a completely different approach. In addition, digital games provide savegames that can be loaded in order to retry a certain approach to analyze the steps that ultimately cause the failure. Moreover, certain computer games also offer a replay function that allows for a direct analysis of the experienced failure for the purpose of learning from the own mistakes.

Furthermore, computer games often demonstrate failures in spectacular ways that are entertaining to watch and sometimes even cause hilarious moments. For instance, a not well designed rocket in Kerbal Space Program disassembles in a rapid succession which, although it also can happen to real world rockets, just looks spectacular and can cause funny moments when some boosters continue to fly in all various directions. This often becomes even more hilarious when players start to test the limits of the game world as, when those limits are broken, it can result in completely unexpected outcomes that let the player fly through the air or end in locations where they do not want to be.

In sum, by presenting failures in an entertaining way and providing features that allow for a quick retry, experiencing problems in a computer game rarely feels like a huge setback and often is even encouraging to retry it with a different approach. Moreover, due to the often hilarious and exaggerated demonstrations of a failure’s outcome, failures can also become an entertaining aspect of the gameplay.

Unique content vs. a high amount of difficulty levels

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 issues that evolve when a lack of unique content is compensated with a high amount of difficulty levels.

World of Warcraft (WoW) provides players with a broad variety of different activities they can perform in the virtual world while playing the game. Most of these activities are designed to keep players busy once they have reached the maximum level with their avatars. Until this point, the probably most important goal for the majority of the players is to solve quests or complete dungeons for the purpose of gaining experience points that ultimately allow their characters to reach a new level which often also unlocks new skills or provides access to new regions. However, as soon as a player has reached the maximum level, the main incentive to continue playing the game is lost and must be replaced with other goals that keep the player interested in the game.

One of the key game mechanics that keep players active are the group and raid dungeons where players can find powerful armor and weapons that ultimately increase the power of their avatars. As there is no guarantee that a particular item drops, players repetitively have to complete the dungeons to slowly collect their equipment, and, as a result of this, players are playing the game for a longer period of time.

Depending on the skill level and composition of the group, the dungeons can be tackled on various difficulties thus providing a challenge for every player while still allowing all players to at least enjoy the special regions without being required to join a permanent group. In addition, as the items also become more powerful with a higher difficulty, this system provides an incentive for players to tackle the dungeon on the next higher difficulty to even further improve their avatars. Since the release of the Legion expansion, group dungeons can also be completed on a so-called mythic+ difficulty which ultimately provides 15 additional difficulty levels for the same dungeon.

While changing a dungeon’s difficulty significantly raises the challenge for the players by increasing the enemies damage as well as health and providing them with more abilities, it does not change the environment itself. As a result of this, players are seeing the same environment over and over again while progressing through the various difficulty levels. Although this is a cheap and very effective method to keep players interested in the game, it can also cause a reduced interest in the game as, despite the higher challenges, it does not result in exciting new content.

Personally, I especially started to notice a lack of interest in those mythic+ dungeons as they are relatively short and hence can be repeated in a quick succession. Normally, I am quite motivated when it comes to an increased difficulty that puts my skills to a test, but due to the high amount of different mythic+ levels, the feeling of doing the same thing over and over again greatly overshadows the motivating aspects of tackling a difficult challenge.

In conclusion, providing different difficulty levels for the same content can result in an increased effect of the connected retention mechanisms while allowing every player to enjoy the virtual environments, but, at the same time, it can also reduce the motivation of players who prefer to explore new environments. It would be very interesting to see more unique content that has only a single difficulty level again.

Steering Wheel Differences

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 my gaming steering wheel provides a better usability than my car’s steering wheel.

This week’s article is based on my very own observations as well as experiences made while driving virtual and real world cars. Currently, it might be the case that I spend more time driving virtual cars in racing simulation games than driving my actual car in reality. As discussed in previous articles, this caused several positive effects such as better car control and reaction times. In addition, my simulated driving experience, due to the similarity of the controls, probably also resulted in a better trained muscle memory of holding the steering wheel and controlling the pedals.

