Digital Library Keyword Archives

gameplay

- 28 articles or papers

 

The Open and the Closed: Games of Emergence and Games of Progression

Juul Jesper
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for examining computer game structure and applies it to the massive multiplayer game EverQuest.

 

The Gameplay Gestalt, Narrative, and Interactive Storytelling


2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

This paper discusses the relationship between concepts of narrative, patterns of interaction within computer games constituting gameplay gestalts, and the relationship between narrative and the gameplay gestalt. The repetitive patterning involved in gameplay gestalt formation is found to undermine deep narrative immersion. The creation of stronger forms of interactive narrative in games requires the resolution of this conflict. The paper goes on to describe the Purgatory Engine, a game engine based upon more fundamentally dramatic forms of gameplay and interaction, supporting a new game genre referred to as the first-person actor. The first-person actor does not involve a repetitive gestalt mode of gameplay, but defines gameplay in terms of character development and dramatic interaction.

 

Enhancing gameplay: challenges for articifical intelligence in digital games

Charles Darryl
2003 DiGRA '03 - Proceedings of the 2003 DiGRA International Conference: Level Up

Computer power in recent years has been advancing very rapidly and as increasingly more Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts turn their attention to game design, there is a clear opportunity to think more radically about digital game AI design. We suggest that not only is it timely for significant AI innovation but that it is essential to appreciably enhance key interactive aspects of digital game design, create opportunities for novel gameplay scenarios, and to progress the medium as an art form. Issues arising from the enhanced utilization of AI in digital games are discussed and the implications for gameplay explored; such as affecting player emotion, moral dilemmas, player created stories, dynamic and adaptive game worlds, and character believability.

 

Notes Toward a Sense of Embodied Gameplay

Bayliss Peter
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Despite the increasing maturity of the field of videogame studies, central concepts such as gameplay remain underdeveloped, implicit in many theories yet without clear investigation of the underlying assumptions informing approaches to understanding it. Understanding gameplay as a particular form of interactivity, the approach taken here focuses on the notion of embodiment, drawing on Dourish's work concerning embodied interaction. The implication of this approach is a focus on the concept of interface, which is developed here beyond the meanings adapted from design and production contexts towards a more generalised yet more powerful understanding that sees it as a particular site or space of interaction between two parties - the player and the game. An exploratory theoretical model of embodied gameplay is developed through a synthesis of Dourish's application of various phenomenological theories to interactivity, Gibson's ecological approach to perception, and Järvinen et al's approach to the concept of flow.

 

A Study on New Gameplay Based on Brain-Computer Interface

Ko Minjin Bae Kyoungwoo Oh Gyuhwan Ryu Taiyoung
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a way to control computers by using human brain waves. As the technology has improved, BCI devices have become smaller and cheaper, making it possible for more individuals to buy them. This allows BCI to be applied to new fields outside of pure research, including entertainment. We examine whether BCI devices can be used as a new gaming device, approaching it from a game design perspective. We propose game play elements that can effectively utilize BCI devices and present a game prototype that demonstrates several of these game play elements. Next, we use statistical data analysis to show that using a BCI device as well as keyboard and mouse interfaces makes the game’s control clearer and more efficient than using the traditional input devices. The results offer guidelines for effective game design methodology for making BCI based games.

 

Exploring Aesthetic Ideals of Gameplay

Lundgren Sus Bergström Karl J. Björk Staffan
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

This paper describes a theoretical exploration of aesthetics ideals of gameplay. Starting from observations about the game artifact, several gameplay properties that can affect the aesthetical experience are identified, e.g. tempting challenges, cohesion, and gamer interaction. These properties are then used to describe several aesthetical ideals of gameplay, e.g. emergence, reenactment, meditative, and camaraderie. The properties and ideals provide concepts for how games attribute aesthetical value to gameplay design and how they distinguish their own preferences from inherent qualities of a game artifact.

