Experiment into refuge points

During the previous semester, I had read an article by Christopher Totten entitled, ‘Designing Better Levels Through Human Survival Instincts’(put in link), where he recommended various different geometry layouts and spaces which could create different emotional effects. He talks about refuge spaces, and how early man travelled between different refuge spaces across the big open world in order to aid in their survival, saying that being in an open area would leave parties open for potential attack. He argues that this is something that is still important in our psychology and our lives today, citing the use of refuge space in architecture, and first person shooter games.

I wanted to see if the player was placed in a wide open area, would they be attracted to refuge areas in the same way that people are in reality. My hypothesis going into the test was that they wouldn’t, as the previous mine test was showing that aesthetically safe and dangerous looking areas weren’t influencing player behaviour in a consistent direction, and I didn’t see how this would be any different.

This was the level itself:

It followed a similar set up to the rest of the levels; players started off next to a machine with a gem in it, and in order to get the machine working and thus complete the level, they needed to find the other gems scattered around the open area. There were two refuge points in the level, in the form of caves on either edge of the map. There are also interesting objects placed out in the open, as well as a very tall dune. The objects are there to see if players would be attracted to them more than the refuge spot, because if that was the case then it would mean that open areas by themselves would change the way the player views on endangered they are. The tall dune is there to see if I get a repeated of the behaviour in the Sands level, where some of the inexperienced players were trying to get to higher ground in order to increase their visibility. I know that the players were going to go these areas of interest when playing, so the gems were placed near to them to get players through the level quickly.

I only had a couple of players go through it, one experienced and the other inexperienced, and they both played through the level in more or less the same fashion. They understood what the goal was, and how they could interact with the gems. They decided to go to the closest objects first, and then to one of the refuge points, and then to the rest of the areas. The refuge points were no more attractive or important than the objects in the open. Both of the players did however struggle with the tall dune. Both players went there last and it took them a while to go up there in the first place. With the inexperienced player, I had to give him a hint so that they would go up to it. So it looks like the inexperienced players who wanted to get higher in the sand level maybe only did so because the scaffold hinted at the possibility of getting higher. The scaffold itself influenced what they wanted to do, not the fact that they were in an open area.

In the end, it looked like players were treating the open area not as something to be threatened or be disadvantaged by, but just like any other room or space that happened to be extra-large.