Gameplay Mechanics Research Articles

Playing the Panopticon

This article investigates discursive procedures in From Software’s 2011 videogame Dark Souls. By combining procedural rhetorics, discourse analysis, and autoethnographical research play, it is argued that Dark Souls features post-Panoptical gameplay mechanics of both continuous surveillance and playful exhibitionism and a hybrid gameplay experience of both subjectivation and empowerment. Players randomly confront one another in a notoriously difficult and unforgiving game space that requires commitment and perseverance. The game, it is shown, provides a metaphor for online surveillance mechanics in which players/netizens are not just democratically gazing at each other but subjected to a procedural system determining who can see whom. Simultaneously, players are offered a number of procedural methods and moral archetypes to normalize and empower them.

In control or in their shoes? How character attachment differentially influences video game enjoyment and appreciation

Abstract Emerging perspectives in media psychology have begun to focus on enjoyment and appreciation as unique reactions to entertaining media fare. Past work has found that game elements such as gameplay mechanics and game narrative are significantly associated with both feelings – with play mechanics more aligned with enjoyment and narrative more aligned with appreciation. The current study looks to extend this work by establishing associations between elements of character attachment (CA) and both entertainment outcomes. Data from an online survey of gamers randomly assigned to consider enjoyable or meaningful gaming experiences found that an increased recollection of control over one’s in-game avatar was positively associated with enjoyment (not appreciation), and that an increased identification with and sense of responsibility for one’s character were both independently and positively associated with appreciation (not enjoyment).

SURGE’s Evolution Deeper into Formal Representations: The Siren’s Call of Popular Game-Play Mechanics

We have iteratively designed and researched five digital games focusing on Newtonian dynamics for middle school classrooms during the past seven years. The designs have evolved dramatically in terms of the roles and relationships of the formal representations, phenomenological representations, and control schemes. Phenomenological representations can be thought of as the “world” representations that depict the actual actions and motion of a game as they occur (i.e., the central representations in most recreational games). Formal representations highlight the disciplinary relationships of interest from a pedagogical perspective (such as vector arrows, graphs, and dot traces). Our initial design perspective focused on highlighting the formal physics relationships within popular game-play mechanics. This perspective prioritized a commitment to the phenomenological representations and controls of recreational games, specifically marble-genre games. We designed formal representations around and over the phenomenological representations of that genre. Over the next seven years, we navigated the tensions between the original recreational genre and creating a new genre situated within the formal representations themselves. More specifically, our designs evolved to situate the game-play squarely in the formal representations in terms of the controls as well as in terms of the communication of goals and challenges. We backgrounded phenomenological representations and streamlined visual complexity to focus on key relationships. Our discussion compares our design evolution to the SimCalc design evolution recounted in IJDL’s recent special issue on historic design cases.

From duels to classroom competition: Social competition and learning in educational videogames within different group sizes

Competition with other players or with the game itself is one of the basic elements of videogames, but the fine balance between increased mental effort and potential motivational benefits has to be addressed. A quantitative experiment was conducted to verify if social competition increases cognitive load, engagement, interest, and subsequently learning. The 115 students played an educational videogame, specifically designed for this experiment using Minecraft, in single, one-versus-one, small group, or classroom settings. The results show significantly higher cognitive load induced through social competition; lowered focused attention, instructional efficiency; and no higher situational interest. Additionally, increased learning in the solo condition could be observed. In contrast to these results, analysis of the actual perceived challenge resulted in positive correlations with engagement, situational interest, and retention knowledge. After the analysis, a detailed discussion of the impacts of social competition and various implications and future directions are provided. For example, it is argued that it is important to distinguish between the added gameplay mechanic of social competition and the perceived intrapersonal challenge this induces. Whereas the first might increase cognitive load due to the monitoring of additional game states, the latter might foster motivation and interest.

Canonizing Bioshock

The critically and commercially successful first-person shooter Bioshock is widely considered to be one of the greatest digital games of all time. This article traces its canonization by critically examining its marketing and popular reception as a blockbuster “prestige game” that demonstrates the aesthetic potential of games as a medium. In particular, far-reaching discussions of the relationship between narrative and gameplay mechanics in Bioshock have reinforced its canonical status as required playing among critics and scholars. The article concludes by comparing the reception of Bioshock and its “spiritual successor” Bioshock Infinite, showing how popular, critical, and industrial attitudes toward big-budget prestige titles have shifted in recent years.

