Immersion Revisited

Still confused about the term "Immersion"?
- I know I am.

Here are three types of immersion as defined by Ernest Adams:

Tactical Immersion - "Tactical immersion is immersion in the moment-by-moment act of playing the game, and is typically found in fast action games. It's what people call being "in the zone" or "in the groove." It's physical and immediate. When you're tactically immersed in a game, your higher brain functions are largely shut down and you become a pair of eyes directly communicating with your fingers. It's an almost meditation-like state-the Tetris Trance... To create tactical immersion, you must offer your players a flawless user interface, one that responds rapidly, intuitively, and above all reliably."

Strategic Immersion - "Strategic immersion, on the other hand, is a cerebral kind of involvement with the game. It's about seeking a path to victory, or at least to optimize a situation. The highest, most abstract form of strategic immersion is experienced by chess masters, who concentrate on finding the right move among a vast number of possibilities. When you're strategically immersed, you're observing, calculating, deducing. However, this doesn't have to mean that the game is turn-based, nor does it even have to be about conflict. The player who intently studies patterns of traffic in Sim City in order to decide where to build a new road is strategically immersed in the game."

Narrative Immersion - "Narrative immersion in games is much the same as it is in books or movies. A player gets immersed in a narrative when he or she starts to care about the characters and wants to know how the story is going to end. The player who is immersed in the narrative can tolerate a certain amount of bad strategic and tactical gameplay. Few games have stories good enough to excuse really bad play, but people who are hooked and want to know how it ends will usually overlook, say, a slightly awkward interface or a feeble AI."

I think what Adams call Tactical, Strategic and Narrative immersion is more akin to what we would call Engrossment. I would argue that immersion is more than just being totally focused on a task. I am more in favor of Murrays definition of immersion in that it has to do with being "transported" into another world - something that I don't think Guitar Hero or Tetris really does, even though they are totally demanding of your attention.

I don't see that any of Adams cathegories touch on the feeling of awe and wonder that you feel just navigating through the exquisitly crafted worlds of GTA4 or Fallout3, or even the feeling of making a death defying jump in Mirror's Edge.

Threshold objects and sefl-reference

In a previous post I looked at the concept of Suspension of Disbelief and The fourth Wall in order to understand player sensitiveness to (some kinds of) self-reference in games. Something that came up several times during the focus group session.

While doing some more research into this topic I came across this article by Matthew Weise (It references Janet Murray and Jesper Juul, witch is cool).

Here is an excerpt (the article deals alot with the self-reference in MGS):

"The exact nature of Snake's relationship to such objects [game controllers, memory cards etc.] is always deliberately ambiguous. Snake clearly does not have a "controller" with him, yet everyone he meets seems to think he does. Everyone in the world of Metal Gear Solid recognizes the threshold object, but not the one manipulating it, which is, of course, the exact purpose of a threshold object. The only way game characters can recognize the player is through Snake, the "mask" the player wears as Janet Murray would say. The player is an impostor who has, through the magic of the threshold object, entered into the reality of Metal Gear Solid in disguise. Even though the controller should be a dead giveaway, none of the characters break fiction because of it. They all stay in character and play along, treating it as part of their world."

"Metal Gear Solid stretches the membrane between the fictional world and the real world as a way of bringing player and fiction together -- not driving them apart. It does this by reveling in the ambiguous nature of the player-avatar relationship. The player is Snake, but not Snake. Snake is the player, but not the player. When characters look at Snake they often see Snake, but they just as often see the player, staring right through Snake's eyes."

"The message to the player is clear: you are Snake. If Metal Gear Solid broke fiction, like Ernest Adams seems to think it does, the message would be the opposite: you are not Snake. Such views, I feel, are based on a misunderstanding of the inherent ambiguities contained within the medium of video games."

"Because games are complex artifacts that function on different levels of reality simultaneously they are not "breaking" anything by sliding between the different levels of reality already at play. They are simply making use of the unique affordances of the video game medium, and trusting the player to be able to parse the different levels of reality into a coherent whole. The games that make the most effective use of these affordances, only a few of which I've discussed here, serve as a model as to what video games can be if we shed our simplistic notions of reality and fiction inherited from traditional media."

Given this interesting take on the topic I would argue that self-reference is not such a big No-No as I would have previously held it to be. The self-references that exist in MGS is, in my mind, more than just tongue-in-cheek but rather what makes the MGS games such a unique experience. The player-avatar ambiguity is a design choice coherent through out the game - and, I would argue, the exploaration of this ambiguity is what playing MGS is all about (the examples that Weiser give are the most memorable moments in the entire game).

In the end the player-avatar and player-game(world) relationship is a very complex one indeed and so much is dependent on the preferences of the particuar player. However, I still think we are on to something very interesting in trying to understand what frame slips and drifts that affects immersion/engrossment in negative ways for players (in general).

The design space revisited, once again

Inspired partly by the work of Jesper Juul mentioned in the previous post, we have once again taken a look on how the design space can be modified even further. In the last proposal, we laid forth a UI design space with two dimensions; the spatiality in relation to the 3D game space, and the existential qualities within the fictional game world. Jesper Juul speaks of the game space as a meeting between fiction and rules. As mentioned before, there are cases (from an UI point of view) when fiction and rules do not overlap but are still in the game space, resulting in information outside the fiction part of the UI but within the rule space; for example runner vision in ME. In a similar way, there are cases when fictional and rule-based entities is presented outside the (3D) game space, such as overlay GPS systems or the GTA4 cell phone.

