Interesting results (a look into 'shine a light on it')

When looking into the theories around player guidance and indirect control, I found a bit of a dispute. In an interview for the website Gamasutra, designer Kim Swift talks about how she uses the players’ primal instincts to guide them through a level, for example by using lights.

‘Players are going to want to go towards the light, as opposed to the dark. That's hardwired into us as human beings, because we don't want to get eaten by the bad thing in the dark, and so we're going to go where it's light out and we can see...taking advantage of the fact that we're animals...’

However, another designer by name of Randy Smith, in a GDC talk about stealth games, says that what the player is drawn to depends more on the mechanics of the game than base human instincts.

‘…very bright areas are environmental challenges to hiding, and areas of loud flooring are environmental challenges to moving silently …during gameplay players tend to gravitate towards stealth friendly areas and tend to shy away from stealth unfriendly areas…’

So I decided to do a test. I created a maze like level made up of a series of t junctions, where one direction had a light in front of it and the other didn’t. The end goal for players was to find a piece of floating cake. Not all of the testers were told this goal. All of the testers were also experienced game players.

I tested 2 versions, one where the dark areas where completely pitch black, and the another which used a more artistic darkness made up of a dark blue light.

With the first few testers, things went as I had imagined - they were reliably taking the illuminated route. Every so often however, they would look down a dark corner in an effort to find the cake. After this intial batch, players arrived that were taking the darker routes more often than the light ones.

I asked players why they choose the routes that they did. Those drawn to light more talked about how they avoided the dark as games don’t often put things in dark areas, another talked about how she was able to see better in the light, and another said while playing ‘I’m not going down there, it’s too dark’. Players who went into the dark more often talked about how they thought that the cake, since it was hidden, was going to be in a darker area, or that they felt that the lights where there for people to be drawn to them, and thus out of genre savvy-ness decided to go against what they felt were being made to do. Whether or not the player knew of the ultimate goal didn’t seem to effect the outcomes.

With the other, lighter map, it would seem that players were more likely to go down the paths in the dark, as only 1 of the 5 players completely followed the path laid out by the lights. I feel that more testing is going to be needed.

From these results, it looks like the idea that players are naturally drawn to lights could be an incorrect assumption. It would be more correct to say that players seem to avoid absolute nothingness, whether because of a genuine fear of the unknown, or because the nothingness is seen as blank and uninteresting. But even then, more adventurous people are willing to brave it, and there are going to be people who have played video games enough to know when they are being manipulated by the design of the level.

I would like to go further with this test, as all of the players were experienced in video games, and I would like to see if I get the same results with people who don’t play video games often.

Also this week, I re-ran the tests with the bridges made out of different materials, as I was unhappy with the thoroughness of it.

This time, I have swapped the materials of the bridges, to see if it made a difference to the directions that players went in.

It turned out that it didn’t. Players were still going in the same general direction as last time, so it appears that people aren’t affected by the material of the bridges when it comes to making a decision about which one is safer to cross.

After talking to my tutor Josh about the results, and some of the previous tests including the use of weather to guide people, we came to the conclusion that players don’t have the same instincts in games as they do in reality. There are a few that still affect, such as a fear of the unknown as apparent in this week’s tests, but it seems that in a simulated environment you still need to teach the player about how the world works, the ‘rules’ as it were. If the wooden bridges in the previous map crumbled and fell after the player stepped on them, it’s obvious that they wouldn’t step on them again. But because they didn’t crumble, even if they looked like they were broken and falling apart, the player felt that they would forever be safe to stand on.

This has inspired a new direction to the research, and I will be asking the question of ‘Which human instincts to we bring into the game world and which do need to be taught again?’ Due to the lack of time this semester, I will be leaving a lot of the idea I have for the next one. However I should still have time to perform one more test in a couple of weeks.

Material Semantics Part 1 (aka - Bridges, what they're made of, and being shot at)

I’ve finishing creating the level testing the relationship between safety and materials.

I completely remade the level from the intial block map. It's now an 'S' shape rather than a straight line, and there is little variance in height. I did this so that when enemies are placed into the level, all of their fire won't come at the player in one go.I had two groups of testers, with one playing with bots and the other not.

