Finding of the week #154

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.

Finding of the week #153

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.

Finding of the week #152

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.

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.

Finding of the week #151

The demand for a decent AI

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 huge impact of the AI on the user experience and discuss some of the major issues an AI can have.

In single-player computer games, enemies and competitors are controlled by an artificial intelligence (AI). Depending on the type of the game, the AI executes a certain strategy and tries to flank or outperform the player in order to ultimately put the player’s skills to a test. For this purpose, the strength of the AI is determined by the chosen difficulty level as beginners are more likely to make mistakes than expert players. In the end, the AI greatly affects the user experience as a weak AI does not challenge the players resulting in boredome whereas an overpowered AI is often regarded as unfair resulting in anxiety.

This makes the AI to one of the most complex elements of a computer game as it has to recognize the player’s actions and react to them accordingly. In addition, the AI needs a realistic situational awareness in order to provide the players with an authentic challenge and feedback. For instance, the AI should recognize if the player takes out an enemy who was talking to a different enemy. Just letting the untouched enemy walk away feels unrealistic. The same thing applies to a situation when the AI is able to recognize a hidden player over a long distance. It feels unnatural if enemies suddenly start to attack the player just because a certain threshold was crossed.

Assetto Corsa

Assetto Corsa

Lastly, it is very important that the AI recognizes and respects a player. This is especially important when the AI’s purpose is to create a field of competitors instead of enemies. In a competitive environment, the player expects a gentleman-like behavior that demonstrates a certain strengths wihout being disrespectful to the player. The best example for a poor implementation of a competitive AI is the AI used in Assetto Corsa. The virtual race drivers have a poor recognition of the player’s position on the race track and, as a result of this, they constantly run into the player’s car or even push the player off the racetrack. In a competitve envrionment, this behavior seems to be disrespectful thus resulting in a negative user experience. A good competitve AI would have a well adjusted performance as well as the function to recognize and respect a player’s presence.

In sum, the AI creates challenges for the players by recognizing a player’s actions and reacting to them. In order to have the desired effect, the AI has to have a human-like behavior that is not too overpowered and not too weak. In addition, the AI has to respect the player in order to reduce frustration. In the end, the AI has a huge impact on the user experience and can influence the success of a game.