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1. Deriving quests from open world mechanics

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3102071.3102098  

   Alexander, Ryan; Martens, Chris (August 2017, FDG '17: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games)

   null (Ed.)

   Open world games present players with more freedom than games with linear progression structures. However, without clearly-defined objectives, they often leave players without a sense of purpose. Most of the time, quests and objectives are hand-authored and overlaid atop an open world's mechanics. But what if they could be generated organically from the gameplay itself? The goal of our project was to develop a model of the mechanics in Minecraft that could be used to determine the ideal placement of objectives in an open world setting. We formalized the game logic of Minecraft in terms of logical rules that can be manipulated in two ways: they may be executed to generate graphs representative of the player experience when playing an open world game with little developer direction; and they may be statically analyzed to determine dependency orderings, feedback loops, and bottlenecks. These analyses may then be used to place achievements on gameplay actions algorithmically. 

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2. "I Want To See How Smart This AI Really Is": Player Mental Model Development of an Adversarial AI Player

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3549482  

   Villareale, Jennifer; Harteveld, Casper; Zhu, Jichen (October 2022, Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction)

   Understanding players' mental models are crucial for game designers who wish to successfully integrate player-AI interactions into their game. However, game designers face the difficult challenge of anticipating how players model these AI agents during gameplay and how they may change their mental models with experience. In this work, we conduct a qualitative study to examine how a pair of players develop mental models of an adversarial AI player during gameplay in the multiplayer drawing game iNNk. We conducted ten gameplay sessions in which two players (n = 20, 10 pairs) worked together to defeat an AI player. As a result of our analysis, we uncovered two dominant dimensions that describe players' mental model development (i.e., focus and style). The first dimension describes the focus of development which refers to what players pay attention to for the development of their mental model (i.e., top-down vs. bottom-up focus). The second dimension describes the differences in the style of development, which refers to how players integrate new information into their mental model (i.e., systematic vs. reactive style). In our preliminary framework, we further note how players process a change when a discrepancy occurs, which we observed occur through comparisons (i.e., compare to other systems, compare to gameplay, compare to self). We offer these results as a preliminary framework for player mental model development to help game designers anticipate how different players may model adversarial AI players during gameplay. 

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3. Dynamic Suspense Management Through Adaptive Gameplay

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95531-1_7  

   Levin, Robert; Zartman, Skyler; Zhu, Ying (February 2022, International Conference on ArtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation)

   Suspense is an important emotion for the enjoyment of games. Various methods have been proposed to manage suspense in games. Most existing works focus on managing suspense via storytelling or artifacts, such as sound effects. However, little work has been done in studying how to use gameplay to manage suspense. In this paper, we present a study in which we developed a horror-adventure game with a built-in suspense manager based on adaptive gameplay. We conducted a small user study to evaluate the effect of dynamic suspense management on game players. Our results showed that gameplay could potentially be used to manage the level of suspense experienced by players, independent of the story and artifacts in the game. The work discussed in this paper will provide game designers with new tools for suspense management in non-narrative-based games. 

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4. Student Strategies Playing Vector Unknown Echelon Seas, a 3D IOLA Videogame

   Plaxco, David; Mauntel, Matthew; Zandieh, Michelle (January 2023, Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education)

   Cook, Samuel; Katz, Brian; Moore-Russo, Deborah (Ed.)

   We present preliminary results of students’ strategies playing Vector Unknown: Echelon Seas [VUES], a 3D videogame intended to support student reasoning about vectors. Our team designed VUES by drawing on theories from Inquiry-Oriented Instruction (IOI), Game-Based Learning [GBL] and Realistic Mathematics Education [RME]. VUES builds from a prior 2D game by giving players vectors with 1, 2, or 3 components, depending on the level. We use codes from our team’s prior analysis (Mauntel et al, 2020) to analyze strategies in the 3D game. Early results show that students develop similar strategies during 3D gameplay as other students developed while playing the 2D game. However, we have also found new strategies that we did not witness with 2D gameplay, requiring us to extend our coding scheme. Further, early results emphasized the need for design changes to the 3D game to better support players’ progress. 

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5. “Reef Survivor”: A new board game designed to teach college and university undergraduate students about reef ecology, evolution, and extinction

   https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2221818  

   Martindale, Rowan C; Sulbaran_Reyes, Barbara Sofia; Sinha, Sinjini; Cooc, North (January 2024, Journal of Geoscience Education)

   Educational geoscience games have been increasing in popularity because they promote learning through amusement and encourage students to engage with topical material and each other. Here we describe a new board game, “Reef Survivor”, and its use as an instructional tool in undergraduate classes. The educational objective is to teach players about ecology, evolution, and environmental perturbations, while the gameplay objective is to build a resilient reef ecosystem. Through collaborative and competitive gameplay, students learn about evolution mechanics—mutation, migration, and natural selection—as well as ecology and how reefs survive natural disasters. The game blends informed decision making and chance to encourage students to learn and model complex Earth systems and evolutionary processes. Students choose their environment and reef community, whereas chance influences mutations and disasters. The game was incorporated in undergraduate classroom activities in 2021 and 2022 at 20 colleges and universities, mostly public institutions in the United States. Students were enthusiastic about the game, with two thirds saying they would rather play the game than have a normal lab. Notably, students said playing with a peer helped them learn better. Taken together, learning gains from 15 institutions were pos­itive, with significant gains by the final semester of assess­ment. Overall, learning gains were not positive during the first deployment (online) but improved substantially when refined and played in person. A print-and-play version of the game (doi: 10.18738/T8/S3KWT7), onboarding and follow-up assignments, and suggested extension activities are provided; modifications for time, course objective, and edu­cational level are also discussed. 

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