Game Input Research Articles

Advancing Methodological Approaches in Affect-Adaptive Video Game Design: Empirical Validation of Emotion-Driven Gameplay Modification

Affect-adaptive video games are increasingly concerned with changing game material based on the emotional states of player to best elicit the optimal experience. However, conceptual uncertainties and unreliable methodologies make this process currently difficult and results inconclusive. Here we present a methodological approach to explicitly test mapping assumptions between in-game variables, player input, and subjective experience to build affect-adaptive video games. In Experiment 1, 161 participants played through a newly developed 2D action arcade game. Their data was used to identify associations between game input, presented material, and affective valence. Results made it possible to identify two potential pathways for emotion adaptation which were implemented and evaluated in Experiment 2 (N = 158) against a non-adaptive version of the same game. The player-based emotional adaptation showed a significant increase in self-reported valence compared to the control condition, providing evidence for the utility of the process.

Ultralow-Latency Textile Sensors for Wearable Interfaces with a Human-in-Loop Sensing Approach.

The evolution of wearable technologies has led to the development of novel types of sensors customized for a wide range of applications. Wearable sensors need to possess a low form factor and be ergonomic, causing minimal impediment of the user's natural movement. Various principles have been explored to meet these requirements, ranging from optical, magnetic, resistive flex sensing to 3D printed sensors and liquid metals such as those using eutectic gallium-indium. However, manufacturing techniques for most current wearable sensors tend to be complex and difficult to scale. Challenges also exist in achieving high sensitivity with noise resistance and robustness to false detections, especially in capacitive sensors. In this research, a novel ultralow-latency soft tactile and pressure sensor developed using off-the-shelf e-textiles is proposed, which overcomes some of these limitations. The sensor does not use any specialized equipment or materials for manufacture. A human-in-loop (HIL) sensing technique is demonstrated, which provides high sensitivity, high sensing bandwidth, as well as ultralow latency, which makes it ideal as a wearable input device. In addition, the HIL method provides other advantages such as high noise rejection and resistance to accidental triggers that could be caused by other humans or environmental factors owing to its high signal to noise ratio. Finally, two applications-a wearable keyboard and gaming input device-were demonstrated using these sensors.

Training a spiking neuronal network model of visual-motor cortex to play a virtual racket-ball game using reinforcement learning.

Recent models of spiking neuronal networks have been trained to perform behaviors in static environments using a variety of learning rules, with varying degrees of biological realism. Most of these models have not been tested in dynamic visual environments where models must make predictions on future states and adjust their behavior accordingly. The models using these learning rules are often treated as black boxes, with little analysis on circuit architectures and learning mechanisms supporting optimal performance. Here we developed visual/motor spiking neuronal network models and trained them to play a virtual racket-ball game using several reinforcement learning algorithms inspired by the dopaminergic reward system. We systematically investigated how different architectures and circuit-motifs (feed-forward, recurrent, feedback) contributed to learning and performance. We also developed a new biologically-inspired learning rule that significantly enhanced performance, while reducing training time. Our models included visual areas encoding game inputs and relaying the information to motor areas, which used this information to learn to move the racket to hit the ball. Neurons in the early visual area relayed information encoding object location and motion direction across the network. Neuronal association areas encoded spatial relationships between objects in the visual scene. Motor populations received inputs from visual and association areas representing the dorsal pathway. Two populations of motor neurons generated commands to move the racket up or down. Model-generated actions updated the environment and triggered reward or punishment signals that adjusted synaptic weights so that the models could learn which actions led to reward. Here we demonstrate that our biologically-plausible learning rules were effective in training spiking neuronal network models to solve problems in dynamic environments. We used our models to dissect the circuit architectures and learning rules most effective for learning. Our model shows that learning mechanisms involving different neural circuits produce similar performance in sensory-motor tasks. In biological networks, all learning mechanisms may complement one another, accelerating the learning capabilities of animals. Furthermore, this also highlights the resilience and redundancy in biological systems.

