Alternate vs Augmented

This has been bothering me a bit. Well, not really bothering, but I am curious. These two concepts, augmented reality and alternate reality, seem to overlap so much that these days it's hard to say which is which. I was actually asked about this just yesterday and I really couldn't say for sure what's the difference. I did give my own opinion. The discussion was initially sparked by a news article about a treasure-hunting location-based game, which was referred to as augmented reality.

This is a tough one. There are no clear-cut definitions. The distinction I make between the two is largely based on the meaning of the words augmented and alternate. Augmented reality enhances reality or our perception of reality with additional information. I do admit this is based on the impression that the first augmented reality applications left on me. I mean the ones that use AR tags which viewed through e.g. a mobile phone show a 3D model where the tag is. Generally, I see augmented reality as something that overlays the real world with additional information. Augmented reality vision is perhaps the clearest example. The primary content of such applications is reality itself. The overall experience of using the application revolves around reality. Admittedly it gets really fuzzy really fast.

Alternate reality on the other hand is something of a replacement reality. These are mostly games that have their own game world which is linked with reality, most commonly by location. Shadow Cities, that mobile game where players battle for influence on a map overlaid on top of the real world is a pretty solid example of an alternate reality game. The game content is primarily virtual and the overall experiences revolves around the virtual component, i.e. the game that is being played. In this case reality enhances the gameplay experience more than the other way around. Players of alternate reality games are not driven by needs based on reality but on needs provided by the game. Again, this gets fuzzy and does it quickly.

Ultimately it's not a big deal. It's just nice to be specific. It is also clear that these two terms do not overlap entirely but they do so a lot. For the record, I would say that a location-based treasure hunt game is alternate reality, not augmented. Bonus question: is geocaching alternate or augmented reality? That is a tough indeed...

Wherigo geocaching

Today I had the opportunity to test Wherigo. It's a toolset for creating GPS adventures for GPS devices. My friend got a Garmin navigator that included an implementation of Wherigo, so we went off to seek one of the two Wherigo caches in Oulu.

This one was much like a multicache with one important difference: because the waypoints were just pieces of code in the virtual game world inside the device, the cache creator was able to enforce rules for traversing between waypoints. In this particular example, there were danger zones scattered around the area where the waypoints were located, and ending up in one of them forced the seekers to start the entire thing over. There were also timelimits for some of the waypoints and again failing to meet those meant starting from the beginning. There was no map, so detecting threats had to be done by looking at their distance and direction. We got shot down a few times when we were still figuring out how exactly the system works. Overall it took us about an hour to go through the entire adventure.

The experience was indeed different from any other caching experience because of the enforced rules. I wouldn't like to do this all the time, because much of the fun in caching is in the freedom to choose one's own approach but it's cool variation from time to time. I don't know the limitations of the toolset just yet, but using what I saw in this one cache could do stuff like actually enforcing limitations on transportation choice for people who want to create no-cars multicaches or whatever.

This was my second time playing an alternate reality game that places virtual objects into real world coordinates using GPS. It was kind of interesting, like navigating threats based on just a radar (or in this case listening to a radar officer, since I wasn't holding the device). The first time was when I playtested a submarine warfare game, and it had some of the same feeling. The submarine game had somewhat better immersion because the enemies were other players, visually present in the environment and also detectable using sonar. I think one important thing in alternate reality game immersion is to make a plausible explanation for why things in the game cannot be seen in the real world.

Anyway, to summarize, Wherigo seems like an interesting addition to geocaching and I'll be reporting if I encounter some fresh concepts that make use of it. We'll be doing the second local cache next week and I've heard it should be a different experience, and also more frustrating. Waiting to see how...

Stage Autumn Game Jam

Nothing new to report really. I've been working on my framework's code structure. It doesn't really make for interesting conversation... However, I did participate in yet another game jam. Unfortunately this time our team didn't quite finish the game in time, but we got quite close. I've written about some of the problems we faced in my other blog. Go check it out!

The Body Strikes Back!

This post is more of an observation and summary than anything else, but I decided to share it anyway. This is a somewhat brief summary of one discussion session we had at the summer school workshop.

Before the era of video games, play typically meant something physical, an activity that involved using the entire body. Certainly there were some board games but nevertheless, play was more physical. We can roughly say the same about work, although the shift from entirely physical labor to office jobs happened a little bit earlier than video games, and there have been professions such as scribes who worked on a desk. Nevertheless, even though we cannot point it out directly, there is some point in history where the balance tipped towards work where people mostly sit down. For games, we know that this shift started with video games, so I'm mostly going to discuss what happened there.

The arcade cabinet and especially old mechanical flippers were in fact quite physical, at least compared to home computers and consoles. At the very least, players had to stand in front of arcade cabinets. According to research, sitting is slowly killing us, so at least ye olde arcade games were marginally healthier. Eventually though, gaming moved from arcades to homes in form of consoles, and players were planted on their sofas. The ergonomy of older console controllers and computer accessories was pretty hideous. At that point, most likely nobody cared. What was important was what these wonderful new devices could do, not how comfortable they were to use. Besides, you can play from your couch! How more comfortable can you get?

If we fast-forward to the 20th century, gaming has become more widespread and the new generation of kids is practically growing up playing games. Outdoors playing and sports are not out of the picture, but as is evident from the growing obesity problem, they do not get performed as much as they used to. Technology has transformed play. What was once play of the entire body has now become play of the mind. The percentage of work that's done on a desk is on the rise. We have started to care about ergonomy and game controllers have assumed much friendlier and rounder shapes. This transformation of play happened in a relatively short time (compared to the entire history of play).

The interesting this is what happened next. The 21st century came around, and gaming technology keeps getting better and better. A lot of technology is devoted to creating better graphics, what with the HD resolution and all. However, something else is happening as well: Guitar Hero introduces special controllers to the wider audience. The already iconic plastic guitar makes gameplay a lot more physical in one sweep and becomes a hit. Not to forget dancing games, a phenomenon somewhat older than the guitar concept. Before the next console generation, there are also gadgets like EyeToy for the PlayStation 2. This particular gadget uses a camera to make the user's entire body a controller. Too bad the games were not particularly great and the tech was somewhat limited.

