The rewarding effects of trial and error

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 rewarding effects of improving a design by trial and error in a computer game.

In some computer games, players can design their own vehicles [1], factories [2] or cities [3]. The design process itself mostly requires a lot of testing and redesign in order to achieve great outcomes. Although it can be quite frustrating to deal most of the time with issues of the own design, this part of the gameplay can be also really rewarding when the idea has become reality and is working without any flaws. For instance, creating a perfect infrastructure in Cities: Skylines that does not cause too much congestion can be quite difficult, but as soon as the player has solved all the issues and can observe the flowing traffic, he feels really rewarded and is proud of the own accomplishment.

However, the design game mechanics do have a very important requirement: they need to be based on strict rules which can be learned by playing the game and more importantly by analyzing the own failures. Moreover, it is very important that the players are provided with tools in order to diminish certain failures once they have understood the underlying principles. For example, constructing a reliable aircraft in Kerbal Space Program (KSP) is one of the more complex challenges in the game. The main reason for the difficulty lies in the laws of nature that are simulated in the game.

During the design process, players have to keep these laws of nature in mind in order to construct a functioning airplane. One of the main difficulties to construct an airplane is to find the right balance between the center of mass and the center of lift of the aircraft. Only if the aircraft is well balanced under all conditions, it will perform well during an actual flight. In order to achieve such a balance, the player is provided with tools that show the center of mass and the center of lift. Furthermore, the player is able to adjust the amount of fuel in the fuel tanks in order to simulate the change in the center of mass due to the fuel consumption during the flight.

The indications for the center of mass and center of lift are enabled.

New players have to develop an understanding for the principles and the balance between these two main factors before they can build capable vehicles. This learning process involves a lot of trial and error as they have to experience the effects of changing the airplane’s balance. After each test flight, they can evaluate the effects of the changes they have made to their designs and learn from their mistakes. Over time, they will develop a basic understanding of the underlying principles that will help them to finally construct their first stable aircraft. Furthermore, due to the fact that KSP is based on the laws of nature, players can even look up additional aerospace knowledge in order to improve their design skills.

Personally, I find the game mechanic of constructing own vehicles very rewarding. It is interesting to observe how the initial idea for a vehicle gets improved over time due to the effects of the laws of nature. The most rewarding moment is when a certain vehicle finally performs as desired after a long development and testing period. This moment makes me realize what I have accomplished and how much I have improved my initial design. Recently, I was developing a new spaceplane that can take off from a runway, reach orbit and finally land back at the same runway without jettison any parts. The main challenge for me was to find the right amount of fuel and the right amount of engines to propel my spaceplane. The more fuel I added to the airplane, the more engines it needed. On the flipside, more engines require more fuel and so I was doing many test flights in order to find the right balance. Finally, as I achieved orbit for the very first time, I was really proud of my work and felt really rewarded.