Thanks to denial I am immortal @jesperblomqvist - Tumblr Blog

Master Thesis: November p.2

For the second test phase, I implemented the fixes mentioned in the previous post. I then attended a LAN party where I got 9 test participants. The overall feedback was much better, and focus had shifted from “need to know” information, to “good to know”. Example of this would be that players still struggled with who they played as, but not for as long as before. Players also learned the controls via the tutorial text (the “lakes” text), and were instead mentioning how they would have liked pathfinding visualized and shortcut keys explained. This tutorial went through the same process as the previous one, and fixes include visuals indicating what path a selected unit will take and a redesign of the help-window. Testing of this tutorial will be done next week. After that, all testing has been performed and I have to finish the paper itself. I will have a meeting with my handler on tuesday, where we will discuss wether I will get to present my paper on Jan 17, 2020.

Master Thesis: November p.1

I completely forgot to update this blog during the enitre November month. So what have I’ve been doing during november? I have done and tested two iterations of the tutorial for the game, had one peer-review and met my handler at Paradox a couple of times.

The first test phase went well. I got to use an office at the university and had booked a time with 8 people to come and test. However, during the day, half of them cancelled last minute. Instead, I scoured campus for more participants and could eventually get 9 people during the whole day. The results of these tests were that it was difficult to tell who you played as, and how you controlled units. I also performed a heuristic evaluation and found a number of issues, but mostly that the game lacked in “reinforcement” (there was not very much that notified you when you did something good or bad). The issues I found were addressed using the game approachability principles, so that each issue could be “solved” in a number of different ways. For example, to help with player identification, I added sound effects for when the player eats another player, and themselves gets eaten. I also added a help-button and a window showing who the player played as. To help with controls and moving units, a simple text was added to be shown on top of the two “lakes” in the map. The first text said to “click on a unit to select it”, and was shown during the first game. When selecting their first unit, the text disappeared and a new text was shown on the second “lake” saying “click on the map to give a move order”.

Master Thesis: Week 7

I’ve missed updating this blog in a while now. ASo short summary: week 5, had many great meetings and got a ton of information. Week 6-7 tried to prepare next test, but had gotten so much great data that I struggled putting it all together in a cohesive manner. Rewrote parts of the paper, but wanted to fit so much stuff in it so it got rather off-topic. Last friday, I finally managed to find my way back to the actual topic and could sort through everything. So now I have finally gotten back on track, and hopefully I am still on scheduele, with testing will begining on friday.

Master Thesis: Week 4

Last week was a busy one. I started pre-testing, which was focused on testing and evaluating the game prototype. I still have 5 more tests before the pre-testing is done, but otherwise, it is finished. I also had three meetings: with my handler, with a game director at Paradox Arctic, and with a professor at the university, Charlotte Wiberg, who’s been researching game playability and approachability. All the meetings went very well and focused on different aspects of my work. With my handler, we talked a lot about the testing and how they may be more efficient in the actual testing. My goal has been to have at least 20 participants á three test sessions, as well as 20 participants for the pre-test. This means a net result of 80 participants, and many work hours performing user testing. My handler suggested implementing in-game metrics so that I wouldn’t need to observe all 80 tests as closely as during the pre-test. When talking to Wiberg, she suggested focusing on more qualitative tests, and be more specific with the participants. Finally, when talking with the game director at Paradox, he introduced me to design methods that he had been taught while working at Ubisoft, such as rational game design. He also showed a certain spreadsheet-design used to better pace and structure a game. The results from the pre-tests and the meetings will be evaluated and summarized in the coming week. I will also design the real test, which will hopefully begin testing 1/11. I have found a few technical issues which I would really like to fixx with the prototype before the real tests, mostly concerning the AI.

Master thesis: Week 3

Last week I worked on the prototype and got most things ready for testing. What remains now is a last AI update in order to implement enemy avoidance behaviour, and a weight system so the AI players can have different behaviours (cautious, neutral, aggressive). So an aggressive AI will value eating a nearby prey more than avoiding a close predator, and a cautious AI will be extra scared of predators. The starting week now, I will mostly write on the actual paper, since we will have a peer-review session on thursday. After that, I will continue implemented the mentioned AI behaviour. Hopefully, I will begin testing in two weeks!

Now I have been working on the prototype for about a week. It’s starting to feel ready, though some bugs and issues still remain. The AI is much to stupid and would need some better pathfinding and enemy avoidance behaviour, the game needs a little bit more complexity in some easy to implement way, and there are some minor issues trying to select your units sometimes. When these are hopefully done, I will start designing a tutorial for the game following the GAP. Then I will do user testing where one set will play with tutorial before the game, and the other will play directly, without a tutorial. If the set who played the tutorial first report greater enjoyment than those who played without tutorial, the tutorial will be deemed a success. The tutorial will then be iterated upon, following a modified set of GAP. A similar test will then be done, with tutorial 1 vs tutorial 2. If players who played tutorial 2 report higher enjoyment than those who played tutorial 1, then the modified GAP will be deemed a success. This will hopefully not be too difficult, but who knows. I would like to have 20 players in each set, meaning a minimum of 80 participants.