Intelligent Gaming Input Device for Tilt Recognition

Farcana has developed a smart a gaming input device, that, apart from being a tool for the gamer to use in the process of gameplay, is also a suitable tool to collect biomedical information about the gamer, which after analysis by the artificial intelligence (AI) system allows informing the gamer about whether the individual is in a state of tilt. Tilt itself is a poor emotional state of the individual that appears due to the latter’s inability to control one’s emotions in the process of gameplay. The gamer can be either winning or losing, yet the fact that he/she can neither control nor even acknowledge the emotional state is tilt. The latter is an immense factor of impact on the overall success of the individual in the sphere of gaming and one’s rating in cybersport. This paper has analyzed numerous studies and patents on the topic at hand. The available literature has provided the necessary insight on the topic of tilt and why it is important to help the gamer acknowledge one’s state, especially given deteriorating results. Also, we have proposed a framework for the AI system for tilt recognition.

Design and Evaluation of a Hands-Free Video Game Controller for Individuals With Motor Impairments

Over the past few decades, video gaming has evolved at a tremendous rate although game input methods have been slower to change. Game input methods continue to rely on two-handed control of the joystick and D-pad or the keyboard and mouse for simultaneously controlling player movement and camera actions. Bi-manual input poses a significant play impediment to those with severe motor impairments. In this work, we propose and evaluate a hands-free game input control method that uses real-time facial expression recognition. Through our novel input method, our goal is to enable and empower individuals with neurological and neuromuscular diseases, who may lack hand muscle control, to be able to independently play video games. To evaluate the usability and acceptance of our system, we conducted a remote user study with eight severely motor-impaired individuals. Our results indicate high user satisfaction and greater preference for our input system with participants rating the input system as easy to learn. With this work, we aim to highlight that facial expression recognition can be a valuable input method.

Nature vs. Stress

Games hold the potential to help many address health-related issues such as chronic stress. We investigated the use of biophilia, an affective response to nature grounded in the psychology literature, as indirect physiological input for biofeedback games. We designed and developed a non-violent exploration game, and conducted an empirical study that examined affective and physiological responses to gameplay in virtual nature and urban settings. Our results did not identify a difference in stress levels experienced by players between these two settings, but point to improved attention when playing in nature settings. We discuss implications of these findings, and discuss both difficulties in and potential future strategies for applying biophilia to the design of biofeedback games.

The Role of Partial Automation in Increasing the Accessibility of Digital Games

Digital games are designed to be controlled using hardware devices such as gamepads, keyboards, and cameras. Some device inputs may be inaccessible to players with motor impairments, rendering them unable to play. Games and devices can be adapted to enable play, but for some players these adaptations may not go far enough. Games may require inputs that some players cannot provide with any device. To address this problem, we introduce partial automation, an accessibility technique that delegates control of inaccessible game inputs to an AI partner. Partial automation complements and builds on other approaches to improving games' accessibility, including universal design, player balancing, and interface adaptation. We have demonstrated partial automation in two games for the rehabilitation of spinal cord injury. Six study participants with vastly different motor abilities were able to play both games. Participants liked the increased personalization that partial automation affords, although some participants were confused by aspects of the AI's behaviour.

MappyLand: Fast, Accurate Mapping for Console Games

We present MappyLand, a rewrite and enhancement of the earlier Mappy automatic game mapping system, which leverages instrumentation of a game console emulator to produce, from a sequence of game inputs, accurate annotations for action/adventure games including object detection and tracking, in-game camera movement, grid-based tile maps, and links between identified disparate spaces. The overhead of generating these annotations is on the order of one millisecond per observed frame. We also show a higher latency (but still online) algorithm for merging together previous observations of distinct game maps for the purposes of agent localization across a long period of time. Specifically, our system can determine a consistent graph of game rooms from a set of strings of game rooms, capturing behaviors like backtracking and synthesizing observations from multiple play sessions. Altogether, this fast, accurate approach to mapping yields new and useful knowledge representations and expedient ways to produce new datasets given just a game and some example play.