Then, bang, next generation. Nintendo announces Wii (initially titled Revolution) that uses a motion controller as its primary controller. The vision is clear: get people more physically involved in gaming. The console becomes an instant hit, selling to new markets, and the one killer app is the simple Wii Sports, a collection of mini games that make use of the new motion controller. This is curious because not so long ago people were drawn from sports to video games, and now a game that has the players perform mock sports motions becomes a hit. Then Nintendo releases Wii Fit with a balance board controller. Wii becomes an exercise assistant.

Now Sony and Microsoft have followed suit with their own solutions. Move is basically a higher tech Wiimote, with better accuracy and whatnot. Microsoft Kinect on the other hand uses infrared camera technology to do what the EyeToy wasn't able to fully deliver: transforming the player's body into a controller. We've gotten back to standing and waving our hands. It doesn't end here though. While home consoles are playing with motion tracking, mobile game developers are commercializing the concept of alternate reality games run on mobile phones. Running around in the real world is the name of the game. Sound familiar?

It's not like couch gaming has come to the end of its reign. Most mainstream games are still played in the traditional way, using a controller with some buttons. Regardless, the option to play more physically is available for players of video games. We have yet to see the killer game that really sells physical controls to core gamers but in the meanwhile, a lot of people can enjoy more physical activity in front of their televisions and computers. Or they can go outside where with mobile technology and pervasive games even adults can play in a socially acceptable fashion.

So, in a sense, gaming technology has taken a detour. The body lost the game for a while, but now it's back with a vengeance.

How the World Affects Games

Back to the topic of the world and games, it's now time to explore it the other way around. Previously it was concluded that games do indeed have a transforming effect outside the game itself. The term of the magic circle, introduced in Homo Ludens (Johan Huizinga), and explored in detail from the perspective of games in Rules of Play (Salen & Zimmerman), is important in the analysis. As already stated by Salen & Zimmerman, the magic circle blurs in certain gaming activities such as live action roleplaying. This blurring has two directions, games affecting the world, and the world affecting games.

What we mean by the blurring of the magic circle is that: 1) the game is no longer entirely determined by its rules alone but rather affected by external influences and 2) the game's influence is no longer limited to its participants and the area of the magic circle. When we were discussing how the meaning of places changes for geocachers, we were talking about the second point. Ditto for discussion on sub cultures emerging around games. This time we're going to talk about point one. It's quite convenient for me to start with something familiar: geocaching.

If any game is highly affected by the environment where it's played, geocaching fits that definition. Caches are hidden into the environment. The play experience of hiding a cache is defined almost entirely by the physical environment: what are the possible places to hide, are there any interesting terrain challenges available, etc. Similarly, the play experience of seeking a cache reflects these environmental influences. This is largely expandable to any game that takes place in the real world but especially true for games where the arena of play is not involved in the game's design. A live action roleplaying game that is bound to a certain area can be designed with full knowledge of the playing area. Geocaching as an overall game cannot.

If we get back to the magic circle, in the LARP example the magic circle is still effectively closed. The area is bound, the game is played within a certain time frame and people inside the playing area are all participants in the game. LARPs that are not bound to a certain area or time frame are different, and indeed they come closer to what we call alternate reality games. The concept of the magic circle becomes more blurred in these cases. In a sense, a geocacher is always inside the magic circle. However, it is clear that they are not constantly actively participating in the game. When I'm seeking a cache, I have the intention to play, and therefore I am in the game. When I do not have the intention to play, my actions nevertheless affect my performance in the game.

This might need some clarification. Suppose I am playing two games: one on my Playstation Portable, and then geocaching using my navigator. If I choose to travel to Helsinki on a weekend, I can take both of these games with me. However, when I power up my PSP and resume playing a game, the state of the game has not changed due to my being in Helsinki. Geocaching on the other hand has definitely changed: I now have access to caches hidden in Helsinki, but not to caches hidden in Oulu, even though that's where I "signed off" from the game. I have traveled inside the game's world without active participation. From theoretical perspective, when I turn off the PSP, the magic circle effectively goes away entirely; this is not so with geocaching. The circle persists even though I choose not to be actively inside it.

So what's the significance? This: since the magic circle is ubiquitous in alternative reality games (and similar), what follows is that any action can affect the game world. Location-aware gaming is just the tip of the iceberg. Link in data from physiological sensors, or even brainwaves. Suddenly it becomes possible to make a game of everything if we so desire. We can skip points, leaderboards and badges - we can do much better than that. The tech is not so far in the future either and we can start with what is available now.

Lesson from Games: Discarding

This is something I have occasionally thought about, so I'll write it down now. I'll get back to the relationship of games and places next week. It applies especially to board games that require strategic thinking.

In board games, players are typically faced with a certain set of options, and they hold a certain set of resources. Good design principles state that games are designed in such a way that playing them is a series of interesting choices with relevance, and this is especially true of board games where play time is typically limited. This is different from e.g. single player digital games where it is more often possible to explore all the options by spending more time playing. A board game always has a limited duration. To win, each player tries to make the best of each of their turns. One really important strategical decision in many board games is to choose what to pursue. It is often necessary to also commit to this strategy, and this is the important thing. The old proverb about two hares is often very true.

Reiner Knizia, a famous designer, has a particular habit of making games where it is highly important to recognize when something is no longer worth holding on to. In one of his best games, Tigris & Euphrates, the best advice that can be given to new players is "there is no such thing as 'my kingdom'", meaning players should not desperately defend a particular kingdom, even though they have built it (in T&E, players get points for building and destroying kingdoms, not for holding kingdoms). Board games often force players to decide what is least relevant to them by forcing them to sacrifice some resources of their choice. In general, to make the most of their turns and resources, players need to recognize options that are not highly relevant to their strategy and promptly discard those options (e.g. choosing to not produce certain resources in 7 Wonders, effectively closing the opportunity to play certain cards).

The lesson of discarding the slightly less relevant is important for many aspects of life. Especially design. New game designers are always advised to simplify, and then simplify some more. In game design, it's a necessary skill to be able to let go anything that doesn't directly support gameplay of the game. This is no different from, say, user interface design. Simplify, discard, don't fall in love with anything. In programming, this can translate into realizing when a piece of code has to be discarded and written again from scratch to improve the overall code structure. In life it's typically better to find a small amount of things to really focus on.