Players first choose between these two routes, both with structural barriers, and with bots on the other side

Next they choose between a short, stable metal route, or a longer more precarious wooden route. Again with a couple of bots on the platform these routes are connected to.

Lastly they need to get past two bots shooting at them by taking the high metal route or the low wood route. I still wanted to see if height played a part in feeling safe, and I intend to do another version with the materials of the bridge swapped.

With bots enabled, the route that the players took seemed to depend on the positioning of the bots and where their fire was coming from more so than what the bridges were made of. I would go so far as to say that players ignored or didn’t take notice of what the materials were, or thought that it wasn’t significant.

Many players at the start walked to the left over the wooden bridge. However the fire from the bots on the opposite platform peeked out from the right side of the cover the player starts behind. The right side was more dangerous to them, the fact that the bridge was wood didn’t seem to matter. Afterwards, I changed the layout of the cover in front of them so that the shots weren’t peeking out. The players then went over the right metal bridge instead. 

One player forego shooting back at the bots enteirly and ran past them, running over the second longer wooden bridge. He was the only player to do so, and I believe he did it because it allowed him to get further away from the enemies. Again, the fact that the bridge was wood didn’t detract him.

During the end section, players usually stood on the platform adjacent to the bots and fired at them. After they defeated them the path they decided to take to the exit looked random, and was usually the path that was in their line of sight after taking out the last bot.

The players who played the level without bots had more predictable behaviour. They usually walked over the metal bridges, but there were a few exceptions.

One player, during this third bridge section, stopped before crossing the metal bridge and looked at it for a while before choosing to go over the wooden bridge. This directly goes against what I thought was going to happen, as the player thought that the wooden bridge was the safer option. It would seem that the material that the bridge is only one aspect of the object that goes towards what players’ feelings towards it are. Other aspects being the width of the bridge, the apparent structural soundness etc. This particular player must of thought the wooden option was safer because it was wider, and because the metal bridge was made from three girders with visible gaps through them, and perhaps he thought he might fall through them.

Another player went over the same wooden bridge but without checking the other options. He crossed the previous metal bridge, which gave him a direct line of sight to the wooden bridge. This player seemed less patient and didn’t feel the need to look around and explore.

The main observation I want to look into is that players seemed to default to taking the route on the right side (unless there was something drawing them to the other, such as safety or a gun to pick up). There are many possible reasons why this is. Was it because of the right turn the players first make? Were all of the players right handed and did that effect their choice? Is because we read left to right? Was it because the bridge was made of metal?

The next step is to create the new version of the map with the materials swapped.

Semantics and materials

This week, I’ve been taking what I’ve learnt from the experiments and putting them into a Skyrim dungeon. Here’s my rough plan:

To keep the project in scope I’ve decided to do a small linear dungeon with various offshoots and hidey holes with goodies down them. Players will be encouraged to go to these areas using the visual cues that I’ve been looking into.

Unfortunately, due to a recent update to Skyrim, I can‘t access the Creation Kit editor, or continue with work on the level. I’m going to have to wait for an update to the editor before I can continue.

So in the meantime, I’ve come up with a new experiment to test out.

I recently read a Gamasutra article entitled ‘Designing Better Levels Through Human Survival Instincts’. I talks about how people feel in different geometric environments, for instance people can feel uncomfortable in tight areas due to not being able to defend themselves. The main takeaway from the article, I felt, was idea of safety. People like to feel safe, and in a dangerous situation they will be drawn to areas that appear to be safe. How this applies to video games could be a bit complicated, as action based games use danger to excite players, and it could be said that an action game without the threat of dying would be boring. In that situation maybe players would be drawn to the danger more so than the safety?

But, by taking the idea of players being drawn to safety as a given, I want to see if the semantics of different materials can make people choose certain routes.

In this level, there is a series of floating islands connected by bridges. Some are made of wood, some are metal, and some have barriers and some don’t. At the moment, the different islands are at different heights, which is something else I took from the article. It mentions higher areas feeling more dangerous, unless they have barriers preventing players from falling off, where they become advantage points. I’m going to be taking the height out of the final map, as the islands are floating. It won’t matter how high the player is, if they fall off they’ll still die, so the threat will be the same no matter what the height is.