Enhancing Player Experience in Game With Affective Computing

Abstract This research aims to implement Affective Computing as part of game design by capturing, processing, and interpreting the player’s emotions to enhance the player’s experience in the game. We argue by implementing affective computing in the game will statistically enhance the players game experiences. Two almost identical games designed and developed to prove the claim. One game imbued with the affective computing system by capturing players emotions from their facial expressions as the game input, when the other game only implement a touch screen system for the input. Both games then were evaluated in two groups of 50 respondents in each group. A combination of Game Experiences Questionnaire and Immersiveness Game Questionnaire used to evaluate the game player experiences in this research. The result concludes that most of the game experiences score in the game with FER system implemented was statistically increased compared to the one with-out the FER system implemented, except for Q3 (p = 0.06), and Q9 (p = 0.08).

Modelling the location choice: evidence from an evolutionary game based on regional input–output analysis

ABSTRACT This paper combines evolutionary game theory and input–output analysis to assess firms’ strategic location choice. To evaluate the model, firms competed in the automotive sector of Mercosur. To decide where to locate, the following exogenous factors were considered: potential market; local productive interdependence; tax incentive; and macroeconomic stability. Firms assigned weights to these factors in their location decision. It was found that competing in a market where there is tax exemption is not always an ideal location decision, contradicting the common-sense assumption by which there is a direct relationship between government incentives and the attractiveness of regions.

Game Input with Delay—Moving Target Selection with a Game Controller Thumbstick

Hosting interactive video-based services, such as computer games, in the Cloud poses particular challenges given user sensitivity to delay. A better understanding of the impact of delay on player-game interactions can help design cloud systems and games that accommodate delays inherent in cloud systems. Previous top-down studies of delay using full-featured games have helped understand the impact of delay, but often do not generalize or lend themselves to analytic modeling. Bottom-up studies isolating user input and delay can better generalize and be used in models, but have yet to be applied to cloud-hosted computer games. In order to better understand delay impact in cloud-hosted computer games, we conduct a large bottom-up user study centered on a fundamental game interaction—selecting a moving target with user input impeded by delay. Our work builds a custom game that controls both the target speed and input delay and has players select the target using a game controller analog thumbstick. Analysis of data from over 50 users shows target selection time exponentially increases with delay and target speed and is well-fit by an exponential model that includes a delay and target speed interaction term. A comparison with two previous studies, both using a mouse instead of a thumbstick, suggests the model’s relationship between selection time, delay, and target speed holds more broadly, providing a foundation for a potential law explaining moving target selection with delay encountered in cloud-hosted games.

The key to key presses: eSports game input streaming and copyright protection

The key to key presses: eSports game input streaming and copyright protection

TARogic: Tangible augmented reality game

Augmented Reality (AR) has been around for the past decade. It has been applied in many fields and one of the common fields is in education. In this paper, we have make use of Tangible Augmented Reality technology in creating an interactive game called TARogic that teaches students on the basic of programming logics. Tangible Augmented Reality is a combination of Augmented Reality (AR) technology and Tangible User Interface (TUI), which uses real environment objects to interact with the Augmented Reality (AR) environment. In this project, we have created a hardware console that uses USB drive as a tangible element to interact with the game. The USB drive is plug on to the console (Arduino module) to transfer the information of the game input to a smartphone via Bluetooth. The output is displayed on the smartphone in the form of Augmented Reality (AR) game objects and environment. By qualitative user evaluation of two groups of participants, 10 for each groups, 60% of the participants were positive with the overall learning experience using TARogic.