The reason why I find it cool that games teach this stuff is that we humans often behave against this strategy. In Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely has devoted one chapter to our irrational behavior of trying to keep all of our options open. It is psychologically hard to let go of an option, as long as there is a at least a chance that something might come of it. Of course, games are different in this sense, because it is much easier to accurately know whether an option is going to be any good - still, it's not for certain. If we think rationally, we can assess the potential of our options in real life as well. It's beneficial if we can do this and discard things that are not really relevant.

This is of course part of a larger context of strategic thinking that games, especially board games, teach us.

Back to Work... Let's Talk About Geocaching

Vacation's over and it's time to get back to work. Fortunately talking about play is part of my work, so let's continue on the subject. This would be a good time to talk about geocaching, since it was quite a big part of my vacation. Coincidentally, it's also related to the last blog entry.

Last time, before vacation, I started a series of posts about the relationship of games and places. The first topic was how games can change physical locations. Geocaching (and other similar alternate reality games) is more about changing the player's perspective and perception of physical locations. Explained very briefly, the entire hobby is about finding caches hidden by others, and logging your finds. Anyone can also hide caches, if they follow a few simple rules (mostly common sense). The entire truth is a bit more complex, but we can go on with this description. Read more here. There are many cool aspects. This time we're going to focus on places though.

Quite often geocaches can take seekers to interesting locations they never knew existed. Cities, towns and villages have a lot of cool places that are not in tourist guides nor can anyone realize their coolness by looking at a map. It's a good way to find interesting spots in one's home city. It gets even better when visiting a less familiar city. Geocaches are often found in places with the best scenic views and the most interesting terrain. It also gives more meaning to places. There's no need for me to take photographs of places I've been geocaching in, because I have truly experienced these places. I can easily visualize these places in my mind afterwards and I have much better recollection of a city's layout after looking for caches there.

For a geocacher, certain aspects of places have meanings other people don't really think about. Places can be classified by the types of hiding places they offer. Bridges are to be ducked under. Trees for climbing. Loose stones hide something behind them. Metal structures make one look for magnet caches. At night it is easier to avoid the gazes of geomuggles (people who are not geocachers). Each time I encounter a new cache type my world view expands. Discovering something new is akin to enlightenment. Sometimes it's not just about finding the cache, but also the actual physical challenge of getting to it. I've had to climb trees and navigate building mazes.

Geocaching is not beneficial in a larger scale, but on the individual scale I think it is. For me it has changed the outdoor experience into a much more interesting one, and I get out of my apartment a lot more than I did this time last year. It can also be a social activity. Adult geocachers can go out with their entire family and there's fun for everyone. Some geocaches are quite hard or even impossible to get alone. As with any other game, geocachers can also tank endlessly about their hobby.

In short, geocaching expands and transforms the way the world is seen by an individual. They discover new places, and new aspects about the places they visit.

How Games Affect the World

Finally I have some time to write about the summer school topics. These are some thoughts about how pervasive or ubiquitous technologies can affect the relationship of games and the world.

If we think about games and culture, the relationship is similar to that of games and play. In one way, games are a subset of play. In another way, play is a part of games. Repeat for culture. Even though the concept of the magic circle makes play happen in a kind of a vacuum, this is not exactly true. There are entire sub-cultures built around games. Sports being a more known example, but also in many countries, there is now a huge tournament culture around certain highly competitive games. This game culture is known commonly as eSports, which shows its relation to traditional sports. Of course, there have been huge cultures around games in the past as well. Chess is a popular example of a traditional game.

However, simply building a sub-culture around something does not necessarily mean that it changes our culture as a whole. If games are to have a truly transforming effect it is not enough to simply spawn small sub-cultures. The most important sports events are tied strongly to national identity. We used the recent ice hockey world championship won by Finland as an example a lot. While the game itself happens in an ice rink, it is being followed in households all over the country. This year our victory briefly transformed our marketplaces into huge public sites of celebration. To have a bigger effect, a game has to affect even those are not directly involved.

We can design games like Cruel 2 B Kind (McGonigal et al.) This game is played in a public place. Players, not knowing who are the other players, try to finish each other off with compliments. Of course, this results in the innocent bystanders being also targeted by compliments, which is a good thing (although in Finland especially could be seen as very weird!) For the duration of the game, the playsite transforms into a much kinder place. This and other games like it are a promising start. However, for a larger transformation, we need pervasive games that are not run by any organizer, but that run constantly with the help of computing technology. We have entertainment alternate reality games that run without organizers (e.g. Shadow Cities) and beneficial alternate reality games are bound to follow.

I believe that we need to bring technology into the equation of beneficial games. We can show how the concept works with low or no technology, but eventually, to really have an impact, technology becomes almost a necessity. I'm saying almost, because it's always possible to make a massively multiplayer alternate reality game without much technology (geocaching is a good example, although it uses a GPS, you can play the game without one too). However, the options are more limited without technology. Using the right technologies, we can achieve anything. This is the UbiComp vision that I subscribe to. Be it games or whatever, the technology of the future pushes us to save the world, and we'll have fun while doing it.

The ultimate point is that eventually bystanders need to gain benefit. It's not plausible to expect a majority of a population to be engaged in a world-saving game. However, it is quite possible that the play efforts of a certain group can improve the lives of everyone. Designing games for self-improvement is a challenging goal - designing games for "positive collateral damage" is even more challenging. We can all change the world a little by becoming better, but real change requires more effort - and better games.

This was a brief look into the subject. I'll dig into other aspects in future posts.

The Two Angles of Attack

When considering use of games and game design in non-gaming contexts, I think it's safe to say that we can clearly separate two approaches: starting from the game and starting from the activity or task. Nothing spectacular here, but let's discuss this anyway.

I'll start with starting from the task. This is what is called popularly gamification, or what I previously decided to call game designed activity. I am not sure if I'll stick with that though. In an article I'm writing I'm using the term game-enhanced task. Moving back to the point, the core of this approach is that we have a task and by applying game design or game mechanics we seek to increase motivation in people to undertake that particular task. Scores and other means of virtualized feedback can be considered the basic case. The task is typically measured. We can introduce goals and challenges to improve the task's completion structure.