I’m also going to test the map with and without enemies. These will shoot and be shot at the by player. I want to see if the player still takes notice of aesthetics and thus semantics of the level if they are given task while also being put into danger.

Continued testing

Over the past fortnight I have been continuing to test the levels, made a couple of change to one of them to test some ideas, and created a couple of new maps and had them tested as well.

First of all were the changes to the previous map.

I changed the colour of the light in the ‘mystery’ room from red to the same colour used for the rest of the level, and I added a new room next to it with a plain looking entrance. I wanted to see if just the body would be enough to bring players towards the room, even with some minor completion. As it turned out, the players still went straight towards the ‘mystery’ door, not even looking at this new door, and only walked through it after checking out the mysterious one.

Another change was the position of this bridge.

I was concerned that the testers where naturally going over the bridge due to how the geometry was laid out. After players walked out of the ‘mystery’ room, the bridge was very close to them, so I though that they may be going over it out of convenience rather than its semantic properties.

Players ended up being less likely to over the bridge, but still showed signs of interest in it. One player looked across the bridge before taking the other, another looked below the bridge to see the water, and another walked halfway across the other route before jumping over the barrier. I still think that players are somewhat attracted to the structure of bridges, with their promise of some sort progress and there sole purpose of being travelled across, but it would appear that players will need some coaxing for them to go over them. This coaxing could be as simple as placing in near the centre of their line of sight, as shown with the previous map that did this.

For the subtle change to the interactive valve, I had a look at the ‘Uncharted’ series.

The games are a good example of using contrasting colours to make certain props in the level stand out and more noticeable, cluing the player in to a potential route through the level (notice from 2:12 onwards, the use of red on the top of the signal box and the use of sky blue on the drain pipe to contrast with the cream colour of the wall it’s attached to.)

I tried this out on the valve by making it a blue colour. Sure enough, players now recognised it as something to interact with, or if they didn’t know how or about being able to interact with things, something of significance.

This theory of making things stand out with colour is causing some problems with the level though. Players, if they are unsure of what to do, assume that this particular light is something of significance, for the same reason the valve.

This is something that I need to keep in mind when designing non-experimental levels. I need to make sure that there are no other props accidentally performing any guiding functions. It’s very tempting when laying down props to place objects to jazz up the area, and make it look more artistically interesting. But it seems that it will be necessary to make some areas look purposefully dull, or at least less interesting, then others to make the guiding work.

I made two new maps to test a couple of other ideas I had.

This map, which I’m going to call ‘The Bridges One’, is to further test the notion that bridges attract people towards them. I’m using the floating black squares particle effect to make the gaps in the floor more noticeable, which should in turn make the bridges more noticeable.

I’m also testing the idea of simplicity verses complexity. Do people take the simpler, easier approach, or are they attracted to one which is more interesting but demanding?

The last thing I’m testing is whether or not people are attracted to novelty, or newness, in games as much as they are in reality. To test this, I’ve made the level very blocky, with square recesses in the walk, mainly perpendicular lines making up its geometry and having abstract floating black squares. Half way through the level the player may notice this.

The hypothesis is that the players will walk over to it and investigate.

Thankfully, playtesters did what I thought they were going to do for the most part.

Players often walked over the bridge structure at the beginning of the level. There was one tester who didn’t, but I believe it was due to the black square particle effect not firing in time, so the player didn’t notice it.

As for the simplicity verses complexity sections, results were mixed.

  

Most players at this part took the simple option and went up the steady slope. There were one or two that jumped up the steps.

But for this part, it was the opposite. Most players jumped over the blocks and the one or two walked past them.

It would appear that players like to take the simpler option, but are attracted to scenarios that look fun. Jumping over cubes was more intersting and fun. Jumping up steps is boring compared to jumping over a drop that could potentially kill. The risk is exciting. People who don't play many games may not want to due to lower confidence in the controls and lack of knowledge of the jump button.

