Affect and believability in game characters:a review of the use of affective computing in games

Virtual agents are important in many digital environments. Designing a character that highly engages users in terms of interaction is an intricate task constrained by many requirements. One aspect that has gained more attention recently is the effective dimension of the agent. Several studies have addressed the possibility of developing an affect-aware system for a better user experience. Particularly in games, including emotional and social features in NPCs adds depth to the characters, enriches interaction possibilities, and combined with the basic level of competence, creates a more appealing game. Design requirements for emotionally intelligent NPCs differ from general autonomous agents with the main goal being a stronger player-agent relationship as opposed to problem solving and goal assessment. Nevertheless, deploying an affective module into NPCs adds to the complexity of the architecture and constraints. In addition, using such composite NPC in games seems beyond current technology, despite some brave attempts. However, a MARPO-type modular architecture would seem a useful starting point for adding emotions

Using Frustration in the Design of Adaptive Videogames

In efforts to attract a wider audience, videogames are beginning to incorporate adaptive gameplay mechanics. Unlike the more traditional videogame, adaptive games can cater the gaming experience to the individual user and not just a particular group of users as with the former. Affective videogames, games that respond to the user's emotional state, may hold the key to creating such gameplay mechanics. In this paper we discus how the emotion frustration may be used in the design of adaptive videogames and the ongoing research into its detection and measurement

Dark Lancaster

In this position paper we'll outline a few ongoing and planned projects at Lancaster that are not all sweetness and light. In some we are interested in some of the darker aspects of human nature: frustration when things go wrong in order to design games with the right emotional impact; and anger of those seeking jobs in order to help train those who need to defuse fraught situations. In others we deliberately seek to design ‘bad’ situations; obviously this is necessary to study issues like frustration, but also we design bad things in order to understand what is good! Finally, there are times when good is dark and the bright light of day needs to be shrouded just a little

Affective games:a multimodal classification system

Affective gaming is a relatively new field of research that exploits human emotions to influence gameplay for an enhanced player experience. Changes in player’s psychology reflect on their behaviour and physiology, hence recognition of such variation is a core element in affective games. Complementary sources of affect offer more reliable recognition, especially in contexts where one modality is partial or unavailable. As a multimodal recognition system, affect-aware games are subject to the practical difficulties met by traditional trained classifiers. In addition, inherited game-related challenges in terms of data collection and performance arise while attempting to sustain an acceptable level of immersion. Most existing scenarios employ sensors that offer limited freedom of movement resulting in less realistic experiences. Recent advances now offer technology that allows players to communicate more freely and naturally with the game, and furthermore, control it without the use of input devices. However, the affective game industry is still in its infancy and definitely needs to catch up with the current life-like level of adaptation provided by graphics and animation

Changing the way we learn: towards agile learning and co-operation

This paper addresses the need for learning and competence development in industrial organizations. The people that enter professional organizations today are part of a gamer generation that have some or much experience with on-line games. Therefore they are more open to e-learning and in general more open to access anything on-line. At the same time industrial organizations experience a pressure on their ability to train employees faster due to the increase in complexity. We argue that games are not yet mature enough to support this training challenge as stand alone efforts. But games can support the training and competence development in a synchronized setup with other means

‘It’s a-me, Mario!’ Exploring dynamic changes and similarities in the composition of early Nintendo video game music

As with films, a thoughtfully composed video game soundtrack has the ability to dramatically enhance and elevate the experience for the audience or player. This article explores the potential issues and difficulties of composing for video game systems by studying the sound-producing hardware and music for two popular systems from one manufacturer. By comparing two of Nintendo’s Super Mario titles, which appeared on both 8-bit and 16-bit systems, through an analysis of the technology, audio, visual (audiovisual), music, and gameplay elements, it is shown that the musical composition was affected by the limitations of processing power. The discussion shows how the composer, Koji Kondo, overcame the issues of limited computing power by using layers of repetition while applying various functions of music for film to enhance player immersion. Kondo composed theme music that has become engrained in popular culture and is synonymous with one of Nintendo’s flagship franchises (Greening, 2014). By attempting to understand the method or approach behind the composition for earlier systems, it is possible to investigate and discuss the evolution of video game music while acknowledging and contributing to the study of music for games. A musical analysis of the Castle and Underwater themes on each system allows for a direct comparison of the compositional approach, while an audiovisual analysis reveals the presence of existing cinematic tropes and identifies potential influences on the creation of effective musical soundtracks for video games. Applying audiovisual theory to games will require the use of existing literature from Lissa (1965), Gorbman (1987), Chion (1994) and Tagg (2004), along with the work of Collins (2005; 2007a; 2007b; 2008a; 2008b), which adapts and applies audiovisual analysis to video games