The other angle starts with the game. This is basically what serious games are about. Instead of adding enhancements onto a task, we take the task and include it as a key mechanic in a game. The key difference is that we re-frame the task entirely. Players playing the game need not even be aware of the actual task that is being done. To them it is simply an essential part of the game, and any benefit produced by the task is, again from their point of view, a side product. This bears a whole lot of resemblance to what is suggested by McGonigal (and many others I am sure) in her book and talks.

One interesting question is that do these approaches converge at some point? If we enhance a task enough with game-like elements, do we arrive at a point where there is so much additions around the task that has in fact become a core element of a game. Or do these two approaches start off in entirely different directions, resulting in applications that will generally not resemble each other. This is an interesting question, and one that I believe will be answered in the coming years when simple gamification techniques lose their novelty due to overuse. Soon the easy way will cease to work, then what?

Let's face it, the latter form is much harder to design. Some tasks are really hard to make into a game mechanic, even though it is possible to enhance them with game mechanics. Educational games seem to be running into this problem a lot: making an educational game that really teaches the subject while still being clearly a game is not an easy task. Mathematics has it easy: math is problem solving, games are problem solving. Framing mathematical problems as game puzzles is as straightforward as it gets. This doesn't make it easy of course, but easier. However, initially I think enhancing tasks with game mechanics will seem much more attractive, especially since the name gamification carries the illusion that it is easy (which it is not).

It is unavoidable that both of these approaches will face the same problems as games, or any products really. Novelty wears off quickly and after that only quality matters. However I believe that the future belongs to the game angle, at least where it is applicable. And it will become more applicable with ubiquitous computing technologies and smart game designers. However, all our beneficial games will have to compete with entertainment games (which is one problem with educational games). Are we up to task this time around? We shall see.

Anyhow, the implications of these two angles are an interesting question that I believe has not been asked yet. It is not a straightforward topic to explore, because whenever two approaches are combined there are a lot of variables and it is hard to control the ones that are not relevant to the study. This could well be my topic.

Education: The Game

Just a short post. If we think of typical university education as a game, it is horribly flawed. I'm going to use one abstract course as a test unit for this analysis.

The game starts with the player having some resources (including skills etc.) which they have earned from previous games. Hopefully they can remember all that stuff, because this game is not going to re-iterate over that material. Often they are at least told what resources they should have before starting this game. When the game starts, it's level after level situations where the player gains resources. They just are not told what these resources do and how much they actually have them, because this information is completely invisible. Often these levels feel like grinding. Grinding for random drops, but the player doesn't even know what is dropped.

Skip to the end of the game. The infamous boss monster, The Exam. Now the player is rewarded for having all those bits of resources they have gained. Most players go grind for resources in completed levels just to be sure. Some just run through the levels, and only start getting resources a few days before the boss fight. After the boss dies, the player has to wait a while. Then they are told whether the boss actually died.

Our education system is like a game where all meaning is packed to the very end. We just grind through the levels until we get to the end and only then it is revealed to us whether that grinding was useful or not. Would you play this game? If it takes 40 hours? Or you could just skip the grinding for permanent resources, do a quick grind for some one-time items and defeat the boss. You get the same reward but your character has gained next to nothing. The game doesn't really reward you for having a better character, only defeating bosses.

I think this needs to go.

A Look at Games - Chime

It's been a while since my last look at games. Should write more of these. Really should. But I live under the fiction that I can write reviews of everything I play, and that most of those games are not relevant. Reality is, I am now some twenty games behind on my reviews, so it's not looking too good. I could perhaps give myself game design experience for writing reviews. Anyway, back to the point. Chime is finally available for the PlayStation 3.

So what is Chime? It's a puzzle game where the gameplay affects the background music. Remember Lumines? Same concept, but really different gameplay. What these games have in common is the beatline that erases complete blocks (called quads in Chime) from the board. However, in Chime, the beatline also 'plays' the blocks laid on the grid, creating sound effects to go with the music. The goal of the game is to fill the grid. Erasing a quad colors the grid filled underneath it. The player places blocks that are much like Tetris blocks, except these are made of five squares against Tetris's four, which allows more varied shapes. The trick in Chime is this: only a subset of all the available pieces can be used in a level. Better rethink that strategy!

Quads leave fragments. Fragments vanish after a few passes by the beatline, and when that happens, the player loses their score multiplier, which is a big loss. Building perfect quads avoids the problem as there are no fragments left over from the quad. Basically that is all there is to it. The gameplay is not as simple as, say, Lumines, but it is far from complex. Does it work? Hell yeah. Chime feels a lot more relaxed than Lumines. Then again, I'm not very good at it yet, so this will most likely change when I go from "recognize the possible quads" to "do the quads at crazy speed". I like the puzzle aspect of figuring out how to form perfect quads from sets of different blocks.

Chime has awesome atmosphere. The music component seems to work even better than it does in Lumines, which is an impressive achievement. Especially some of the songs are really relaxing, and the way the game is staged means they will be different on every go of the beatline. It's not a coincidence that the game states "Play music in Chime" as a description of selecting 'play' in the main menu. The game even has a scoreless mode for those who want to just enjoy the music and place some blocks at a leisurely pace to alter their experience.

In a way, Chime is a new way to experience music. Unlike band games that allow the player to imitate the music, Chime allows the player produce the music. It does so in a limited way to ensure that the result actually sounds good but nevertheless, the music becomes an interactive experience in a different manner. It also somewhat different from Lumines where player actions directly produce sounds (however, Lumines also has sounds when the beatline erases blocks, but they are not as varied as they are in Chime).

Point of this post? Well not much really, I just wanted to highlight this game as it is yet another really intense experience. Play it and you will hopefully learn, something. It's not an impossible idea to add similar ways of altering background music to tasks such as writing. A beatline goes over your text and plays the letters or something like that. It could be an interesting curiosity to try it, even with just one song. Make a song, decompose it to effects and layers, then tie playing of different layers and effects to events done during a task.

Just some food for thought. And I really needed to gain some exp today.

