Finding of the week #228

Usability: A Critical Requirement

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 usability as it helps to keep players immersed and affects the general entertainment of a computer game.

A good usability is an important goal in software development and game design as it allows users to operate a system with a high efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. Furthermore, the usability of a feature increases in importance the more frequently this feature is used. While a bad usability of a rare used feature can be annoying, a bad usability of a periodically required element can drastically reduce a user’s satisfaction with a product. In addition, it can result in a user’s impression that the development team has not put a lot of effort into the development of their product thus reducing the team’s reputation.

In the case of a computer game, usability also is critical for the purpose of keeping users immersed in the gameplay. When a feature is too difficult and complicated to use, it can break the immersion as it completely distracts players from the actual gameplay. Moreover, a bad system or interface design might cause some playability issues thus resulting in a high degree of frustration of the players.

The tolerance for usability issues, however, depends on the development team and the status of the game. While usability issues of an early access indy game are often accepted as the game is still in development and hence the usability will potentially be improved over time, it can cause a strong hit to a team’s reputation in the case of a professional game studio that released a fullprice title.

As usability is a well known and common concept, it all the time surprises me that many development teams seem to forget to do some playtesting in order to discover and solve those issues. Recently, I discussed the issues of Transport Fever which puts the player into the role of a transport company’s manager. In this management game, the player often can merely guess how the underlying principles work as they are not communicated properly. Recently, I got quite annoyed by the bad structure of DiRT 4’s menus.

During the gameplay of DiRT 4, players not only compete in virtual rally events, but also manage their team and upgrade their cars. Unfortunately, the team management section is not well designed and results in an overcomplicated gameplay. For instance, players can unlock new facilities that provide a particular bonus, such as a larger garage or the ability to improve a car’s performance. Unfortunately, instead of allowing a player to directly install upgrades on a car from the garage menu that displays all purchased cars, players first have to start a new rally event. Once they are in the event’s service area, they can choose an option that allows them to upgrade the car used in this event. As a result of this, players need to start an event for each of their cars when they want to upgrade them simultaneously which causes a high degree of annoyance.

In sum, it is not only important to have well thought-out game mechanics, but also to connect them with a good user interface and to communicate all relevant information properly.

Finding of the week #227

Management 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 management games that mostly require decision-making and hence, instead of demanding correct sensomotoric inputs, demand and train a player’s cognitive abilities.

Management computer games rarely provide a player with direct control game mechanics that allow for a manipulation of the gameplay in a direct way. Instead, players can only influence the progression of the game with high-level decision making that subsequently alters variables affecting the simulated activity’s outcome.

That way, management games represent the counterpart to direct control computer games that require correct sensomotoric inputs from the players to be played successfully. While players still interact with the game using regular sensomotoric input devices, such as keyboard and mouse, the game’s challenge mainly is created on a cognitive level demanding a player’s problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

Motorsport Manager – Strategy and Setup

For instance, the computer game Motorsport Manager puts players into the role of a racing team’s teamchef who is in charge of hiring drivers as well as staff, developing and improving parts for the team’s race cars, finding sponsors, developing infrastructure and setting up the cars before a race. Furthermore, during a race event, the player can make additional high-level decisions by planning a pitstop and instructing the drivers to push or drive more carefully thus reducing tyre wear and fuel consumption. However, the player can not control the cars in a direct way and achieve great results due to good driving skills as it is possible in racing simulations, such as Assetto Corsa and DiRT 4. Hence, the sum and results of all the decisions made determines the race cars‘ performance during a race and the amount of money the player’s team makes or loses per race.

In the end, despite the differences between the two game type extremes, both genres induce game-flow thus motivating players to continue playing the game and, due to the periodical demand to apply the game’s knowledge, i.e., the sensomotoric driving skills and the cognitive race and technical knowledge, achieve a training effect.

Finding of the week #226

Trillion Ton Iceberg

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 calving of a trillion ton iceberg-the largest iceberg ever recorded.

Scientific satellites looking down to our Earth have become more and more crucial tools to observe environmental changes, predict the weather, research inaccessible remote areas and monitor the effects of global warming. That way, research satellites were also monitoring the Larsen C Ice Shelf since a large fissure appeared several years ago.

The fissure seemed to be stable until 2016 when it begann to lengthen. In January 2017, the fissure expanded by 20 km and reached a total length of about 175 km. Over the subsequent months, the rift not only continued to extend but also started to grow and branched off towards the open water of the Weddell Sea. Finally, early July, only a few kilometers of ice separated the fissure’s end from the sea and indicated that the Larsen C Ice Shelf will calve a gigantic iceberg, soon.

Larsen C breaks – contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA

At some point between 10th July and 12th July 2017, the iceberg broke away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf and is now freely floating in the Weddell Sea. Due to the enormous size of the iceberg, the shape of the ice shelf as well as the entire Antarctic Peninsula was changed forever. The iceberg is as twice as large as Luxembourg (about 6000 sq km), contains the same amount of water as Lake Ontario in Northern America, reduced the area of the Larsen C Ice Shelf by 12% and weighs more then a trillion tons (1,000,000,000,000 metric tonnes).

