Between Entertainment and Long Lasting Impact

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 games I will remember for a very long time and those I will not.

When I think back to my computer game playing experience, then a few titles always will pop up in my mind first. For instance, I will always remember having played the Mass Effect series, Kerbal Space Program, and Assetto Corsa. But why are more memorable than games like Company of Heroes or Transport Fever which also kept me entertained while playing them?

The reason for their memorability lies in their game design that either resulted in a highly emotional gameplay or in a gameplay that allowed for a fair competition between players. Emotions are always real to us no matter if they are evoked by a real or by a virtual event. Emotions are also very deep experiences that are easily memorized and triggered when thinking back to a particular event.

The Mass Effect series puts the player into the role of a spaceship’s commander. During the gameplay, the game’s narrative challenges the player with the task to protect an entire galaxy from an enemy that intends to wipe out all living species. The player, however, is not alone but has virtual companions. Each of these crew member has an own personality and, depending on the players decisions during the gameplay, has a different fate. For instance, the player can have a love affair with members of the crew and sometimes even is responsible for deciding which of the crew members has to sacrifice its own life to protect the rest of the crew. In this way, the player creates strong emotional bonds to the virtual agents that start to feel real as the gameplay progresses. These emotions are what make Mass Effect to a very memorable computer game.

In contrast, Kerbal Space Program features no emotional narrative. However, the game’s difficulty is relatively high. The game mechanics encode knowledge about orbital mechanics that has to be understood by the players to successfully play the game. This not only results in a very steep learning curve, but also in very exciting moments when the player achieves a personal goal, e.g., landing on the Mun, and realizes that they have acquired new knowledge in this process. This challenge-based rewarding moment also evokes strong emotions in the player which subsequently result in the game being memorized as a very positive experience. Thinking back to playing Kerbal Space Program then triggers these emotions again, thus making this game to a very special game in a player’s history.

Allowing for a fair competition ultimately results in a very emotional gameplay as well. Assetto Corsa is a highly realistic racing game that provides players with the opportunity to perform virtual car races that put their own driving skills to a test. For instance, players can race against each other driving the same type of car which then results in no driver having an advantage due to balancing issues. This kind of gameplay induces a (friendly) competition among the players, especially when they participate in championships and compete over a longer period of time against each other. This competition, the challenge to practice and to train the own skills, and to ultimately celebrate small victories evokes positive (and sometimes also negative) emotions in the players. Thinking back to playing Assetto Corsa triggers these emotions again which also make this type of game to a very special memory.

In contrast to these games, other games merely provide some entertainment during their actual gameplay. They might even motivate a player to continue playing the game to collect all possible achievements, but at the end of the day, only light emotions were triggered during the gameplay. As a result, no or only weak emotional bonds are created to these games which make them seem less memorable when thinking about great games that truly influenced us.

In conclusion, while almost all computer games entertain a player, only those are truly perceived as great computer games that evoke strong emotions in the player during the gameplay. This also is an important insight for game designers who like to create serious games or to increase the motivation using a gamification approach. Creating a gameplay that evokes strong emotions potentially achieves the best results.

Three Types of Exploration

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 different types of an exploration-based gameplay: travel-based, challenge-based, and resource-based

Personally, I am a huge fan of computer games that put a strong focus on the exploration of the virtual environments. The exploration aspect can be categorized in three main types: 1) a travel-based exploration, 2) a challenge-based exploration or a 3) resource-based exploration. Depending on the type, the exploration has a different role in the overall gameplay.

A travel-based exploration requires a fully explorable vast virtual environment that consists of several special features, such as waterfalls, spectacular vantage points, or hidden ruins inside of deep forests. These special features can be discovered by traveling through the environment. Here, the exploration either is the core element of the gameplay, e.g., when playing a walking simulator, or an optional aspect of the overall gameplay, e.g., when playing an open world role-playing game.

A challenge-based exploration lays a higher focus on the exploration of the virtual environment during the gameplay. In contrast to a mere travel-based exploration, this type requires the player to find a way to overcome obstacles. For instance, when playing Kerbal Space Program, a player has to design spacecraft that have the correct performance when aiming at the exploration of specific celestial bodies. The spacecraft not only has to reach the celestial body, but also to be powerful enough to deal with the environment, e.g., a strong gravity. In this way, a challenge-based exploration provides players with concrete goals for exploration that determine the overall gameplay.

Finally, a resource-based exploration allows a player to refine resources during the gameplay to craft more powerful items. This requires a player to find these resources first. In this way, the gameplay challenges a player to explore the virtual environment to find and to obtain all the basic resources. This often bases on the requirement to explore all regions and zones of the virtual environment. For instance, when playing Minecraft, a player needs to dig down to the so-called bedrock layer to find diamonds which are one of the most valuable resources in the game.

The three types can also be combined to provide different forms of exploration at the same time. Once having landed on the surface of a celestial body in Kerbal Space Program, a player can travel on the surface with the astronauts either on foot or using vehicles that have to be landed there first.

For instance, as I was searching for a specific resource on the home planet in the full release version of Astroneer, I felt stuck because I was not able to find it. Also, the game did not provide me with information that the resource could not be found on the home planet. In this way, I spend a long time digging deeper and deeper into the planet until I finally decided to abort this approach to try out to fly to a different planet in the virtual environment of Astroneer. As soon as I launched into space, the game provided me with a map of all the existing planets and informed me about the resources that can be found on them. Thus, to avoid this kind of frustration, it is important to provide players with hints or game mechanics to find out where specific resources can be found when implementing the resource-based exploration.

In conclusion, a computer game can provide three main types of exploration. Depending on the type, some additional information are required to avoid evoking a frustration in the player. The exploration types may be combined in the same computer game.

Following the Rules

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 ideas of being used to read instructions more closely when being a vested computer game player.

Most computer games provide players with specific goals and challenges. The goals are communicated in a clear and precise way. Hence, players exactly know what they have to do to overcome a challenge or to solve a quest. While working on the solution of the game goals, computer games provide immediate feedback to inform players that they are performing the correct actions.

For instance, a computer game can provide a quest that requires the player to collect 10 red apples: „Collect 10 red apples in Mrs Smith’s garden.“ In this way, players exactly know how they can complete this quest. A player still has to read the quest information carefully as the apples not only have to be red, but also found on Mrs Smith’s garden.

Thus, by providing players with these clear rules, they practice to read instructions carefully. Also, they learn how to quickly understand an assignment’s goals. The gameplay can include some time constraints that put the player under pressure to make decisions quickly. This constraint makes it important to analyze a task as quickly as possible.

Carefully reading instructions also is a common requirement in our daily life. For instance, it can be an assignment from an educational course or a request sent by someone’s supervisor. Only when the instructions are understood properly, the task can successfully be solved. Just skimming through the information might result in a task not completely solved. This can result in bad consequences like getting a bad grade in an exam.

Based on this theoretical analysis, it might be possible that computer game players can analyze and understand tasks better than non-players. Their gameplay experience might lead to a training of their analytical abilities to quickly and correctly understand a given task. In this way, computer game players might be able to work more efficiently.

In conclusion, playing computer games might also result in an improved ability to analyze any given situation as well as to successfully identify and to carry out the correct next steps.