Playing an educational game featuring procedural content generation: which attributes impact players’ curiosity?

Understanding which and how attributes impact player experience can contribute to designing more tailored tools, providing concerns on how to improve these. However, there is a gap in the understanding of what impacts learners’ experience when interacting with Educational Games (EG) featuring Procedural Content generation (PCG) as these have been scantly used together. This article presents an empirical study on which attributes impact both math’s and game’s curiosity of players when interacting with an EG that uses PCG. The results show the attributes that led to higher or lower curiosity, as well aswhich of them are associated with it. Hence, advancing the understanding of what drives players’ curiosity, contributing to the design of EG that feature PCG

Wellbeing experienced by digital players: Comparing real-life and gaming perspectives

The on-growing consumption of digital games has worried many. Recent barometers show that 75% of Finnish citizens and 67% of Australians play video games. Earlier studies suggest many adverse effects on gaming. Digital games are nevertheless largely used, and thus understanding the positive experiences of gaming is important. To better understand why gaming is so popular, this research examined the positive subjective experience of gaming. The gaming preferences of players and the subjective experiences of digital gaming were examined by a web survey (N=513) distributed to Finnish and Australian gaming forums. The respondents were players from Australia and Finland, who played on average 20.16 hours per week. The players’ specific preferences for game dynamics were examined with an upgraded version of the Game Dynamics Preferences Questionnaire (Vahlo, Kaakinen, Holm & Koponen, 2017) consisting of 50 items. Using exploratory factor analysis, these game dynamics were grouped into core dynamics. A cluster analysis based on the factor scores of the questionnaire answers was then used to divide the gamers to different profiles. The survey also contained four psychological scales: self-efficacy, curiosity, subjective vitality and psychological empowerment. There were two versions of each of these scales: first participants responded to the scales from real-life perspective, then from gaming perspective. By comparing the responses given in real-life vs. gaming perspective, the positive subjective experience of gaming could be calculated. This study conducted six core dynamics: Assault and Coordinate; Manage; Affect, Aesthetics and Expression; Explore and Develop the Gameworld; Interact; and Logic and Problem Solving. Based on the dynamics, the players divided into five gaming profiles: the Wise Adventurer, the Looter­Adventurer, the Explorer, the Commander and the Companion. The profiles consisting of heavy gamers had more positive subjective experiences of gaming, compared to light gamers. All of the different gaming profiles experienced significantly more curiosity when gaming, compared to real-life. The results suggest that heavy gamers have positive subjective experiences during gaming. In the future these subjective experiences should be further examined by controlled intervention studies. KEYWORDS: Digital gaming, player profiles, gamer’s wellbein

Evaluating the User-Experience of Existing Strategies to Limit Video Game Session Length