Due to the fact that there were a few players who went against the trend, it seems that the route that the player takes is going to depend on their personality.

The 2^nd level I made was to test whether or not players are attracted to or repelled by the unknown.

I’m doing this by making a maze like level, made up of rooms connected by at least two paths. One path is straight so that player can look down it, and the other has a curve in it so that they can’t.

The results were a bit inconclusive. The tunnel which people chose seems to depend mostly on personality, and whether or not they saw a particular tunnel first. Some players walked straight through the first tunnel they saw. Others stopped to look and think about what way they wanted to go. These people usually went through the curved tunnels. Curious people are attracted to curious things it seems.

In another observation, most people, if they walked straight towards this half-submerged statue, they walked around it anti-clockwise, which funnelled them into a tunnel behind it. People walked over this way probably because there was more openness in that direction.

From what I’ve learnt so far, I’m considering a future project where the level design could change depending on a players personality. I’ll need to think about it more however. The next immediate step is to take what I’ve learnt so far and put it into a distributed level. The digital distribution service ‘Steam’ allows for members of the public to make content for select games, which other people can download and give feedback on. It is my to do just this.

Testing

This week I started properly on testing the maps that I had made. On Friday (5/10/12) I rounded up a group from the university and got them to play the desert like level.

Some things I noticed:

Everyone went over the bridge. Everyone. Even though they didn’t need to and could just walk around the edge of the hole. This may be because the other route wasn’t visible enough, and the cartoony style the bridge has made it stand out more against the rest of the level, but it makes a good argument for the theory that people can’t help but go over bridges. I will make a map which will test this further, involving the player going over different bridges, making sure the visual style is consistent and that all possible routes the player could use are easily noticeable.

The majority of the playtesters went through the tunnel. And if they didn’t go through the tunnel they down the left path. It did seem that the players were viewing the section as three separate paths instead of a wide are with a tunnel running through it.

Hardly any of the player went through this middle tunnel. They instead seemed dead set on going over to the bridge in order to cross it, which might have been due to its cartoony-ness.

There was one case however, where a player didn’t go through the first tunnel but looked through it twice, once through the entrance and once through the exit, and then went underneath the middle tunnel. To me, it seems that they didn’t go through the first tunnel because there was no need to; they already knew what was through it and that there was nothing inside of it. I’m not sure why they decided to go through the middle tunnel; maybe there was a part of them that wanted to go through a tunnel like structure but they felt that they missed their chance by not going through the first one? Or maybe they were just curious as to what was over there.

After this, I picked out some things I wanted to look into for the next map:

- Are people attracted to mystery? (I don’t think it was something I looked into enough with this map)

- Will more people go through tunnel if they couldn’t see where it went? (Although this links into mystery)

- Are stand out visuals attractive..?

- ...or are semantics more attractive?

And I came up with this

This section is here to see if players will go into the tunnel. Originally the inside had a blue light, but it was changed to be similar to the rest of the level to make sure that it wasn’t the difference in the lighting colour that was attracting people to it.

This is the ‘mysterious’ section.

And this is the semantics vs stand out visuals section.

So far, I’ve had one person playtest the level.

Some things I noticed:

The first thing the player did was look behind the crates. I placed them there for decoration because the artistic side of me thought that the room was looking bare. He problem is that the player has now gone looking for something and has become unsatisfied that nothing was there. I’m going to have to be careful in the future about moments like this. Perhaps it could also mean that guiding players successfully will require some areas of the level to look boring and plain to make players disinterested in them.

The player went into the tunnel after a bit of thought, further showing that people associate tunnels with going through them.

The 'mystery' section worked well, the player went for it.

The player also went over the bridge without thinking too much about it. However I’m not convinced that it was entirely the bridge that caused the player to go over it. The green light from the sludge under it might have had something to do with it as well. I’ll try a different version of the map with the sludge replaced with water and the green light turned off.

The player had no way of knowing that the valve was interactable. It’s pretty typical for a game to have some sort of highlight around interactive items, but as this project is all about making things more subtle I’m going to try something different.

Some new things to think about...

This week, some things happened.