Distribution of Artificial Intelligence in Digital Games

This paper reports on the creation of an application capable of producing intelligent character behavior based on distribution of Artificial Intelligence. To develop, test and experiment on applied Artificial Intelligence, computer games are quickly becoming the ideal simulation test bed for the implementation of computer generated AI. The application of Artificial Intelligence algorithms create immersive game-play where human players can interact with non-player characters and interactions with the environment helps shape the way in which games are played. A-Star pathfinding utilizes a heuristic function implementing cost of moving through a virtual world, this actively affects how an agent responds to a situation and can alter its decision making. This paper describes the implementation of the A-Star algorithm combined with gameplay mechanics used to simulate multi-agent communication within a randomly generated game-world.

Game platforms and the evolution of cheating practices: An exploratory study

Abstract This article explores how Facebook as a game platform influences players’ gameplay, arguing that platforms shape play as well as cheating behaviours. Based on a player survey and follow-up qualitative interviews, it asks how players theorize cheating in such games relative to their existing social networks, Facebook’s Terms of Service, and the specific types of games prevalent on Facebook. It explores how these features shape players’ understandings of what constitutes cheating. It finds that platforms do influence how players define or imagine cheating in several ways, including the normalization of new payment models and gameplay mechanics, differences in how cheating is conceptualized by strangers versus friends and family, and how different terms of service can frame what counts as cheating.

Att äta digitala djur

Eating Digital Animals: Games, Violence and Ideology
 The article aims to study game violence from an ”awry” perspective – that is, it examines how games deal with violence against animals as inherent in the processes of producing and consuming meat. Rockstar’s notorious Manhunt (2003) is utilized as an initial example of the representation of such violence in games. I argue that the focus on gruesome imagery serves an ideological function by masking the real material violence of the game industry. I also explore the ways in which games make visible systemic, yet less palpable forms of ideological violence. My main area of inquiry concerns the ways in which three contemporary open-world games represent the relation between eating meat and the industrial killing of animals. This article combines three basic conceptual perspectives: Slavoj Žižek’s distinction between subjective and objective violence; Melanie Joy’s conceptualization of cultural carnism as a cognitive scheme; and Ian Bogost’s procedural-rhetorical approach to videogames as models of material processes. These are employed in order to analyze three games, featuring varied approac hes to the representation of meat as food: Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004), which includes a discursive critique of factory farming without implementing this critique as a gameplay mechanic; Lionhead’s Fable II (2008), which implements ethical and political incentives for vegetarianism in the core mechanics of the game, yet allows for varied approaches in role-playing; and Maxis’ The Sims 3 (2009), which seems to include such incentives yet undermines them by dislodging food from its material origin in its model of the game world.

The effects of corn gluten feed on performance, carcass characteristics and sensory of feeder lambs

People with cognitive disabilities often use reminder applications on smartphones and tablets to complete everyday activities. However, these devices lack the capabilities to provide customized contextual prompts, essential to support individuals during their activities. As smart home devices, like voice assistants and “smart” appliances, become mainstream, they could support individuals with cognitive disabilities by presenting prompts and reminders in place. To understand how smart devices can expand their features to support customized prompts, we conducted remote participatory design interviews with adults with cognitive disabilities and their caregivers or parents. Participants described and designed multimodal interactive prompts to illustrate how an augmented reality-based smart display can motivate individuals to track progress and complete everyday activities. Designs included features, like avatar coaches, gameplay mechanics, and riveting animations. This paper provides novel prompting strategies and feedback techniques designed by participants and guidelines for making future smart devices more accessible.

Time, Space, and Motion in Braid

This article (1) analyzes the computer game Braid with regard to the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor and the multimodal approach, (2) links the possibilities of such a study to the existing studies of temporality in video games, and (3) explores the link between the game’s narrative and its gameplay mechanics based on the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor. The theoretical section briefly overviews conceptual metaphor theory, the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor, multimodality, CMT in video games, time in video games, and several studies related to the game. The main section investigates Braid so as to evaluate the ways in which the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor operates within each of the game worlds and how this affects the narrative and the gameplay. The complex, unconventional relations existing among time, space, motion, and causality result in a unique coupling between the narrative and the use of the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor.