Level Up!

I gained my first character level in my job game yesterday. My programming and research skills are now at level 2 and my reading skill at level 3. I haven't gained any achievements yet.

Today I started a bigger task and I realized my quest list for that task is way too short. This is one thing that is important with these kinds of games: it's necessary to have quests that cover everything there is to do, and can be done in a short time. If it takes too long to complete a quest, the progress following aspect of the game is lost. So I will need to rewrite the quest list for a bit. I still haven't come up with any really cool achievements.

So is it helping any? I think it is. The small tasks, which I usually hate doing, get done when they are framed as easy experience. The fact that I actually keep a list of them is probably more helpful though. Even though exp gaining doesn't really contribute towards anything, there is a certain amount of satisfaction gained simply from updating the character sheet. It's that small moment of closure, for a task done. I like that. Maybe a normal task list would have the same effect, but it does have slightly less to do when a task is complete - primarily, there is no reward.

I have thought of another thing that could help me guide my efforts: boss monsters. These would be simple challenges that can be defeated when I have the right combination of skill levels. Again, no real purpose, but like achievements, they would provide more goals. More goals often equals better as there are more reasons to do a task. One way to do boss monsters would be to use a random generator with total skill level requirement as an input and per skill level requirements as output. For example, a level ten boss could require programming at 6, game design at 3 and writing at 4. After defeating that boss, there would be another boss, one level higher and so on. At the end of my thesis work I could see how many bosses I have managed to beat.

That was actually such a cool idea that I'll go and implement the boss generator after finishing this post. Maybe I'll have a couple parallel dungeons so that if there is a boss I get stuck on for a really long time, I can explore the other dungeon in the meanwhile. Or maybe there could be three bosses for each level, and I need to beat one in order to proceed. That sounds even better. Let's do it, bye for now.

Gamification - Motivation and Motivation Schemes

It's been a while since the last entry - I have been busy with stuff and thinking about what direction my research should take. Now I'm back at writing again and it's time to resume the tradition of book summaries. About a month ago I finished reading three books from the list of gamification books on gamification.org wiki. By the time I selected which books to read the list was actually much shorter and I picked every book I had not read yet. These were: Fun Inc. : Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century (Tom Chatfield), Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges and Contests (Gabe Zichermann & Joselin Linder) and Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete (Byron Reeves & J. Leighton Read).

One common point that was made in all the books was this: like it or not, the future belongs to gamers. The youth of today almost live and breathe video games. Scratch that, it's not just the youth that play games these days. Game-Based Marketing has some relatively recent statistics but the web can most likely do better. Nevertheless, gaming has made some serious conquests: first mobile and more recently social networks. Chatfield focuses his entire book on just exploring the growing phenomenon and does a good job of telling people what is gaming all about. His book might not hold any revolutionary ideas of how to gamify things but is suggested reading for people who are skeptical of gaming in general.

Of course the logical step that should follow is that if everyone's a gamer sooner or later, does it not make sense to transform our daily activities to take advantage of this playful attitude? Indeed, it seems that many people think it does. On top of presenting many good suggestions on how to use virtual worlds and certain principles from them in work, Reeves & Read also present a rather thorough comparison of work and World of Warcraft guild activities. The two are strikingly (but not surprisingly) similar. There is just one major difference: people are paid to work but they pay to play WoW. Clearly, work needs to improve. The answer is gamification of work. I don't think we will see complete virtual worlds to support work anywhere in the future, but that doesn't mean we can't take a lot of good influences from games in general.

The idea is nowhere near new, and has been employed in various forms. The authors of Game-Based Marketing seem to have especially fallen in love with airlines' frequent flyer point systems, and they analyse it heavily. After reading the analysis I actually found it a bit disturbing. In gaming, I think there are good, bad and ugly motivational schemes. Normal, especially single player core games, are mostly on the good side - they are based on learning and problem solving (i.e. the stuff that is emphasized in good game design literature). The bad is grinding (i.e. doing the same thing all over again in hope of (random) prizes), present in massively multiplayer online games in particular. The ugly? Taking advantage of social pressure. The whole "you will look bad at the eyes of your peers if you don't X".

The last one I've labeled ugly because it's kind of in the grey area. Competition also falls there in a way, when you think about the people who are last on various lists. It also has to do with keeping up appearances, which can be an important motivation to some people. However the problem is that it can make some people feel incredibly bad about themselves. This is actually something worth a lot of consideration about gamification: if playing is no longer voluntary (being part of one's job for example), will it have negative consequences on some people? I think it's a problem when games are creating more social pressure. There's enough of that around as is.

Overall, the bad and the ugly are a huge ethic dilemma. The gaming industry is in it for the money, and these motivational schemes are excellent at keeping players playing, and therefore keeping the revenue streams stable. The same goes for other commercial types of gamification such as marketing. Gamification is powerful, I think at this point there's no denying it. In academic research it should be our goal to put some serious consideration to these ethical questions, and strive to create beneficial gamification. I mean, really improve lives. This is what my research will be about.

As a finisher, I seriously recommend reading Fun Inc. and Total Engagement. These are really solid books that summarize why you should consider gamification - of everything.

Casual Connect Europe 2011

Let's start by saying that the last couple weeks have been interesting times. The game we made at the Global Game Jam got nominated in the Gamesauce Challenge. As a result, I traveled to Hamburg, Germany, to take part in Casual Connect and to present Hamsters and Plague. While Casual Connect is a business conference, I went there with research interests. Turns it was indeed useful.

First of all, getting involved with the actual games biz helps me understand better what kinds of games sell right now. This valuable information tells me where I should look when searching inspiration. It also gives me a bit of credibility as a game designer, so that when I claim to take influences from game design people can assume I actually know what I'm talking about. Having contacts who know the business facts of games can't hurt either. So yeah, the people angle, definitely a good thing.

Second, the lectures I attended there were also quite useful for my next project. I took special interest in all things related to social gaming (i.e. gaming on social networks) and learned a lot of stuff that might not seem relevant to researchers at first, but is of tremendous advantage when deploying serious games and game-like applications in the real world. It is much easier to do wide scale research if I our applications are actually used by real people, of their own free will.