Digital video games are an immensely popular form of entertainment. The meaningful positive experiences that games facilitate are fundamental to the activity; players are known to invest a lot of time playing games in search of those experiences. Digital games research is polarized. Some studies find games to be a healthy hobby with positive effects; games promote well-being through regular experience of positive psychological experiences such as flow and positive emotions. Others have identified rare problematic use in those players who devote excessive amounts of time to gaming, associating them with social dysfunction, addiction, and maladaptive aggression. While it remains unclear if games cause these effects, or merely coincide with play, the negative effects historically receive more attention in both popular media and academia. Some authorities attempt to reduce the harms associated with games to such an extent that their methods have become national policy affecting all players including those who exhibit no negative outcomes. In South Korea and Taiwan, policing authorities employ a behaviour policy that sets strict daily limits on session length, thereby controlling the amount of time people spend playing games each day. In China, the General Administration of Press and Publication employ a design policy requiring that games service-providers fatigue their games’ mechanics after a period to coax them to take a break sooner than they ordinarily would. Both policy types alter player interaction with games in any given session and it is unclear how these policies affect players in general. This research aims to compare sessions affected by the behaviour policy, design policy, and policy-free sessions in terms of session length, measurable subjective user-experience, the player's intention to return to the game, and their reasons for choosing to stop playing in a particular session. For use in a repeated-measures experiment, we modified the action RPG Torchlight II to simulate both policies. Participants had one session at the same time each week for three consecutive weeks. In varied sequences, participants played a control session unaffected by policy, a one-hour shutdown session representing behaviour policy, and a fatigue session representing design policy. After each session, we recorded their session's length, their user-experience in terms of flow and affect, their intention to return to the game, and their reason for ending the current session. We found that our shutdown condition successfully decreases session length, when compared to the other conditions. The condition facilitates strong flow, moderate positive-affect, and weak negative-affect. The shutdown event does not appear to degrade positive experiences and makes participants slightly more upset (statistically significant) than they would be after choosing to stop playing. This is because players do not get to make that decision, and because players are unable to complete the goals they have set for themselves. Most players intended to play the game again immediately or sometime later in that same day, much sooner (statistically significant) than they would after choosing to stop. This also may be due to satisfaction associated with choosing to stop, or being unable to complete their self-set goals. We found that our fatigue condition increases session length when compared to the other conditions. This result contradicts the intentions associated with design policies: shorter sessions. The fatigue mechanics make the game more difficult, which increases the time required for players to complete the goals they have set for themselves, whether it is to complete a level, quest, or narrative sequence. The condition facilitates high levels of flow, moderate positive-affect and low negative-affect; the condition does not appear to degrade these positive experiences, nor increase negative experience. Most players intended to take the longest breaks between sessions of at least one day, and although we observed that these were longer than the control condition, the differences is not statistically significant. We found that most participants chose to stop playing when the game stopped providing them with positive experiences, or begins to generate discomfort. A large group of participants chose to stop because another activity took priority. Few participants chose to stop because they were satisfied with their session. Less than one third of players explicitly referenced the fatigue mechanics in their decision to stop. Neither policy is holistically better than the other. Both provide strong positive experiences, and have different effects on session length. Whereas it appears that the fatigue condition fails to reduce session length, it also appears that players intend taking longer breaks between sessions, which may reduce total play-time across all sessions. Similarly, the shutdown condition may increase total play time, or at least bring it closer to normal amounts of play-time while also making players more upset. Our operational definition of user-experience is bi-dimensional, and does not include many experiential constructs commonly associated with digital games. During this research, several reliable and valid, and more representative experience measures became available. Any future work on this topic should make use of one of these. Our experiment tested the effects of player experience associated with a single game, genre, and context. Future research should reduce the variation of player factors by focusing on single personalities, typologies, or risk-factors rather than generalizing to all players. We tested out participants only as they played in the early stages of Torchlight II. It is possible that the game's narrative elements, rather than the gameplay mechanics fatigued by the design policy, motivated continued play. We suggest a longitudinal study of the individual policies to explore their effects over many sessions

Let There Be Dragons! Towards Designing an Engaging Quest that Enhances Curiosity and Learning About Genetics

This study implemented a convergent parallel mixed methods approach to investigate game-based learning within an educational game compared to a modified entertainment game. Participants (N=31) were recruited from public middle and high schools as well as home school groups. Comparative data of participants’ perceptions, preferences and learning outcomes were investigated to inform better educational game design. This study also considers player personality to determine how dispositional curiosity influences an individual’s approach, acceptance, and interaction with novel learning environments, specifically games. Findings show a statistically significant gain in genetics academic knowledge after the game-based learning intervention. The difference in knowledge gained for the two games was not statistically significant. All dimensions of engagement, motivation and curiosity were statistically significantly higher for the modified entertainment game. Increases in scientific curiosity was statistically significantly higher for the modified entertainment game while scientific curiosity statistically significantly decreased after playing the educational game. Qualitative analysis revealed five themes and provided deeper understanding of game design features that enhance learning, curiosity and engagement from the player’s perception. Integration of quantitative and qualitative results suggest overall convergence and enhanced understanding of theoretical and practical implications of this research and identifies key relationships between game design, player perceptions and learning outcomes to inform better educational game design and implementation

Encouraging the Acquistion of Drawing Skills in Game Design: a Case Study

Undergraduate, Interactive Games Design (IGD) courses offered by technical universities in the UK recruit students who are not required to have art or design backgrounds. However, they need to be able to represent their creative ideas. Observations at the University of Gloucestershire have shown that many students find difficulties in expressing their ideas in a visual manner as they do not have adequate drawing skills and eventually some focus on coding and some withdraw. This thesis investigates the links between game design and drawing skills, examining concepts of creativity, learning, design communication and education. To establish the basis of this problem, it was necessary to gain an insight into students‘ and tutors‘ viewpoints and interpretation of this course. Using an interpretive philosophical framework, a mixed method approach was chosen to allow for greater opportunity to understand the phenomenon. Within an action research paradigm, the research was carried out in an evolutionary manner. The extent of the problem was established by eliciting tutors‘ insight from other institutions both arts and technical based. A case study was set out to study two cohorts of students. This identified the problems reported by students and the impact of these on students‘ attitude and motivation. The nature and necessity of drawing skills for sketching storyboards were explored by gaining views of students, tutors and industry professionals. The effect of the tutor-led Art interventions at UoG was investigated. The research identified criteria to assess the quality of storyboard communications and finally a framework for an e-learning object to develop storyboard communication skills was specified. This study revealed that obtaining visual skills is fundamental in order to be able to draw or use rapid prototyping techniques for storyboarding. This needs to be addressed in a specified module or several sessions. It appeared that the design of an art intervention (tutor-based or e-learning object) for IGD students, needs to address the issues of confidence and teamwork alongside with the learning materials in a constructive and gamified style and as interactive as possible in a structured goal-based manner. It would also benefit from Active learning teaching style