Parody as brand

Advergames – a neologism for video games designed to advertise a product or service – are marketing devices employed to impact consumers’ purchasing decisions and, more frequently, shape their impressions of a promoted brand. The online advergames of the programming block-turned media brand [adult swim] (AS) present a clear case in which the games act as rich signifiers of brand aesthetics even if they are not directly connected to the content of the brand’s television shows, live events, and other assorted merchandise. Although these ‘casual’-style titles have gameplay mechanics that are accessible to broad audiences, these advergames often exhibit a critical stance toward other games, which differentiates them from the vast majority of casual games on the market. But rather than being anti-casual, we argue that these games are best understood as being paracasual because they use parody to both trouble prevailing definitions of casual games and advergames, and deploy an aesthetic disposition that further helps define the brand. Furthermore, they are an increasingly visible and vital component of a constellation of texts and practices that function as what James Paul Gee calls an ‘affinity space’ for a lucrative audience demographic. This article assesses how AS games use parody to deconstruct textually video gaming’s most popular genres and how such parodic deconstruction, as evidenced by players’ online discussions, serves as an affinity space for a media-savvy taste culture.

Design Principles for Serious Video Games in Mathematics Education: From Theory to Practice

There is growing interest in the employment of serious video games in science education, but there are no clear design principles. After surveying previous work in serious video game design, we highlighted the following design principles: 1) engage the students with narrative (hero, story), 2) employ familiar gameplay mechanics from popular video games, 3) engage students into constructive trial and error game-play and 4) situate collaborative learning. As illustrated examples we designed two math video games targeted to primary education students. The gameplay of the math video games embeds addition operations in a seamless way, which has been inspired by that of classic platform games. In this way, the students are adding numbers as part of popular gameplay mechanics and as a means to reach the video game objective, rather than as an end in itself. The employment of well-defined principles in the design of math video games should facilitate the evaluation of learning effectiveness by researchers. Moreover, educators can deploy alternative versions of the games in order to engage students with diverse learning styles. For example, some students might be motived and benefited by narrative, while others by collaboration, because it is unlikely that one type of serious video game might fit all learning styles. The proposed principles are not meant to be an exhaustive list, but a starting point for extending the list and applying them in other cases of serious video games beyond mathematics and learning.

The Critical Power of Virtual Dystopias

This article explores the capacity of video games and virtual worlds to function as critical utopias or dystopias. A theme of utopian thinking over the past century has been that utopian fantasies offer a critical perspective on the real world. I argue that video games and virtual worlds have generally failed to offer utopian fantasies that can perform a critical function because of their tendency of mirroring the real world, but I show that dystopian video games tend to be very effective in presenting critical themes. Moreover, I argue that video games create critical dystopias in ways that display the unique strengths of the medium. Virtual dystopias rely on a combination of engaging narrative elements and gameplay mechanics, which come together to create dynamic worlds in which players are active participants.

Adapting a Videogame to the Needs of Pediatric Cancer Patients and Survivors.

This study assessed whether two serious videogames, "Escape from Diab" (Diab) and "Nanoswarm: Invasion from Inner Space" (Nano) (both from Archimage, Inc., Houston, TX) shown to effect change in healthy children's diet and possibly physical activity are acceptable for obesity prevention among pediatric cancer patients and survivors at high risk of obesity. Pediatric (9-12-year-old) cancer patients and survivors (n=28) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Group A, watched film adaptations of both game stories and played the first two episodes of each game; Group B, played all of Diab; or Group C, played all of Nano. Qualitative interviews about what the children liked and didn't like and what should be changed were conducted midway and at the end of each group's participation. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Pediatric cancer patients and survivors enjoyed playing both games. Two themes emerged to guide future modifications of the game: Three patients reported difficulty with the energy balance and meal selection portion of Nano, and four patients stated endings showing a character dying made them sad. Two serious videogames designed to promote healthier diet and increased physical activity among healthy children were also found to be acceptable by pediatric cancer patients and survivors. Easier options needed to be programmed into energy balance games in Nano. To avoid possible emotional reactions, such as sadness, Nano's ending will be revised so that a character does not die from his affliction. Minor changes will be made in other gameplay mechanics and storylines to meet target audience needs and preferences.