Now back to the usual stuff. I've been reading on gamification, so perhaps a summary is in order next. Until then, bye.

Global Game Jam 2011

Last weekend was made of small amount of sleep and lots of game development. In about thirty hours we designed and implemented a game, Hamsters and Plague. It's a tile-based puzzle game about the survival of hamsters after a plague. You can find information on the game from our project page. I have also started a blog for future development and other related discussion.

Making a game in such a short time is awesome in many ways. Especially learning. I will try to make a proper post mortem on our project when I'm less tired (later this week) and post it to the Hamsters and Plague blog. Naturally it's also important for my research to have actual game development experience. I once again realized how hard it is to evaluate learnability of something made by yourself and our game definitely could do a better job. Which I hope it will do in the future if I have the time to develop it further.

I'm also thinking that something like this would be a really good way to teach programming and team development. A rather tight time limit does wonders to motivation, at least when the topic is one that interests everyone. While school environment doesn't support over-the-weekend courses very well, something similar should be possible. Maybe we could give students credit points for participating in next year's Global Game Jam.

On Controllers - Is the Keyboard Evil?

In this post I am presenting just some random feelings I have about controllers - mainly gaming controllers. These days it is not uncommon for a game to be released on multiple platforms: PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. One key difference between the PC and the latter two is the way games are controlled. PC games have been using keyboard and mouse for ages already. Console games have been using gaming pads with varying number of buttons (and later analog thumb sticks).

NES controllers had a whopping four buttons and the iconic digital directional controller (aka D-pad). Back then, console games had relatively simple interaction. These days gaming pads have quite a bit more. The D-pad is still there but its use for movement is diminishing and has been largely replaced by an analog thumb stick which allows more accurate control. Another analog thumb stick has been added to the right hand side. Four digital buttons under the right thumb. One digital and one analog shoulder button on each side (for index and middle fingers). Start and select buttons in the middle. A total of 10 buttons and three directional controllers. Out of these, only the start and select buttons are not within instant reach.

On the other side of the fence, a keyboard has at least 102 keys. By using combinations of shift and alt keys, a plethora of characters can be produced with a keyboard. In gaming it is typical to use just one hand on the keyboard (assuming the game requires a mouse). If I place my hand in the classic WASD position (used by gamers for movement, although I actually use WAXD), I can reach about twenty buttons with my fingers quite easily. A typical mouse has three buttons and a wheel these days. Mouse movement typically controls a cursor, camera movement or looking (in fps games). While the difference is not as dramatic as it was in the NES era, the PC gamer still has a lot more buttons available.

So is the keyboard evil? In terms of learning, I am leaning towards yes. Figuring out what key does what is a huge task as there are many to try (remember, sometimes alt, ctrl and shift combinations do different things!) without a reference. Remembering them is another thing. On a pad it doesn't take that long to try each button to see what it does. With modern games it's not exactly as straightforward, but I'll come to that in a bit. A large amount of possibilities is also not always best for interaction design. A pad is a constrained design space - once you run out of buttons to assign actions to it's time to optimize your control scheme. On a keyboard it might be a bit too easy to just add another key.

On the other hand, PC gamers have high customization options for their control layouts. If one thing is seriously wrong with console game makers, it's this: too few games allow remapping of controls. Even if this would be almost trivial to implement. This is not a problem until we run into button combinations. 8 actions in a modern game is often not enough. On pads, developers are overcoming the problem by assigning actions to button combinations - typically combined presses of shoulder and thumb buttons. What I personally don't understand is putting actions behind combinations of two thumb buttons. Hello, I only have one thumb to press these buttons with. Pressing two buttons with one thumb ranges from okay (buttons that are on the same diagonal direction the thumb points to - for example triangle and circle on the PS3 pad) to anatomically impossible (the buttons are on opposite corners of the pad layout - for example, square and circle on the PS3 pad).

Some games handle large amount of actions on a pad gracefully (recent example: Darksiders). Some games on the other hand clearly do not (recent example: Prototype). I've heard (I don't have a modern PC, so I haven't tried) that a modern problem with multi-platform PC games is that their controls have been poorly implemented. The developers have designed console control first (because they are more restrictive) and then made as direct a port as possible to the PC, resulting in game play that is clearly not optimized for the keyboard + mouse combination. While 20 keys are reachable when using WASD, it's worthwhile to remember that at least two fingers are reserved for movement buttons most of the time. It takes some training to use all 20 reachable keys without fluidly.

So what does this random train of thought have to do with usability? For starters, design for your controller. If it easily affords only ten actions, don't try to put twelve in your application. Combinations of keys are typically bad because they make actions "invisible". This can be overcome with clever modifier design. In the console version of Assassin's Creed, thumb buttons are mapped to body parts with spatial association: top button is for eyes, left for left hand, right for right hand and bottom button for legs. When a modifier button is pressed, the action changes accordingly. If the character is in stealth mode, the actions will be subtle - if he is not, they will be more rash. The button for one hand can make the character push crowds aside gently, or throw them aside while rushing through.

Another way to go is visual feedback: when a modifier is pressed, display what buttons do on the screen. This is especially good for learning your controller and interface combination. Packing too much information into the buttons should be avoided - a lot of people might not realize that the spatial arrangement of symbols on a key on a keyboard indicate which modifier should be pressed along with that key to get a particular symbol. When the controller is relatively small, this kind of visual feedback on the display is feasible. For keyboards it would be way too much information.

Coming back to the keyboard, typing is what it affords best. If your application needs a lot of typing, using a keyboard is a necessity and coming up with a replacement that is as easy to learn and as efficient (chord keyboards are more effective but difficult to learn) might provide a rather interesting challenge. However, when binding other actions than typing to the keyboard, defining a good scheme becomes important. Shortcuts for example feel rather arbitrary in most modern applications (which is why I called for customizable shortcuts earlier) . There aren't even any standards between vendors which is a disaster.

Short version? I guess it's "pads rule!"

Introducing STAGE

It's been a while since the last entry. There are things going on, and interesting stuff is about to happen. Results will follow. In the meanwhile, I'd like to talk about STAGE (backronym under discussion). In short, it's a game development club primarily for students in the Oulu region. The ball was set rolling by me and Ari Kangasniemi (Games Research Center, University of Oulu) earlier this Autumn.

