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This blog will explore the areas of appropriateness and ethics of adaptions in computer games. It is a place where I can vent my ideas, and if anyone has any thoughts on the matter, I'd be thrilled to hear (read) about them in the comments section!
The blog posts can also be found on Giantbomb.com.
The concept behind affective adaptive computer games is very simple; keep the player more entertained, for longer. Should she get bored whilst playing, introduce some new and fun elements to the game to heighten her interest. If she is getting too stressed to enjoy playing the game, make the game calm down a little, allowing her to relax and enjoy the experience.
As part of my PhD project I have already developed such a game. It uses physiology in conjunction with gaming context to determine the player’s changing emotional state, and adapts accordingly. The game I’ve developed is called TEDDI (Transient Emotion Detecting Designed Interface), and is a Minesweeper style game with some role playing game elements introduced. Think PuzzleQuest, but with Minesweeper, and two boards rather than just the one.
That'll do for my intro post!
See you next time!
Sounds cool but difficult - what type of input device(s) are you using? How can you measure if someone gets bored? How do you differentiate between stress and excitement?
ReplyDelete/Anders
I have played games that have no end (World of Warcraft), games that have an easy to reach end but a competative scoreboard (Guitar Hero series), games that have an easy to reach end but have a compelling story to take you there (Final Fantasy series), and games that have an end with a challengin difficulty curve and compelling gameplay to motivate you (Half-Life 2).
ReplyDeleteIf I was playing Guitar Hero and the game detected my frustration at not being able to get the high score, so it adjusted the difficulty on-the-fly to help me relax I would in fact be further from the high score due to lower difficulty levels giving less points. And if the point system remained the same, but the gameplay made easier, then I would try to play in a state of frustration (simulated to fool the sensor?) at all times in order to achieve maximum score for minimum effort.
Admittedly there is a market for 'user friendly' games, and I believe they are essential in helping consoles become as big a part of the living room culture as a TV or a Sky box.
But we can't forget about the already established player base of hardcore elitists, or even just those with a bit of gaming experience. The games being designed for the living room are supposed to bring gamers and non-gamers together, not create a bigger rift between them (try playing Mario Party with your parents to see what I mean!)
Emotionally reactive gaming may help to bridge that gap as the 'gamer' would be relaxed for such an 'easy' game whereas the 'non-gamer' would be excitable and often frustrated at their lack of understanding or ability. If the game itself could stimulate multiple players to the point that the final scoreboard is not a foregone conclusion then I think there is cetainly a future there.
Emotions are being detected through the use of physiology in conjunction with gaming context. The physiological sensors are Blood Volume Pulse (from which I get heart rate) and Skin Conductance (sweat rate). An emotion classifier detects arousal levels based on these, and flags significant changes. The game then detects these events (arousal events), and checks the situation of the game to determine whether valence (happy-unhappy scale) is positive or negative, i.e. to check if the likelyhood is that the event is stress or if it's excitement.
ReplyDeleteThe emotions I'm detecting aren't labelled, e.g. happy, sad, bored, stressed. Rather they are considered as points on a 2D plane of arousal (stress levels) and valence (happiness scale). This means that what we label as anger would likely have high arousal and negative valence, content would be positive valence and low arousal. This makes detecting much easier, as labelled emotions are simply labels on subjective ideas of what emotions actually feel like. By that I mean that I can feel 'happy', and if you felt the exact same, you could possibly label that as either 'content' or 'extatic'. Noone really knows how anyone else feels when they use the labels.
Additionally my system only detects changes in emotional state, rather than detecting what the current state is.
Hope that clarified a few things!
The purpose of this technology is both to bring gaming into the livingroom in a profound way as suggested by Pupai, and to improve playability for the more senior gamers. The idea is that people who don't play games find it a tricky thing to get into as a lot of games are simply too hard. This tech should allow them to play at their level, and to progress in their own time, allowing them to always feel in control and enjoying themselves. Doing the same for veterans is totally useless, as they would just get bored and stop playing. In fac, even without this hard core gamers often get bored of games that are designed for the new gamers as they are too easy. This tech should make the game hard enough for them to enjoy it too. In fact any game's life cycle would increase in time span as people would play them for longer before getting bored. At least that's the idea! ;-)
ReplyDeleteDependent on the game itself and what the designers are after, I think that the players choosing to use their bodily functions as an additional input to the game is great! Some games I suppose could break if the designers hadn't considered the possibility, but in general, I think it's therapeutic for the players. Plus they may learn to cheat the lie detector tests! :P
Multiplayer stuff is tricky, I'll deal with that in a post in the future! I like the way you split up the games though, a nice way of categorising...might use this in my thesis in a discussion of player motivation...hmmmm...
Thanks!
Ok so now I'm curious as to what this measuring device looks like. Could it be integrated into a controller? If so, I think, in terms of game design, it would be awesome to be able to determine player stress levels etc.
ReplyDeleteThe question if a game really needs to adjust to the player by trying to monitor physical properties.
A lot of games today check if the player e.g. has died 190 times in the same place and adjust accordingly. Get stuck in the same place and most modern games will give you hints on how to progress. This is of course an attempt to merge casual and hardcore which works rather well.
A lot of games, like first person shooters, often have control schemes that are way to complex for more casual players. Knowing if the player is frustrated won't help there as there is nothing you can do about it unless you want a game with a 5-6 hour tutorial on how to play - which will scare off the target audience.
So to conclude i think it would be seriously difficult to create a game that is awesome for everyone by adjusting to everything. It is much easier to make a game that is awesome for everyone by having an awesome design and awesome, intuitive gameplay!
my 2 cents ;)
The measurement device can indeed be integrated into a controller, this is one of the main reasons for choosing both the system, and the specific sensors I have gone for.
ReplyDeleteI think designing a game that will be awesome for everyone is impossible to be honest. People look for different things in games, and they're motivation for playing can vary greatly. That does not mean that a game can't be improved for most people. :)
And that's where I feel this tech comes in. People who don't see the point in playing games aren't going to pick a game up with emotion detection. People who don't like puzzle games aren't going to pick up an affective puzzle game. But the tech should allow for a slight broadening of target audience.
You are right though that the control schemes cannot be altered in most cases. Some games could possibly get away with introducing controls as when the player is up to it, but I'm not sure..
However, we do distinguish between in-game frustration and at-game frustration, and any adaptations would tend to focus on in-game stuff. Control schemes lie under at-game, and so would probably not be adapted to. Using gaming context the game should be able to figure out whether your reactions are due to in-game events or not.
Regarding you 5-6 hour tutorial, this could indeed be in the game for those who need it, over layed onto the storyline. For those who don't but rather need a harder level of difficulty, faster pace or whatever to enjoy themselves, it should provide that too.