Games, Gameplay, and BCI: The State of the Art

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and basic computer games have been interconnected since BCI development began, exploiting gameplay elements as a means of enhancing performance in BCI training protocols and entertaining and challenging participants while training to use a BCI. By providing the BCI user with an entertaining environment, researchers hope to assist users in becoming more proficient at controlling a BCI system. BCIs have been used to enrich the experience of abled-bodied and physically impaired users in various computer applications, in particular, computer games. BCI games have been reviewed previously, yet a critical evaluation of “gameplay” within BCI games has not been undertaken. Gameplay is a key aspect of any computer game and encompasses the challenges presented to the player, the actions made available to the player by the game designer to overcome the challenges and the interaction mechanism in the game. Here, the appropriateness of game genres (a category of games characterized by a particular set of gameplay challenges) and the associated gameplay challenges for different BCI paradigms is evaluated. The gameplay mechanics employed across a range of BCI games are reviewed and evaluated in terms of the BCI control strategy's suitability, considering the genre and gameplay mechanics employed. A number of recommendations for the field relating to genre-specific BCI-games development and assessing user performance are also provided for BCI game developers.

Time, Space and Motion in Braid: A Cognitive Semantic Approach to a Video Game

The paper (1) analyses the computer game Braid with regard to the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor and the multimodal approach, (2) links the possibilities of such a study to the existing studies of temporality in video games, and (3) explores the link between the game’s narrative and its gameplay mechanics based on the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor. The theoretical section briefly overviews Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor, multimodality, CMT in video games, time in video games, as well as several studies related to the game. The main section investigates Braid so as to evaluate the ways in which the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor operates within each of the game worlds and how this affects the narrative and the gameplay. The complex, unconventional relations existing among time, space, motion and causality result in a unique coupling between the narrative and the use of the TIME IS SPACE/MOTION metaphor.

Ports and patches: Digital games as unstable objects

The problem for curators and archivists of digital games is that the games are inherently unstable. As a range of commentators have explored, gameplay in digital games often takes quite unexpected, unpredictable and emergent directions as players probe at the boundaries of rules and systems. For those engaged in the archiving, curation and exhibition of digital games, a clear challenge comes from the contingency of playing preferences, and that various ‘playings’ might be differently informed by prefigurative and regulatory materials such as walkthroughs, FAQs and reviews. However, before we get to considerations of the ways it is (re)configured through the performance of play, in fact regardless of whether it is ever played at all, we should recognise that a digital game is a potentially changing, unstable object. In fact, it is typically better thought of as a growing and mutating collection of many objects. This article centres less on ideas of performance or the changing nature of the game at play but rather concentrates on the instability of the fabric of the game to-be-played-with. As media that are routinely ported (transferred and translated) to different operating systems and platforms with differing hardware and software capabilities, and patched (updated to fix bugs or modify gameplay mechanics), digital games simply cannot be conceived of as static objects or texts. To demonstrate the impact of porting and patching on the instability of digital games, this article draws on an analysis of Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog series.

Exploring Newtonian mechanics in a conceptually-integrated digital game: Comparison of learning and affective outcomes for students in Taiwan and the United States

This study investigates the potential of a digital game that overlays popular game-play mechanics with formal physics representations and terminology to support explicit learning and exploration of Newtonian mechanics. The analysis compares test data, survey data, and observational data collected during implementations in Taiwan and the United States with students in grades 7–9. Results demonstrate learning on some core disciplinary measures and high levels of learner engagement, indicating the potential benefits of this genre of conceptually-integrated games, but also suggesting that further research and development will be needed to more fully harness this potential. Encouragingly, striking similarities were observed across the two countries in terms of learning and engagement, suggesting that this genre of learning games may prove suitable for engaging students in active exploration of core science concepts across multiple countries.

The banality of simulated evil: designing ethical gameplay

This paper offers an analytical description of the ethics of game design and its influence in the ethical challenges computer games present. The paper proposes a set of game design suggestions based on the Information Ethics concept of Levels of Abstraction which can be applied to formalise ethical challenges into gameplay mechanics; thus allowing game designers to incorporate ethics as part of the experience of their games. The goal of this paper is twofold: to address some of the reasons why computer games present ethical challenges, and to exploit the informational nature of games to suggest how to develop games with ethics at the core of their gameplay.

Game development essentials: gameplay mechanics

Game development essentials: gameplay mechanics