The point of STAGE is to offer students interested in any aspect of game development a local community. We don't have that much gamedev studying options in Oulu (next to none at the uni, some at other schools) but apparently we do have lots of students interested in it. Bringing them together is a logical step, one that should have been taken some time ago. Now it's under way. We will provide information about work and study possibilities, self-study resources and a channel of communication for starting projects and getting people to work on them.

For my own research, the club is an important channel to gamedev. It is also a limited possibility to work on some game projects that might support my research, assuming I can make them interesting enough to get people participate in them. But that is definitely in the future. For now, I think the most important aspect is being able to contact other people interested in gamedev. Throw around ideas and, of course, make some games. Stuff I'm really looking forward to are game jams. First our local practice jam, then Global Game Jam next January. I think I'll focus on programming there, unless I come up with some really impressive design and decide to pitch it.

I think that's it for this interlude. Expect updates on STAGE after said jams, and possibly other stuff as well. In the meanwhile, if you are interested, go take a look at our forums (they are in Finnish though).

Cooperation in Games (and Elsewhere)

Last week on Friday I and a few fellow researchers were taking part in a cooperative game session. The purpose of that particular game is to improve communication inside teams. We tried it out for more research-oriented reasons. There is a lot we already know about playing together and cooperation but this doesn't prevent me from thinking it a bit. So here we go: another game-related blog topic. Just some general thoughts about cooperation.

Lately I have mostly cooperated with other players in board games. Recently cooperative board games have been on the rise. They are a good concept for a couple of reasons. First of all, in cooperative games it is less important for the players to be evenly matched. They are competing against the game after all, not each other (although some of them have one or two players as traitors trying to undermine the others!) This makes them more accessible to less than hardcore players. The other reason is just that thinking together is Fun (yes with a capital F). I also do believe these kinds of games are good for improving communication skills (there is most likely research done on this subject, something I'll have to dig up later).

Board games also integrate the benefit of bringing people together into the same physical space. However, cooperation in digital games over the internet is no less fun. One quite important difference worth notice is what skills each player brings to the game. In board games, players mostly bring just their brain. Manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination and so on are not really important because the games are not played in real time*. In digital games played on consoles or computers, players typically need to be familiar with appropriate input devices. Real-time games typically also require reflexes. First-person shooters require good hand-eye coordination. Put simply, they are somewhat less accessible for non-experienced players.

Digital games do have a benefit over most cooperative board games. In board games, where thinking time is theoretically infinite one player can, in theory, play the game by himself. This causes a situation where less experienced players find themselves being told exactly what they should do on their turns. This is seen as a problem among the board gaming community, largely because in board games carrying out actions is trivial. Fun is in the thinking. In digital games it is much easier for game developers to make games where one experienced player cannot play for the whole team. Experienced players can still be leaders, giving out directions or even orders (in more organized play) but overall success is much more dependent on everyone's skills.

Assuming the aim is to improve everyone's communication skills, some tricks can be employed. Many board games employ rules that somehow limit communication. For instance, in many cooperative board games players are not allowed to show their cards to others. Often it is even forbidden to talk about one's cards in detail. Another thing that can be done in board games is enforcing time limits. If time is limited, one experienced player simply doesn't have enough time to mind everyone else's playing. Basically any kind of knowledge distribution scheme works wonders.

In digital games critical resources can be distributed among the players. When everyone can do something others can not, everyone needs to be involved. In most games, location can be considered a resource. Information visible from one particular place can be valuable and therefore require one player to stay there and report said information to others. Generally speaking, dividing the game to multiple terminals (computers or consoles) allows more player specific information which is also harder to convey to others. In the spirit of time limits, the game could even enforce microphone time limits. Speak too much, and your mic goes silent leaving leading for someone else to do.

Ahem. Looks like I sidetracked quite a bit. But hey, at least now you might know more about the specifics of cooperative games. Cooperative play is motivating. Winning or losing is no longer just about yourself but the whole team. It also makes many seemingly less interesting games much more interesting (try and play some coop board games solo, they are quite boring). Cooperation is also generally important at work. Most people these days don't work solo. As usual, there are two angles when looking at games and real life cooperation. The first angle is improving communication skills via suitable cooperative games or game-like activities. The second angle is making tasks more motivating by increasing game-like cooperation.

The second angle is a matter of tools. Cooperation generally leads to better results and is therefore already desirable. Many applications on the other do not support cooperation. Means of remote communicating need more improvement. Voice and text are often insufficient. It is much more powerful to show things. Solutions have been developed and will be developed in the future. One important requirement for communication and cooperation is that it needs to be effortless. Cooperating with people on the other side of the globe should be as effective as with people in the same office. At the moment this clearly is not so. Perhaps games can help us here. That is one more question for me to think about.

* There is at least one really good exception. Space Alert is a game where players together as a team have exactly ten minutes to plan all of their actions for the game. These are then carried out afterwards to see how the plan holds together. The time limit demands quick thinking and really good coordination from players.

Goal Forming

The last aspect I'll explore in the flow series of posts is goals. This writing has a companion article I have written for Tiny Universes, which explores how rewarding certain kinds of behavior can change how a game is played entirely, using two games as examples. In general, goal forming is an important aspect of user experience, and on lower level also pure usability. The usability aspect is explained well enough on The Design of Everyday Things (Don Norman) - in short, the user needs to be able to understand what goals can be set when using a given interface, and how to use that interface to achieve those goals.

When discussing achievements a couple of posts back, I mentioned they have more to do with goal forming than anything else. When a player plays a game, her first goals are typically to learn the game, proceed through its levels (or whatever) and finish it. There are of course various sub-goals while playing. Achievements or trophies often come into play afterwards and collecting them is another goal. It can also be argued that good trophies are ones that give the player some clear additional goals, which will increase the longevity of the game and therefore improve its value for money ratio. Case in point, before we had these modern consoles with their trophy or achievement systems, Star Ocean 3 had built-in battle trophies. It took me about 50 hours to finish the game, and then I spent another 250 or more hours collecting trophies (I'm still missing 7 out of 300).

