Motivational game design patterns of ’ville games

The phenomenal growth of social network games in the last five years has left many game designers, game scholars, and long-time game players wondering how these games so effectively engage their audiences. Without a strong understanding of the sources of appeal of social network games, and how they relate to the appeal of past games and other human activities, it has proven difficult to interpret the phenomenon accurately or build upon its successes. In this paper we propose and employ a particular approach to this challenge, analyzing the motivational game design patterns in the popular ‘Ville style of game using the lenses of behavioral economics and behavioral psychology, explaining ways these games engage and retain players. We show how such games employ strategies in central, visible ways that are also present (if perhaps harder to perceive) in games with very different mechanics and audiences. Our conclusions point to lessons for game design, game interpretation, and the design of engaging software of any type

Why Are We Like This?: Exploring Writing Mechanics for an AI-Augmented Storytelling Game

Why Are We Like This? (WAWLT) is a playful, co-creative, AI-augmented, improvisational storytelling game in which one or more players explore and influence an ongoing simulation which they then glean for narrative material. It uses the recently developed simulation technology of story sifting (the recognition of microstories in a chronicle of simulation events), via the Felt library, to afford a new kind of playful, social, and creative writing experience. In this paper, we discuss our primary design goals: (1) using computation and interaction design to support casual player creativity, and (2) foregrounding character subjectivity as a driver for socially realistic interpersonal conflict. We further discuss how those design goals informed the system development. In particular, they led to the system features of subjective character reflection on past actions through character-centric sifting patterns, player-facing story sifting tools for querying storyworld state and history, and a set of writing mechanics to interface with the simulation and support playful creative writing. Examples of those writing mechanics include (1) explicit statement of system-understandable author goals, which are used to improve next action recommendations, and (2) free text editing of a malleable, textual transcript seeded by parameterized descriptions of player-selected simulation actions. We found in testing that, even in an incomplete state of development, and even among those who don’t consider themselves fiction writers, WAWLT successfully supports player creativity. We also found that WAWLT affords particularly engaging play and a unique co-creative experience with two players, as opposed to just one

A Methodology for Requirements Analysis of AI Architecture Authoring Tools

Authoring embodied, highly interactive virtual agents (IVAs) for robust experiences is an extremely difficult task. Current architectures for creating those agents are so complex that it takes enormous amounts of effort to craft even short experiences, with lengthier, polished experiences (e.g., Facade, Ada and Grace) often requiring person-years of effort by expert authors. However, each architecture is challenging in vastly different ways; it is impossible to propose a universal authoring solution without being too general to provide significant leverage. Instead, we present our analysis of the System-Specific Step (SSS) in the IVA authoring process, encapsulated in the case studies of three different architectures tackling a simple scenario. The case studies revealed distinctly different behaviors by each team in their SSS, resulting in the need for different authoring solutions. We iteratively proposed and discussed each team’s SSS Components and potential authoring support strategies to identify actionable software improvements. Our expectation is that other teams can perform similar analyses of their own systems ’ SSS and make authoring improvements where they are most needed. Further, our case-study approach provides a methodology for detailed comparison of the authoring affordances of different IVA architectures, providing a lens for understanding the similarities, differences and tradeoffs between architectures

Engineering stories? A narratological approach to children's book apps

With the rise of smartphones and tablet pcs, children's book apps have emerged as a new type of children's media. While some of them are based on popular children's books such as Mo Willems’ Pigeon books or Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, others were specifically designed as apps. This paper focuses on examining book apps under the aspects of implied user strategies and narrative structure. Using a narratological framework that also takes into account the unique characteristics of the medium, a terminology for the analysis of book apps will be sketched out. Furthermore, an exemplary analysis of iOS books apps for pre- and grade school children comes to the conclusion that, far from offering the child users room for individual creativity, a large number of apps rather train their users in following prescribed paths of reading

EXPRESSIVE PROCESSING Interpretation and Creation

Software Studies approaches use humanities and/or social science methods and engage the specific operations of particular software—for purposes ranging from understanding digital culture to the development of procedural literacy and the creation of novel software. “Expressive processing” names a particular software studies approach that focuses on the (perhaps unconscious) ideas, as well as intellectual and material histories, expressed through how computational processes are designed and operate. Using this approach to examine existing works can reveal something quite different from what software authors state publicly, as this chapter outlines with Abelson and Carroll's “Goldwater Machine.” This approach can also help guide the creation of new works, complementing techniques such as playtesting and arts critique, as this chapter outlines with the social simulation storytelling game Prom Week. Through such work, we can not only better understand the computational media that shapes our society, but also develop perspectives that can help us understand software more generally and find ways to extend what it can express

Hypermedia Process(ing)

The process of this thesis has incremented most obviously as one word-processing file was abandoned and another begun. About a week ago I looked at the contents of this old gas-plasma Toshiba T3100 and found about fifteen such files. I chose four that that I found most representative, converted them over to Mac format on a computer, gave them running footers, and printed them out. The entire contents of each files is here - including notes to myself, misspellings and poor ideas. I also printed out an introduction that was a Mac file. These pieces are here in chronological order. This introduction is mirrored, at the bottom of the pile, by the introduction I wrote the summer of 1994, when it was thought that my thesis was on the verge of being brought into its next incarnation. Instead, that was the last work I was able to undertake on it

Games, Hypertext, and Meaning

It might seem that games can address almost any topic. There are versions of Monopoly and Tetris that, alone, seem to address subjects ranging from pop music, bass fishing, and sex to mass murder, slavery, and predatory real estate development. Yet for all but the last of these, the actual play of these games is at odds with the intended theme. So what topics can games meaningfully address? One powerful way that games can address topics is by having playable models that resonate with their intended themes. Monopoly is actually an example of such a game, with a playable model of real estate development ripped off from a game intended as a critique of capitalism’s approach to resources. So is the less philosophical DOOM, with playable models of combat and space that match its “death travelogue” theme. The foundation of any playable model is a set of operational logics, which combine communication and computation with opportunities for play. (Monopoly’s real estate model includes resource, pattern matching, and chance logics.) Video games depend on a relatively small vocabulary of such logics. This restricts the playable models available, which is a challenge faced by those seeking to meaningfully address personal, cultural, and political topics through games. One conspicuous counter-example, however, is the linking logic. The communicative role of the hypertext link is flexible enough that it can be used to address a wide range of topics. Yet the very flexibility of linking logics pushes the burden of systemic use onto game developers, which itself produces limits. Greater connection between video game research and hypertext research communities could be a path to address this