You Say Jump, I Say How High? Operationalising the Game Feel of Jumping

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Fasterholdt Martin Pichlmair Martin Holmgård Christoffer
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

This paper explores the design of jumping in 2D platform games. Through creating a method for measuring existing games, applying this method to a selection of different platformer games, and analysing the results, the paper arrives at a comprehensive data model for jumping. The model supports the exploration, design and development of new jump implementations. The underlying framework and toolset can be used by game designers to measure, model and analyse movement in platform games.

 

Levels of Sound: On the Principles of Interactivity in Music Video Games

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Pichlmair Martin Kayali Fares
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

This paper gives an introduction into the principles of interactivity in music video games. Music video games are an old but small genre of games. The earliest direct ancestors emerged in the 1970ies. Some recent music video games were hugely successful. Until today, there are only a few different approaches to their design. The purpose of this article is to shed light on what these design principles are, and how the player is immersed. By analysing several games qualitatively, we extracted certain typical features of games of this genre: active scores, rhythm action, quantisation, synaesthesia, play as performance, free-form play, and sound agents. All these aspects of music video games are discussed in this paper with the aim of describing how they affect the interactivity of the games. The result is a grammar of the language of music video games. Linked to adequate metaphors, this grammar can build a veritable repository for rhythm based, melodically interactive games and digital electronic instruments.