Today I evaluated and adjusted the complexity of the game, as well as changing it to PC format. I added a fourth player, and experimented with the amount of units each player start with. I also increased the size of the map and tried to add something similar to choke points and safer zones. Each player now starts in a corner, but is still spread out in that corner. The ensuing chaos can be seen above. What is missing now is the fact that the player doesn’t need to think at all, just press play. It 50/50 if you win. The player and AI is also playing with completely different goals, since the AI is just dumb and set to attack enemies. So I have a choice, make smarter AI, or adjust the win condition to encourage different playstyles and aggressiveness. For example, there is no gain from killing your prey now, so why would you? My plan to adjust this is to slow the game down a bit, add an “egg” mechanic, and change the win condition to something score based (+1 for each kill, but -2 for each living predator unit at the end of game). Maybe having an asteroid crashing and killing all dinos to end the game. I am a bit worried that I might be putting to much work into this game, as it should only be a prototype, but it is also the foundation for my whole thesis. We will just have to see!

Today I managed to get a really basic AI working, so the game is basically done now, even if many things could improve. The next step is to make the game more complex, and I imagine making the map bigger and more varied with chokepoints will help. The format is also currently that of a mobile game, since it is based on an earlier project I did. Therefor I will need to change it to a PC screen ratio, which will also allow for bigger maps. That will be the work of tomorrow!

Today I have been working on the prototype for my thesis. It will be a very simple game designed with the goals “Strategy”, “Real time, but pausable”, “Approachable” and “Complex”. To fulfill these criteria, I came up with a game that is based on rock, paper, scissor, where you play against two opponents. Each player will get one opponent as a “predator” and the other as a “prey”. Whenever your unit collide with a “predator” unit, your unit loses and gets eaten. However, when it collides with a “prey” unit, that unit gets eaten instead. The goal of the game is to eliminate your “predator”, meaning that that player must have 0 units left. In terms of RPS, you can only play rock, while opponent can only play scissor, and the other paper. Thus, to win, you must make the scissor player eliminate the paper player, because you yourself can’t win against paper. The game will be played in a top down perspective, with a play/pause button to make sure the player may pause whenever things get too hectic. This is my progress for the day, with some fun physics bugs I encountered.

Master Thesis Diary: Week 1

I am currently writing my Master thesis for “Interaction Technology and Design” at a game developer in Stockholm; Paradox Interactive. I was initially going to write about procedural storytelling, but have decided to change the subject to “game approachability”. Game approachability is about how you make a game approachable, i.e. how you properly and efficiently teach a game to a player. I changed subject as I felt this had more academic research behind it, and it would be easier to perform testing on. I have mostly been sitting at the Paradox office, 4-8 hours a day. I will be basing much of my paper on the game approachability guidelines (GAP) that was proposed in a paper by Charlotte Wiberg and Heather Desurvire. I have also contacted Wiberg, whom is a PHD at Umeå University, for an interview. Currently, I am in the process of researching the subject and planning for some sort of pretest, and a proper test later on. The objective of the paper is not specified yet, but the paper will be focused on making tutorials in real time, strategy, computer games. I will probably test with one game, but use different tutorials designed following different guidelines, in order to evaluate what guidelines are most efficient. The game will either be a Paradox strategy game, or a prototype made by me. The second week I will write an introduction, theoretical framework and objective for the paper. Hopefully, I will also have planned for a prestudy, but that is not the priority.

#Winter #noir #blackandwhite (at Rullstensgatan)

#noir #winter #blackandwhite

Hej Bore! (at Rullstensgatan)

Se ut över världa! #höst #autumncolors

#autumncolors #höst

Behövde ju testa instagrams nya landskapsläge; Marocko för tre år sedan. (at Taghazout Beach)

Provar en såndär #selfie och känner narcissismen stiga... Måste ta fler. Måste köpa selfiepinne. Öppnar twitchkanal så jag kan se mig själv på livestream.

#selfie

"Just Umeå things" #umeå #goldenhour (på/i Umeå, Sweden)

#umeå #goldenhour

Efter att ha slipat, sågat, skruvat, slagit och sprayat så är sommarprojektet klart! Ej med i bild är 10kg delar som cykeln bar i sitt tidigare liv. #hipsterbike #diy #bikerestoration #singlespeed

#bikerestoration #diy #singlespeed #hipsterbike

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Thanks to denial I am immortal