Returning after two years of development

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 enjoyment of playing early access games.

More than two years ago, I played Astroneer just after its release as an early access game. Astroneer puts the player into the role of a little astronaut who lands on the surface of a planet. There, the player is challenged to set up a base, perform research and finally construct spacecraft to visit other planets in the solar system. The game is an open world game and allows players to discover the virtual environment at their own pace. Although not being polished, the game already was a lot of fun to play.

One of the most fun elements of playing early access games is to discover small bugs and glitches that break some parts of the game. Experiencing some visual glitches often results in some hilarious moments that cause an additional level of joy during the gameplay. For instance, I remember that the planets one could see in the sky were falling apart at some point. Suddenly, the planets were split into smaller pieces that started to drift apart, thus revealing a planet’s inner structure.

After having explored every planet in Astroneer’s solar system, I had the option to either continue playing the game to experience freshly added features or to stop playing it for a while to not get bored of it. I decided to stop playing the game and to wait for the release of its final version. In this way, I kept the game in good memory and avoided to go through the usual repetitive gameplay of early access games.

Typically, after the implementation of some major gameplay changes, a player often has to restart an ongoing game, thus going through the early stages of a game over and over again. While this can be fun when the changes affect the early game, it mostly becomes repetitive and annoying. As a result, players tend to „burn out“ on these games.

Now, two years later, Astroneer finally is released and so I returned to it. After this long break, the game feels almost like a new game as some game mechanics, e.g., researching new technologies, were changed completely and the graphics look way more polished and colorful. In this way, I can now enjoy Astroneer for a second time and basically play a different game.

In conclusion, playing early access games can be a lot of fun especially when glitches are accepted and more importantly enjoyed. However, due to the ongoing development process, players might burn out on the game when they have to start a new game for too many times. Thus, by only revisiting the game from time to time, the enjoyment can be preserved and the changes can be more appreciated.

Energetic Physical Activities

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 problems of simulating physically energetic moments in computer games.

Recently, as I was exercising on a running machine, I experienced an interesting phenomenon of actually feeling my own performance. Normally, one can experience a feeling of satisfaction when a new level of performance is reached, e.g., achieving a new record time. This time, however, I was not only experiencing a new level of performance, but also noticing how I was affecting the environment. In particular, I noticed how the running machine was slightly shaking as I was running on it at a fast pace. It was like a super energetic moment to me.

This reminded me of a visualization style for delivering particularly strong blows during the gameplay of action games. Here, game designers let the view of the player shake for a short amount of time. This suggests that the player’s attack affected the entire virtual environment. When this frequently occurs during the gameplay, players might perceive the game as highly energetic.

However, in contrast to my running experience, the gameplay only provides visual feedback and lacks a directly physical involvement of the player in the actions. Naturally, due to the game immersion, players perceive it as a real event, but the actions remain artificial. In this way, the gameplay lacks a whole-body involvement which might result in an overall improved experience.

This would be different when targeting immersive Virtual Reality. By using tracked game controllers and a tracked Head-Mounted Display, a player’s physical action can easier be used to trigger actions inside of the virtual environments. Unfortunately, fitting haptic feedback is not yet possible. As a result, game designers would need to stick to visual cues. These cues need to be carefully implemented to avoid evoking cybersickness in the player.

In conclusion, although computer games might be capable of generating visually appealing simulations of physical activities, the lack of true physical involvement and haptic feedback potentially reduces the overall satisfaction in comparison to the real world activity. True virtual sport unfortunately needs some more time …

Breaking Games and Exploring Limits

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 desire to explore the virtual environment

Computer games consist of several game mechanics. Game mechanics represent a game’s rules as they encode the underlying principles and overall game knowledge. Game mechanics not only create the virtual environment, but also allow for an interaction with it. This interaction ultimately creates a game’s gameplay.

In this way, a computer game is based on strict rules that are executed and checked by the game. Depending on the design, these game rules can be quite complex, thus providing players with a broad variety of different interaction possibilities. As a result, new players of a particular game learn by exploration and observation. They try out different ideas and interactions with the virtual environments and learn from the feedback provided.

For instance, when playing Minecraft, players might discover TNT blocks that explode and destroy a part of the environment when ignited. Being aware of this game mechanic might initiate a series of experiments to find out how capable TNT is and what can be done with it. By observing the results of the interactions, players learn the game’s rules.

However, the desire to discover new knowledge might not end at this point, but initiate further research to determine the limits of the virtual environments. In the aforementioned example, this could mean to find out what happens if a huge number of TNT blocks explode at the same time. Similarly, when playing Astroneer, players are able to dig into the ground. Thus, some started an experiment to find out what happens when they reach the core of a planet.

In general, testing for the limits of the virtual environments is a common goal, when only a fixed environment is provided. What happens when the end of the world is reached? What happens if previously determined limits are broken? Finding answers to those questions sometimes reveals funny glitches or even breaks the game.

While this gameplay might not be intended by the game developers, it represents another form of enjoying a computer game. It satisfies the desire to explore the virtual environment and to learn all about its underlying principles. This insight can also be valuable for game designers as it indicates that providing a lot of different interaction possibilities and hidden secrets can increase a game’s overall entertaining aspects.

In conclusion, exploring virtual environments not only is directed towards the environment itself but also towards its limits and all underlying principles.

Observed Computer Game Immersion

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 computer game immersion and how it can dominate a player’s attention and awareness.

Immersion in a computer game means that a player is completely absorbed by the gameplay and forgets about the surrounding environment as well as the fact that a game is played. The attention is completely directed towards the gameplay and the player feels as if they are part of the virtual environment or at least that they have full control over it. When immersed in a computer game, all virtual events feel real and can evoke deep emotions. These emotions are even carried over into the real world and combine the real life with the virtual life.

However, the absorbtion rarely is total. Often, players are only partly immersed and split their attention between the real world and the virtual world. For instance, when two players play in multiplayer mode in front of the same screen using a gaming console, they continue to interact with each other or do have a conversation. The degree to which a player’s attention is directed towards the computer game depends on the player’s mental and physical involvement into the gameplay.

This shared attention also allows for the creation of Let’s Play videos (LPs). These videos cover a player’s gameplay and are enhanced by the player’s commentary which provides a second story arch in parallel to the game’s narrative. Personally, I enjoy creating LPs as this is a completely different approach to playing computer games. It is not only about enjoying the narrative or the gameplay, but also about using games to create something new. Thus, creating LPs is a very creative process that provides an entertaining aspect in itself.

Recently, I noticed the above-mentioned phenomenon of the shared attention and how it scales with the personal involvement of the player. Normally, I play Minecraft just as a background activity while discussing various things, such as spaceflight news, scientific results and personal experiences.

However, as I discovered some new game mechanics that have been added to the game with the last content update, I noticed how my personal involvement and hence the immersion increased. While exploring and discovering the new game mechanics, my ability to discuss topics declined and I frequently got distracted while talking.

Based on this subjective experience, I validated my own understanding of computer game immersion. 1) The degree of immersion quickly scales back up and down with the degree to which a player is involved in the gameplay. 2) A high degree of immersion dominates a player’s attention and immediately scales back other processes taking place outside of the virtual world, e.g., talking to other people.

In conclusion, computer game immersion is a powerful experience that not only evokes deep emotions, but also dominates a player’s attention and awareness. Simultaneously, immersion directly scales up or down based on player’s personal involvement in the gameplay.