For the purpose of ensuring an ideal car control, my computer steering wheel has all buttons and flappy-paddles, which are used for up- and down-shifting, attached to the rotational part of the wheel. As a result of this, I just need to extend my fingers without moving my hand when I like to activate a particular function, such as switching on the lights or activating the windshield wipers, and just press the designated button. Due to the high amount of time I spend playing racing simulations, I automatically got used to this feature of my steering wheel.

In contrast to my computer steering wheel, my real car’s steering wheel has most of the car-system related controls attached to the non-rotational part of the wheel: the windshield wiper lever is mounted on the right hand side whereas the light control lever is installed on the left hand side. As a result of this, depending on the steering input, I have to move one of my hands in order to reach the correct lever. Normally, this is not so much of a problem as rarely that much of steering input is needed that I can no longer reach the levers.

However, yesterday evening I was driving along my favorite road which is relatively twisty as it features a sequence of several long narrow turns. Driving through them requires more than the usual steering input and, as a result of this, my left hand was no longer near the light control lever I wanted to reach in order to turn off the high beam as an approaching traffic appeared. Being used to the concept of just being required to extend my fingers, I extended my fingers and grabbed into the void … this situation and the realization that my real car’s setup is inferior to my gaming setup immediately made me laugh.

It always amazes me when I directly experience the training effects of computer game simulations that easily allow for a knowledge transfer due to similar demands. However, although the fixed control levers were unpractical in this particular situation as I had both hands on the wheel, having fixed position probably still is superior for the daily use cases of a car that is intended to be driven in a casual way. Moreover, having those car controls at fixed positions can reduce the effects of a sudden confusion in stressful situations. Interestingly, my steering wheel has some buttons directly placed on the wheel that are used for interacting with the board computer or controlling the radio without requiring me to reposition one of my hands…

LearnEnglish 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 a very interesting project to teach the English language to beginners as well as advanced learners: a Minecraft server that provides special learning puzzles and game goals.

Learning a new language is a very challenging task as learners are required to memorize vocabulary, develop an understanding for the foreign language’s gammar, practice the correct pronunciation as well as their listening comprehension skills. While the latter two skills can be easily trained by watching movies and series that are subtitled, expanding the own vocabulary and learning grammar requires a lot of hard work that mostly involves a periodic repetition of the learning content. Unfortunately, traditional learning methods are not very engaging and lack an immediate feedback.

The gamification of learning, however, can improve the language learning quality by turning the key learning aspects into game mechanics that not only provide an immediate feedback, but also give the foreign language an important meaning by using it as a means to solve puzzles or other game goals. Furthermore, by turning the language learning activities into game mechanics, they can also be implemented in engaging, flow-inducing and vivid virtual worlds. That way, students not only experience a higher enjoyment when practicing a foreign language, but also are more motivated to continue playing the game thus repeating the learning content more frequently. Lastly, computer games, due to their reward game mechanics, also encourage players to retry challenges after a failure in a highly motivated way.

Recently, I came across a very interesting approach to teach the English language to beginners as well as advanced learners by implementing the learning activites into Minecraft. The LearnEnglish Minecraft Server project, created and developed by Cacille, provides puzzles and other mini games of various complexity.

For instance, beginners can start to expand their English vocabulary just by exploring the virtual world and meeting Non-Player Characters (NPC) that perform various activities such as running or swimming. Once a player approaches one of those NPC, they inform the student about the activity they are performing: „I am running“. Other beginner puzzles challenge the players to find a way through a maze by answering questions correctly or to count various types of animals.

LearnEnglish Minecraft Server

In contrast to beginners, advanced learners are challenged with more difficult activities like a language based scavanger hunt or a minecart ride that, each time the minecart arrives at a station, requires the player to correctly complete a sentence. Based on the player’s input the minecart will take a different route which might kill the player or safely bring them to the next destination.

Aside from providing the puzzles, the LearnEnglish server can also act as a classroom where students as well as teacher meet in order to cooperatively or competitively tackle the game’s challenges. That way, teachers or parents can utilize the game as a platform to teach the English language in a very engaging way.

Currently, the learning environment is still in development, but already shows its great potential. I am really excited to follow its development and hear about the results when it is tested for the first time.