I started off with a new experiment around ‘nature verses technology’. I had heard of research that had shown that people are more relaxed and happier when the natural world is around them, and I want to see if it applies to games as well. I will get people to play it, and see if they are drawn to natural green areas or the metallic technology centred areas. Constructing the map will also give me some practice at composing art assets.

The map isn’t finished yet, and it is taking longer than I want it to. I should have it finished soon.

I do however have some doubts if it’ll work. I had someone play a map with rainy outdoor and dry indoor areas to see if they stayed out of the rain, like they would in reality. However, they didn’t.

Instead, the player wasn't bothered much by the rain and instead used it as a landmark to get around the level with.

I went to the Eurogamer expo on the 27^th September, and while there I met Richard Perrin, the creator of a game called Kairo. I told him about my MA research, and about how the playtester didn’t do as I thought they would. He replied with ‘well, rain is more interesting’. I had also recently watched a TED talk by JJ Abrams, about how he uses mystery in his work, and how much of a driving force it is in many forms of entertainment. This led me on to thinking that I could use the player’s own curiosity to help get them round a level. I would like to create a level testing this out in the near future.

After showing the ‘nature verses technology’ map to my tutor, he suggested that player could be more willing to travel through a tunnel, because it is the sort of shape that people associate with travelling through.

To test this, I have made a small, linear map with some different obstacles.

These obstacles are what, I feel, people semantically associate different actions with. For instance, people regularly go over bridges in reality, so I fully expect people to go over this bridge, despite there being another route around the hole in the ground.

First experiments

This week, I’ve created a list of different levels I would like to try out, and I’ve started blocking them out. These are the one I’ve finished so far:

Warm colours vs cool colours, seeing what colours people are drawn to, or whether or not it makes much difference at all.

Light areas vs darker areas. I've done a few variants of this map. One has the player starting in darkness and another where they start in a bright room. I wanted to see if the environment that the player starts will influence the areas they want to go in. For instance, will a player who starts off in darkness be more willing to enter dark areas, or will players who start off in light be entering them out of curiosity. I'm also working on giving the players a torch, and seeing if that will influence where they go.

Indoors vs Outdoors. There are a couple of these, one where it is raining and th other where it's not. I wanted to see if people are affected by virtual weather as much as they are by real weather.

Elevation. I've got a feeling that people want to be as high as possible in a maze like environment, so I made this to see if that's correct.

Lines. In this map there's a couple of different coloured lines going through the level. I want to see what colours people go towards, but also how much they follow them. 

Lines vs arrows. This map only has blue coloured objects, and I want to see if arrows or lines have a greater influence on people. This map may need to some work, as it is unlikily that a realistic game will resort have giant arrows on the wall telling player where to go. At the moment it could be said that the arrows represent an object that is more directing to the player, like a signpost, and the line representing something more subtle like foot prints. It might be a better idea to make the realistic looking map with the signposts and the footprints.

While making them, I had some thoughts about different or additional directions that I could go in. Instead of just investigating and trying to find new ways of guiding players, I could ask the questions like ‘How much of a players personal experience do they use while playing a game?’, or ‘Do players need to be guided?’

Beginnings

And now, a Masters degree in Games Design...

I'm going to be looking into the idea of indirect control in games. In a game that gives the player a lot of freedom in what they do, there is a chance that they can become lost or otherwise not know what to do. Indirect control is where the designer shows the player what to do, without the player knowing that they've been shown it.

For my BA in Games Design, I created a level where the player walked through an environment collecting items. I guided the player firstly by using text prompts, symbols and having the player repeat actions. But then those prompts faded away and I used more subtle methods, such as having objects move or fall in an attempt to get players to look in the direction that they need to go.

I'm going to be looking at this in greater detail, and one of the first thing I'm going to do is run playtests to see if there are things that people naturally gravitate to when they are playing. Things like colours, lighting, certain graphics and different materials. I could also look at if the results change if the player is put into different contexts, for instance if the game involves shooting, will they gravitate towards the same things if they were playing a puzzle game?

There is a whole host of variables that could be tested, so over this week I'll be reducing them down to realistic amount that I could test.