In general, a good trophy challenges the player to play the game differently, introducing more difficulty. In Mirror's Edge there is a trophy that requires you to not shoot a single shot during the game. BioShock rewards the player for playing without resurrection chambers turned on. And of course Star Ocean 3 rewarded so many different and interesting things that it kept me hooked for a long time. Typically the only reward is a reminder in your account that you've gotten the trophy, although some games (like Final Fantasy XIII) hand out some minor gifts like operating system themes for getting trophies. Bad trophies are the kind that just require the player to do some repetitive thing a lot of times. More of the same is not very interesting, but doing the same thing differently can be.

Now, let's exit games for a while. With interfaces, especially in interactive spaces where interfaces can be abundant, it is important to get the users to form the right goals. By this I of course mean we need to assist them in forming goals that are relevant to them, assuming they are using our interfaces at leisure. In a work situation on the other hand we might want to introduce reward schemes that support effective work. Regardless of situation though, it's useful to keep the requirements of flow in mind: the user cannot achieve flow if he cannot set goals. So even before thinking what kinds of goals our interface should support, it needs to support goal forming in general. It can then be useful to do some research on what kinds of goals a prototype inspires in people, and then think how they could be adjusted, if necessary.

When the overall goal of an activity is fixed, the system should aid users in forming sub-goals that help them move towards the overall goal and stay motivated. If the activity can be split into a plethora of short-term goals, progress is easy to measure, and if there is flexibility in task order, users can also select short-term goals that are a good match for their current skills. In general, people split activities into short-term goals all the time when working but it definitely cannot hurt to make systems that support keeping track of these goals, and that can also suggest goals.

Before achievements and trophies entered the life of gamers, people used to make up their own challenges. These were definitely no less interesting, but of course no one was certain whether a challenge would be possible at all until someone completed it. With formal trophies, game developers can design the challenges and ensure that they are indeed possible to reach (although, some of the craziest ones are almost unreachable). So for example, in order to improve my writing, I could use a text editor that has various trophies for using language in special ways, like "use 5 different synonyms for a common word in one article". Of course I can make up all these challenges myself, or search the internet, but if it is in fact built into my interface, they are constantly present and easily available for viewing.

Overall, goal forming is a highly relevant topic for user experience. I have once again just scratched the surface, but already discovered at least two important aspects of it. The first one is to gain an understanding of what goals users can form when using your interface. The second one is guiding users to form goals that are constructive towards the overall goal of a larger activity. If every phase of an activity can has its own short-term goal, the user experience is likely to improve. This is too often not the case when viewing the learning curves of more complex applications.

Difficulty Regulation

Lumines got me again. I hadn't played it for a while, and then yesterday I decided to sink my teeth in once again. It had one mode I hadn't really tackled before: a puzzle mode where the aim is not to score points, but to form various shapes of one color from the blocks. The reason I hadn't tried it before was that I had to actually check the internet to understand how I'm supposed to form those shapes. So there's a quick lesson: sometimes instructions are simply needed. But that is not the topic today. There is a reason I mentioned Lumines and the puzzle mode though, and we'll get to it soon enough.

Difficulty regulation strategies in games are important tools for keeping the player in flow. One quite obvious strategy is to simply include multiple difficulty modes to play the game in, allowing the player to choose a mode he deems suitable for himself. Of course, one problem is: how can the player know which one to pick? Sometimes descriptions can help, such as BioShock's "Choose this if you have never played first person shooters before" description for its easy mode. This is a relatively simple strategy to implement and has the benefit of hugely improving a game's life cycle for advanced players. The only thing a game designer needs to worry about is making the correct adjustments to make the feel more difficult but not unfair. Also, players might need some encouragement that after finishing the game, their skills are on the level needed to tackle the more difficult mode.

Difficulty increase built into progression in the game is most likely the most common way. The next level is typically more difficult than the one before it. Yet it is not always easy to design a suitable difficulty ramp. In many games, some of the most challenging moments are somewhere in the middle - towards the end, player skills and character powers are becoming too big for the challenge. Another thing is that the difficulty curve should not be a ramp. I think it's important to drop in tasks that are a bit more lenient than the previous ones. This way the player, after mastering some tough challenge, can actually feel that he has gotten better, as problems that are still much harder than the first ones are becoming easy. This is exactly how the puzzle mode in Lumines got me so addicted. Every time I succeeded at a hard problem, the next ones felt like a breeze and got me to play more and more. When the next harder problem hit, I already had felt the satisfaction of success, and I was mentally prepared to face it.

Finally there's dynamic difficulty regulation. In this case, the game uses some mechanism to figure out when the player is not doing too good, and then proceeds to make the game easier. Sometimes this difficulty reduction is invisible, affecting only numbers inside the game's engine or reducing the effectiveness of artificial intelligence - other times it is more visible, when the game reduces the challenge itself by introducing fewer enemies for example. So essentially the game cheats for the player's advantage. This is quite typical in tabletop role-playing games as well when the game master makes his die rolls in secret, and can then freely adjust the result to keep the game more enjoyable. The problem with this approach is that some players might indeed feel cheated out of the challenge. Frankly, they don't appreciate your concern. Personally I think there should always be the option to turn dynamic difficulty regulation off.

Finally, multi-player games where players compete with each other are difficulty regulated by player skill. In these games, one important aspect is to try and match players with somewhat equal skill levels to keep everyone in the flow zone (i.e. not bored and not frustrated).

So, these are the most typical ways games do their best to keep players in flow. Can these strategies be used for real-life applications and tasks? It does seem to highly depend on the task. Difficulty is typically in the task itself, so we really cannot touch it. What applications can do though is to suggest a good task order for the user, based on past performance and statistics. This way users can more easily find tasks that match their skills. This approach does seem more suitable for tasks that are part of hobbies - at work the list of available tasks is often narrow, and there is not much choice in what to do and when.

One other way applications can do difficulty regulation is the level of automation, which I have already discussed in an earlier post. At first, tasks can be done in less detail, relying more on the application to work its best guess magic. When the user becomes more familiar with the application and tasks, more and more control is placed in the user's hands. Of course, the user will need full capability to override the machine's decision at any time, regardless of "difficulty mode".

I guess that's it for today.