 

Gaming DNA: On Narrative and Gameplay Gestalts

Brown Douglas
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

This paper takes the concept of the ‘Gameplay Gestalt’ as advanced by Craig Lindley[7] as a basis for a fresh look at how games are read and designed. Disagreeing with Lindley’s assertion of gameplay over narrative, it puts forward a model of the game as a construct of authored gestalt interplay, and concentrates on the links between the physical process of playing the game and the interpretative process of ‘reading’ it. A wide variety of games are put forward as examples, and some analyses of major ‘moments’ in classic games are deconstructed. The concept of the ‘sublime’ as applicable to games is examined as is the use of gameplay and narrative to generate ‘illusory agency’, which can make a game more than the sum of its parts.

 

Long-term motivations to play MMOGs: A longitudinal study on motivations, experience and behavior

Schultheiss Daniel
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

The upward trend in the sector of the digital games goes on.An evolution takes place, which is capable to go to many directions. On the one hand computer graphics become more realistic, games are more complex and the speed, as well as the distribution, of the internet increases steadily. On the other hand another trend appears: browser-games, also called MMOGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games). Games, which are text-based or contain only few graphical content and are playable without local installation on the computer. Only an internet connection and a browser is needed to use them. These persistant online-worlds, in this special case a browser-game called "Space Merchant Realms", are the object of investigation in this work. Before the empirical analysis is proceeded, the object of investigation is defined in the sector of computer-games and online-games. Subsequently the identification of usagemotivations, gameplay experience and playing-behavior is, as well as its temporal variation, in focus. In this longitudinal research, the usage-motivations are examined with help of the Uses-and-Gratification-Approach and the gameplay-experience is examined with the flow-theory. In two waves of the questionnaire (Nt0=125; Nt1=135), which were surveyed at an interval of ten weeks, several results could be extracted. Ten game motivation factors (total variance 67,175%) and four game experience factors (total variance 58.5%) appeared by the usage of factor analysis. Based on self-evaluation of players, further statements on playing-behavior could be encountered. Moreover the variations of usage-motivations, gameplayexperience and playing-behavior after ten weeks were determined. Four of the ten motivationfactors arose (one of these significant), while six factors stayed constant. Three of the experience-factors became less important (one of these highly significant) and one remained constant. The time of usage demonstrably decreased within ten weeks. This investigation which claimes to be a kind of pilot study, is the first step into an integrated investigation of browser-games.

 

Exploring E-sports: A Case Study of Gameplay in Counter-strike

Rambusch Jana Jakobsson Peter Pargman Daniel
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

In this paper, a case study of Counter-strike is presented in which cognitive, cultural, economical, and technological aspects of people’s gameplay activities are discussed. Most attention is given to Counter-strike as an e-sport – competitive gameplay which borrows forms from traditional sports. Also, methodological and theoretical issues related to the study are discussed, including issues of player-centered approaches and issues related to the crossdisciplinarily of the study, which borrows perspectives from cognitive science as well as cultural studies.

 

Please Biofeed the Zombies: Enhancing the Gameplay and Display of a Horror Game Using Biofeedback

Dekker Andrew Champion Erik
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

This paper describes an investigation into how real-time but low-cost biometric information can be interpreted by computer games to enhance gameplay without fundamentally changing it. We adapted a cheap sensor, (the Lightstone mediation sensor device by Wild Divine), to record and transfer biometric information about the player (via sensors that clip over their fingers) into a commercial game engine, Half-Life 2. During game play, the computer game was dynamically modified by the player's biometric information to increase the cinematically augmented "horror" affordances. These included dynamic changes in the game shaders, screen shake, and the creation of new spawning points for the game's non-playing characters (zombies), all these features were driven by the player's biometric data. To evaluate the usefulness of this biofeedback device, we compared it against a control group of players who also had sensors clipped on their fingers, but for the second group the gameplay was not modified by the biometric information of the players. While the evaluation results indicate biometric data can improve the situated feeling of horror, there are many design issues that will need to be investigated by future research, and the judicious selection of theme and appropriate interaction is vital.