Hi all, today I have started doing my research of reliable sources on Progression Mechanics in Game Development.
I have to say this was a very difficult start. I really did struggle find information on this topic and using the TUD library. I have gotten there in the end, thankfully.
For my sources, two of them are from the library and one I found on Google Scholar. I found Google Scholar easier to find information on. I only decided to use it as I felt like I couldn't find anything else on the online data base on TUD.
My first source is called "The Mario Brothers are Unfair: A study on Sense of Progression in Computer Gameplay" by Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017. This was a great piece of writing to start with as it is about why game progression is important. To take out the important bits in this piece of writing I have used the highlighter on the PDF file and my notebook to write point as I read through it so I can look at my points and understand exactly what happened in the writing.
This article is about an experiment in Hong Kong Shue Yan University on 100 different people between the age 18-22 (61 females and 31 males). The experiment occurred in 4 equal groups in different conditions: "Long-Random (5 min. Computer gameplay without progression), Short- Random (2.5 min. Computer gameplay without progression), Long-Fixed (5 min. Computer gameplay with progression), and Short-Fixed (2.5 min. Computer gameplay with progression).". This experiment is based on play a game called "Unfair Mario" which was modified so the people in the "fixed" conditions were playing in the game with hidden traps in fixed location while the other half played with the same game with hidden traps in random location every time they played.
Doing this have half of the player a sense of achievement as they knew where to avoid traps as the played and the other half would start with 0 knowledge or pattern to work around. The results of this experiment show that people whom felt some sense of achievement or progression wanted to play the game for longer than the people who didn't. The results are the following.
As we see the tenancy of continuing to play is higher when they feel a sense of progression. Therefore this article proofs that game progression is important to keep player playing the game.
The second article I have found is called "Automatic Game Progression Design through Analysis of Solution Features" by Eric Butler, Erik Anderson, Adam M. Smith, Sumit Gulwani and Zoran Popvic. I have found this article on Google Scholar.
This piece of writing is very different from the first as it focuses on this company called HCI that are working on a framework to automate game progression and level ups. This company also believes that the engagement in game link with the progression aspect of games. In this article they used "Refraction" to test their system on. Refraction is an educational game used to teach children about fractions in a fun way. The original game has 61 puzzles that have been handmade by game designers. Throughout this article they have spoken about mathematical equations which I don't understand and I didn't find it important when speaking about game progression mechanics.
Their tweaked version has automatically made new levels with multiple and equally in difficulty results. This made the game fair as no correct answer is easier than another. HCI have tested their version of the game by giving 1,221 random people the tweaked game to test it out while 1,156 people have played the original version to compare the results between both versions. In their evaluation they have said "we are interested in actual player behavior rather than player opinions" this is taken from the third paragraph on the Evaluation section of the article. HCI didn't tell the participants they were a part of an experiment and haven't collected personal information from the players. Therefore they had to relay on proxy metrics to estimate engagement. From the results the tweaked game was a success the engagement was similar amongst both game versions. This is wonderful as this will save many hours worth of work on designing different game levels.
Finally, the last article called "Progression of a serious difficulty from a playful and pedagogical point of view: Analyse and representation" by Adil Korchi. Reading this article I have understood that is about the difficulty of different levels in games. They have used 7 game for this experiment of which 3 versions of Refraction. They have explained what Refraction is about and how it works. The article highlights that a "period of relaxation" throughout the game is important. For example, when a player has to defeat a "boss" at the end of the level the player need some time to relax after focusing on a more difficult task.
Throughout the article we also learn what pedagogical (similar in construction of levels) and non-pedagogical (bigger difference in difficulty throughout different levels) challenges are. They describe how important is to differentiate between different levels. For example level one should be significantly harder than level twenty. They have also stated some different ways of creating a more challenging level. Some examples are through "mislead" or "Complexity". To find out more about this writing click on the link above.
Thank you for listening to my reviews on my research and reading.
See you all next week,
Denis.
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