The role of the writer in creating narrative-driven digital educational games

&nbsp;The two interlocking studies within this inquiry were undertaken to discover how the writers of narrative-driven digital educational games can improve these games&rsquo; potential effectiveness, using action and textual elements. This was achieved by conducting a critical analysis of the literature, analysing best practice games and interviewing their writers.<br /

Ambiguous worlds: understanding the design of first-person walker games

The &amp;lsquo;walker&amp;rsquo; is a burgeoning form of videogame with a growing body of literature primarily discussing how the genre challenges the accepted norms of games. These discussions widely use the derogatory term &amp;lsquo;walking simulator&amp;rsquo;, which implies its non-game status. What is also clear from these discussions is how these games draw on, but also push back against game design conventions. Walking is the primary means of interaction in walker games, rather than prioritising &amp;lsquo;skill-based&amp;rsquo; mechanics. For example, the mechanics of gameplay in walker games are typically minimal, slow and non-violent. The unique design focus of walker games exists within a contested and complicated area of game design literature, yet many players find the exploration and experiences of these game environments to be compelling. This research asks: What gameplay experiences do walkers elicit, and how might designers understand these experiences? What are the game design attributes that engage players to explore 3D walker environments? How can these design attributes be used to design first-person walker games and 3D games more broadly? Drawing upon game design and design research literature, I explore these questions with specific focus on player interaction and level design in walker game world exploration. My research approach consists of three major investigative stages. I conduct a formal analysis of four existing walker games: Dear Esther, Proteus, Gone Home and The Stanley Parable. My analysis reveals four key themes for investigating walker design. These four themes are then applied to the development of my design project, WORLD4, a multi-view exploration game where players explore a 3D layered abstract world. I develop a methodological approach based upon indie gameplay testing to conduct an analysis of WORLD4&amp;rsquo;s design through a two-stage qualitative player study. Based on these three stages of analysis, I conclude that a particular kind of experience of curiosity emerges, driving player exploration in walker games. My findings indicate that the experience of curiosity is fostered by incorporating ambiguity into the game design, which modifies game world exploration into a more investigative and interpretive activity. I support this conclusion through three design themes to understand the player experience of WORLD4 and six design strategies for fostering ambiguity in the design of exploratory game environments. More generally, I contribute a perspective on game design that emphasises ambiguity in order to create heightened and compelling exploration experiences

Playing the Story: The Emergence of Narrative through the Interaction between Players, Game Mechanics, and Participatory Fan Communities.

If all games are understood as ultimately driven by the operation of their mechanics, then that operation cannot fully exist without the interaction of a player, and by extension the participatory fan community in which that player is situated. This interaction, in turn, can often produce a form of constructed reality known as emergent narrative, leading to this dissertation’s primary question: Do game mechanics inherently produce emergent narrative? Throughout this dissertation, I will argue that game mechanics produce an emergent narrative as an inherent consequence of their interaction with players and the surrounding community. In answering how emergent narrative comes out of the interaction between players, games, and ultimately the surrounding community, I will examine five key issues: player agency, the actual production of emergent narrative, narrative in non-narrative games, the role of participatory fan communities, and the potential use of emergent narrative in applied game design. Each of these areas in turn will be investigated through the lens of a case study on a relevant game. The main underlying idea that this dissertation adds to ongoing research is that the production of emergent narrative is an unavoidable consequence of playing a game. While the degree and direction of emergent narrative may vary considerably depending on the interaction itself, the very act of interacting between the player, their surrounding participatory community, and the game itself always produces some form of emergent narrative. This distinction makes any play experience potentially meaningful, and helps move the academic discussion of narrative in games beyond outdated ludology-versus-narratology models towards a more fluid and accurate theory of emergent narrative in games. This should allow for better games scholarship, better game design, and better application of game elements in applied contexts