Playing a computer game is a complex task

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 a new player’s issues of successfully playing a computer game.

Recently, I demonstrated two computer games to a group of students and experienced researchers who had no previous computer game experience. The first game I presented was a serious game which is developed for the purpose of training a special part of the linear algebra. This game is played from a first person perspective and demands the users to solve 3D puzzles. The second game was Kerbal Space Progam that demonstrates the core principles of spaceflight in an engaging and vivid way.

After a short introduction into the general gameplay of the two games, the participants were allowed to play the games themselves. However, due to their lack of computer game experience, it was much harder for them to develop a basic understanding of the game controls and the gameplay in general.

For the participants, the most challenging part of playing the serious game was to understand how they can navigate through the 3D game world. It is natural for an experienced gamer that the mouse is used as a device to look around and to control the direction of the own movement. In addition, frequent gamers are used to walk through the game world using the W, A, S, D keys. The participants had not this basic knowledge and thus they needed some time to learn the basic controls before they were able to analyze how the serious game helps learners to practice complex knowledge. This is also one of the main challenges of designing a good serious game as developers have to implement ways for new gamers to learn playing a game [1].

Playing Kerbal Space Program was even more challenging for the participants as the game has a very steep learning curve due to the underlying physical principles. Not only that the participants had to understand how to successfully operate a rocket in the game, they were also challenged by the high knowledge demand of the game itself.

In the end, the demonstration showed how complex the controls of modern computer games for untrained players are. Using the mouse to change the view seems to be natural for experienced gamers but is an abstract knowledge for beginners. Before they can explore the virtual environments, they have to develop a basic understanding of those controls, thus facing an additional learning curve. The demonstration also revealed the importance of good tutorial scenarios that introduce untrained players into the basic controls of a game.