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.