Although this event is a part of the natural iceberg calving and scientists are not aware of a link to the human-made climate change, it puts the ice shelf into a vulnarable position. The ice front’s position is the furthest back in recorded history. Scientists will continue to watch for signs indicating that the rest of the ice shelf will become unstable, too.

Finding of the week #225

Immersion: Responding to a player’s actions

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 DiRT 4 achieves a higher immersion by embedding the main part of the gameplay in an engaging context and making the game more responsive to a player’s actions.

DiRT 4, the successor of DiRT Rally, got released about a month ago and successfully increased the immersiveness and believability of the rally simulation by tweaking a few game mechanics and adding new gameplay elements to the game. Achieving a believable world not only requires a realistic simulation and presentation of the gameplay, but also demands a responsiveness to a player’s action. Furthermore, to avoid breaking the immersion, it is also important to implement good transitions between the main gameplay and the screens presenting a player’s results.

The latter requirement still is not completely fullfilled but successfully got improved in DiRT 4. In DiRT Rally, after switching to simulation mode, players get immediately placed behind the rally car’s wheel which already stands ready at the start of a stage. This only is different at the start of a new event which begins with a short scene presenting how the player’s car is brought to the start. From this point on, players get no further information until they start the stage. In addition, as soon as they cross the finish line, the simulation immediately ends and a screen displaying the results is shown. That way, the game completely ignores the phases before and after the race which slightly reduces the overall immersion.

This was changed in DiRT 4 which begins with a quick introduction from the co-driver who informs the players about potential damaged cars on the stage and also tries to motivate them to push hard in order to win the rally event. While this still lacks some interaction with the game, it already provides the players with a better feeling of actually getting ready for a race. Moreover, in DiRT 4, a stage does not immediately end when the player crosses the finish line. Instead, the player is required to continue driving until the marshal who informs the player about the stage time is reached. Ultimately, those two additional gameplay elements frame the actual racing thus providing a more immersive presentation of the simulation.

DiRT 4 – Stopping at the marshal

These two new elements also implement a responsiveness to the player’s action. Before the start of a stage, the co-driver also gives a brief summary of the car’s condition and hence addresses problems that might have occured due to a player’s reckless driving. Similarily, the co-driver also comments on the player’s time at the end of the stage and, depending on the result, is cheering or trying to motivate the player to push harder on the next stage. Lastly, when the player gets closer to the marshal at the end of a stage, the marshal gives a hand signal when the player should come to a stop thus reacting to the player’s actions.

In the end, by embedding the simulation in an engaging context and increasing the game’s responsiveness to a player’s actions, DiRT 4 achieves an immersive effect that goes beyond the immersion due to game-flow caused by the challenge of driving the virtual race cars as fast as possible.

Finding of the week #224

Rapid Rocket Landing Progression

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 SpaceX’s last one and a half years during which they managed to make the landing of a rocket’s first stage to a common thing.

About two years ago, landing a rocket back on Earth after having launched it into space seemed like a very unrealistic endeavor. However, it was shown to be possible by SpaceX on 22 December 2015 as they successfully returned the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth after it successfully decoupled from the upper stage [1]. Until this point, rockets were designed to last for one flight only. After having completed their mission, they were discarded, fell back to Earth and got destroyed on impact.

Of course, the first landing only showed that it is possible to land the first stage of an orbital class rocket back on Earth after it has completed its mission. At this point, the technology still had some flaws and resulted in some additional crashes of subsequent first stage landing attempts on the floating landing platforms in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. However, SpaceX kept going, analyzed the data gathered from the failed landing attempts and constantly improved their landing system.

Aside from improving the landing system, SpaceX also worked hard on reusing already flown first stages to reduce the launch costs and achieving a partly reusable space launch system. Finally, on 31 March 2017, SpaceX launched a satellite into space using a refurbished Falcon 9 first stage which also managed to land back on Earth for the second time [2].

Since then, SpaceX continued to improve their rockets in order to make them more reliable and capable. However, despite these great efforts, the landing of a first stage that launched a satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit still remained risky due to the high reentry velocity and aggressive launch profile in general.

Hence, the chances for a successful landing were not that high as SpaceX launched a communication satellite into space on Friday, 23 June 2017. However, despite the low expectations, the first stage managed it to overcome the high reentry velocity and the fast descent rate as it approached the drone ship floating in the Atlantic Ocean. A couple seconds later, the first stage managed to safely land on the deck of the floating landing platform using 3 of its 9 engines.

Personally, I am not only impressed by SpaceX’s rapid improvements of their Falcon 9 rocket but also by the fact how fast landing a rocket back on Earth has become a common thing. Two days after this high-speed landing, SpaceX launched the next Falcon 9 rocket, this time from the west coast of the USA, and managed to land the first stage used in this mission, too.

The first landing of an orbital class rocket is not that long ago and since then SpaceX has improved their technologies by such a degree that successful landings have become the norm. It is just impressive what can be achieved when people start to work together and try to solve big problems and achieve ambitious goals.