Differential Hybrid Games

This article introduces differential hybrid games , which combine differential games with hybrid games. In both kinds of games, two players interact with continuous dynamics. The difference is that hybrid games also provide all the features of hybrid systems and discrete games, but only deterministic differential equations. Differential games, instead, provide differential equations with continuous-time game input by both players, but not the luxury of hybrid games, such as mode switches and discrete-time or alternating adversarial interaction. This article augments differential game logic with modalities for the combined dynamics of differential hybrid games. It shows how hybrid games subsume differential games and introduces differential game invariants and differential game variants for proving properties of differential games inductively.

Football APP based on smart phone with FES in drop foot rehabilitation.

Long-term, sustained progress is necessary in drop foot rehabilitation. The necessary inconvenient body training movements, the return trips to the hospital and repetitive boring training using functional electrical stimulation (FES) often results in the patient suspending their training. The patient's drop foot rehabilitation will not progress if training is suspended. A fast spread, highly portable drop foot rehabilitation training device based on the smart phone is presented. This device is combined with a self-made football APP and feedback controlled FES. The drop foot patient can easily engage in long term rehabilitation training that is more convenient and interesting. An interactive game is established on the smart phone with the Android system using the originally built-in wireless communications. The ankle angle information is detected by an external portable device as the game input signal. The electrical stimulation command to the external device is supplemented with FES stimulation for inadequate ankle efforts. After six-weeks training using six cases, the results indicated that this training device showed significant performance improvement (p< 0.05) in the patient's ankle dorsiflexion strength, ankle dorsiflexion angle, control timing and Timed Up and Go. Preliminary results show that this training device provides significant positive help to drop foot patients. Moreover, this device is based on existing and universally popular mobile processing, which can be rapidly promoted. The responses of clinical cases also show this system is easy to operate, convenient and entertaining. All of these features can improve the patient's willingness to engage in long term rehabilitation.

A Comparison of Text-Annotated vs. Purely Visio-Spatial Instructions for Video Game Input Sequences

Animated tutorials for controller input sequences in video games will be easier for developers to localize, and therefore more universally accessible across multiple nationalities, if they are designed to rely on purely visio-spatial, text-free communication. However, it has hitherto been unclear whether a lack of text in such tutorials may be associated with lower effectiveness in overall teaching outcomes, given that text may augment the available information. With this in mind, we conducted a between-subjects study in which 42 subjects each played one of two versions of a custom, stand-alone game control tutorial designed to teach character moves for an action/fighting game; both versions contained animated visuals, but one also included onscreen text instructions. We recorded players’ performances in each version by measuring elapsed times, failure counts, demonstration replay counts, and skip counts using software-based logging and combined each player’s data in these categories to create an overall effectiveness index to measure and compare teaching efficacy associated with each version. We compared the means of our data between the version groups using t -tests with results suggesting that people playing the non-text-annotated version performed at least as well, all around, as those playing the text-annotated version and even better in the areas of elapsed time, failure count, and overall score. Though a significant co-factor—player skill/experience—is likely an influence that should be further delineated in future studies, our findings clearly demonstrated that text-free game control tutorials are as good as, if not better than, text-annotated ones.

The Mediational Role of Relational Psychological Contract in Belief in a Zero-Sum Game and Work Input Attitude Dependency

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediational role of relational psychological contract in social beliefs and work input attitude dependency. We analyzed data taken from employees (N = 258) in four different organizations operating in the Pomeranian market. A mediation analysis showed a strongly mediating role of psychological contract in the negative relationship between perception of life as a zero-sum game (BZSG) and work input. The motivational effect of the relational psychological contract, that is the role of job security, interesting work, a career in the company, opportunities for promotion and other HRM practices prevail over the significance of personal beliefs, especially when these are negative. If the company lacks the appropriate HRM systems then day-to-day social exchanges can be crucial in modifying the social beliefs of the employee.