Great Games do not Force a Player into a certain Direction

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 the freedom created by open world games attracts a broad variety of player types.

One of the key aspects of open world games is the freedom that is given to the players. Instead of providing them with a linear story which is based on a sequence of pre-defined goals a player must complete, open world games offer various activities to the players thus allowing them to choose what they want to do inside of the virtual worlds. As a result of this, each player experiences a unique story as well as the feeling of being an actual part of the virtual environment which ultimately results in a deeper immersion.

Skyrim

For instance, the role-playing game Skyrim provides players with a main story line, many side quests, various factions that like the player to join them as well as a vast virtual world full of secrets and treasures which can freely be explored. That way, players can decide if they want to follow the main story line, if they want to help out a certain faction or completely ignore the goals provided by the game for the purpose of discovering special places in the world.

In addition, open world and even many role-playing games provide a high amount of various activities players can perform inside of the virtual world without actually requiring them to utilize all of those game mechanics in order to play the game successfully. Hence, players experience another degree of freedom as they can only focus on some of the activities which they enjoy or use every feature of the game. Of course, players who take advantage of many game mechanics might have a better overall performance in the game, but this mostly is important for some very special events a player rarely encounters during the regular gameplay.

Minecraft

For instance, Minecraft, amongst other things, allows players to craft various types of armor which subsequently can be enchanted for the purpose of increasing a player’s capabilities, making the armor stronger or more durable. In addition, players can brew various potions that can have various positive effects on the player such as taking less damage or moving faster. While enchanting and brewing helps players to survive and is needed in order to defeat the strongest Minecraft enemies which only appear when they are summoned, it is not needed for the regular gameplay. Naturally, players who wear stronger armor do not need to be as careful as unarmored players, but this mostly is not important when a player likes to explore the world or build ambitious projects.

In the end, digital games that can be played in various ways and do not force players to perform certain activities mostly attract a broad variety of different player types as everyone can focus on a particular aspect of the game that matches the own interests.

Driving Safety

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 realistic racing simulations can improve a player’s driving skills but also increase the awareness for potential risks and dangers at the same time.

In #120, I discussed the effects of playing racing simulations which resulted in an alternation of my perception of speed and an improvement of my spatial attention as well as reaction time. Furthermore, racing simulations, in case they are played with a force feedback steering wheel and pedals, share similar demands with real world driving, thus training a player’s car control knowledge which easily can be transferred from the virtual environment to the real world. In sum, racing simulations improved all my skills that are relevant for car driving thus helping me to become a better and safer driver.

Risks of racing

However, racing simulations also demonstrated me the risks and dangers of driving cars at their limits and showed me the human limits. For instance, trying to recover a car that started to oscillate at speeds exceeding 200km/h by using only a single hand on the steering wheel is a very challenging or, depending on the car’s characteristics, even impossible task. Similarly, driving very close behind a different car might result in good opportunities to overtake the car ahead in a racing scenario, but it also exponentially increases the risk of colliding with the other vehicle. In addition, it applies some pressure on the driver that is being chased, which of course is wanted in a racing scenario, but causes an unnecessary safety risk on public roads.

With those experiences made in the safe environment of a racing simulation, I feel much better prepared for potential situations that might arise while driving in the real world. Unfortunately, the knowledge gained by perfoming virtual racing on a frequent basis resulted in a feeling of precariousness when I drive on public roads, too. Frequently, I see other drivers with only two fingers on the steering wheel or have to endure a car that drives only a few meters behind me. Of course, there always is the potential that the drivers possess well advanced driving skills, but chances are high that those people are not able to correctly react to critical situations thus creating an unnecessary risk. In addition, even when they would have well trained driving skills, then this behavior still results in an increased chance of causing an accident as they can not predict what other drivers do or if there is a bump in the roads that upsets the car. Finally, having advanced driving skills would also result in a behavior that reduces risks to a tolerable minimum.

In the end, computer games create effective training environments that can greatly improve our skills but also demonstrate risks in a safe environment. It is time that we start to use them on a more frequent basis in education to achieve better learning outcomes.