Expanding social mobile games beyond the device screen

Emerging pervasive games use sensors, graphics and networking technologies to provide immersive game experiences integrated with the real world. Existing pervasive games commonly rely on a device screen for providing game-related information, while overlooking opportunities to include new types of contextual interactions like jumping, a punching gesture, or even voice to be used as game inputs. We present the design of Spellbound, a physical mobile team-based game, to help contribute to our understanding of how we can design pervasive games that aim to nurture a spirit of togetherness. We also briefly touch upon how togetherness and playfulness can transform physical movement into a desirable activity in the user evaluation section. Spellbound is an outdoor pervasive team-based physical game. It takes advantage of the above-mentioned opportunities and integrates real-world actions like jumping and spinning with a virtual world. It also replaces touch-based input with voice interaction and provides glanceable and haptic feedback using custom hardware in the true spirit of social play characteristic of traditional children’s games. We believe Spellbound is a form of digital outdoor gaming that anchors enjoyment on physical action, social interaction, and tangible feedback. Spellbound was well received in user evaluation playtests which confirmed that the main design objective of enhancing a sense of togetherness was largely met.

An Integrated Development Framework for Tabletop Computer Games

We have implemented an integrated development framework for tabletop computer games focusing on the aspects of terrain composition and input management. To support multiple game genres and varying board setups we propose a generic terrain structure based on a directed graph where each game node is represented by a graph node in the underlying structure. To capture and express the repeating path-patterns commonly found in tabletop games we also utilize reusable building blocks called structured tiles . Structured tiles combine information about graphical representation, geometry as well as path structure, essentially constituting sub-graphs of a respective tile image. In this sense, the terrain is composed by assembling sub-graphs and the resulting complete graph can be used to perform semantic terrain analysis like node connectivity and reachability checks. Finally structured tiles can be used to standardize common game mechanics like plausible path computation, path selection by players, and in-path movement and incorporate them into the game engine. To support the various and dynamically changing input configurations required by the pervasive nature of tabletop computer games we also propose a multimodal input system that allows game actions to be performed via numerous virtual input devices abstracting over physical input devices, while supporting their dynamic plugging or unplugging during gameplay. The input system keeps track of the physical input devices associated for each player and it can dynamically identify missing game commands caused by the unplugging of a device. To prevent stalling interaction in such cases, we introduce animated interactive panels encompassing the required game commands. These panels, called soft dialogues , require only pointing input and allow maintaining interaction regardless of the type of game input required during runtime (e.g. keypad, or switch-based input). Soft dialogues also help achieve input accessibility by combining them with scanning interaction techniques. Overall, our framework constitutes a complete solution for the development of tabletop computer games facilitating the authoring and management of complex and large terrains while providing a reusable and extensible input infrastructure that significantly reduces the need to implement common input elements across different games.

A Novel Methodology for Assessing the Fall Risk Using Low-Cost and Off-the-Shelf Devices

Early detection of fall risk can reduce health costs associated with surgery, rehabilitation, imaging studies, hospitalizations, and medical evaluations. This paper proposes a measurement-focused study oriented to evaluate a new methodology for assessing fall risk using low-cost and off-the-shelf devices. The proposed methodology consists of a data acquisition system, a data analysis system, and a fall risk assessment system. The data acquisition system is composed by a standard notebook computer and video game input devices: a Kinect, a Wii balance board, and two Wii motion controllers. The data analysis system and the fall risk assessment system, in turn, use signal processing, data mining, and computational intelligence methods, in order to analyze the acquired data for determining the fall risk of the subject under analysis. This methodology includes six static and two dynamic tests. Experiments were conducted on a population of 37 subjects: 16 with falling background, and 21 with nonfalling background. These two groups have the same age distribution. As nonlinear binary classification techniques were used, methodologies based on confidence intervals are not applicable and then tenfold cross validation was used to estimate accuracy. Hence, such a methodology can classify the fall risk as high or low, with an accuracy of 89.2%. The proposed methodology allows the construction of low-cost, portable, replicable, objective, and reliable fall risk assessment systems.