An alternative take on the UI design space would be to describe it as the collision of the 3D game space, the fictional space, and the rule space. The old design space expanded with a rule dimension, sort of.


What's good about this? Traditional HUD elements today resides only in the rule space, outside the 3D game space and the fiction space. To pursue an immersive/engrossing experience UI designers should focus on pushing the UI closer to the core of the design space.

Another advantage is that the model can be exploited from different directions depending on the nature of the game. A competition based experience is a lot about rules, a mimicry-heavy game experience is a lot about the fiction, and pursuing vertigo is a lot about feeling that you are one with the 3D game space, which means that depending on a games focus, the model can be exploited from different directions. For example, if a game is heavily competitive an overlay HUD might actually be preferable while signifiers might be regarded as vague information, while in a heavily mimicry based situation spatial and non-diegetic representations might break the immersive experience. Exploitation of the earlier design space differed a lot depending of the nature of the game.

This UI design space also illustrates the role of the game UI designer as we see it, being involved with both game designers (rule space), level designers (game space), and fiction/art director (fiction space).

The importance of game fiction

Since I've grown quite a bit of interest for the fictional space of games vs the actual 3D space visible to the player lately, I have taken some time to read through parts of Jesper Juul's book Half-Real which elaborates game fiction in relation to game rules. As Erik has mentioned earlier, Juul speaks of the (3D) game space as a place where fiction and rules overlap. What is interesting is that, from a UI point of view, there are cases when fiction and rules do not overlap, resulting in information outside the diegetic (fiction) part of the UI but within the 3D space (or rule space), for example runner vision in ME. In a similar way, there are cases when diegetic (fiction) information is presented outside the 3D game space, such as overlay GPS systems or the GTA4 cell phone. More on this later on.

Another chunk of Juul's material that I think that we should really take into account is the fact that a game world can be either coherent or incoherent. A incoherent world game is a game in which events in the game cannot be explained by the game fiction or contradicts the fiction itself; why does Mario have three lives in Donkey Kong? A game with a coherent world (fiction) is a game in which "nothing prevents us from imagining the world in any detail". Of course incoherent worlds weakens player immersion, and it is important to point out that this is not a problem for the UI designers to adress - it is the responsibility of the game designers to avoid genre conventions, if a strong immersive player experience is desired.

Juul also adresses the incoherent game world as a optional world, refering to the fact that experienced Quake 3 players (in fact I would say that this is common to most competitive FPS games) tend to shift focus from the fictional level of the game to the game as a set of rules. He exemplifies by the fact that players are initially attracted by the graphics, but as they play more they modify the graphics settings to get higher frame rates (thereby faster feedback) at the cost of graphical detail (lower texture resolution etc). From personal experience I know that Q3 also has the option to turn pickupable objects (weapons, health, etc) from detailed 3D models to very abstract 2D icons that are more easily spotted, which is also preferred by experienced players. In short, Juul's explanation to incoherent worlds is that "by game conventions, the player is aware that it is optional to imagine the fictional world of the game", and in some cases (competitive multiplayer) this can actually be desired.

Prototyping Approaches

Since we start to feel content with our gathered knowledge, it's time to start thinking about how we can prototype and evaluate our ideas and hypotheses regarding engrossing/immersive UI solutions.

Since neither of us have massive coding skills, one reasonable option is to look for games where UI elements can be disabled (for example runner vision in ME, the guiding arrow in Bioshock, hardcore mode in CoD, etc), and do user tests with the UI elements of interest turned on and off, and observe any differences in player engrossment. The obvious advantage of this is that we don't have to spend any effort prototyping our own UI solutions, however this will also limit us to only test others ideas and also not be completely free to choose the ideas that we are interested in testing (since enabling/disabling UI elements is a rare option in games).

Another option that we have carried with us since the start of the project is to prototype ideas by superimposing information on top of pre-recorded gameplay footage. Here, at least in my opinion, the advantages does not make up for the disadvantages; the prototypes will not be interactive which will most certainly affect users opinions, and we will be limited to overlay information (the only reasonable approach to prototyping spatial info this way is to pause the movie and put the element into the game space).

I found a potentially interesting tool to develop our own prototypes; FPS Creator. As the name implies, this is an application for developing FPS games without writing any code at all (in extreme cases at least). The HUD is fully customizable, overlay filter effects is used to indicate health and hopefully this is fully customizable as well it. If the application allows some fairly straight-forward scripting I think this might be really suitable for us when testing ideas.

Suspension of disbelief

The term Suspension of Disbelief (SoD) is a phenomenon present in all media in where the audience/player are willing to suspend there knowledge of the real world for the sake of entertainment and with knowledge of the limitations of the media.
SoD is what makes the audience "buy" that James Bond can take 20 blows to the face without even getting a nose bleed.

In the Wikipedia article on the subject many game conventions are given as clear examples of SoD. Like the player dying if falling into water - even though it seems plausible that the character (a heroic adult) would be able to swim.

There are however many things that will push the limit of how much an audience are willing to suspend their disbelief.

For example the fictional element called "Breaking the Fourth Wall (an invisible wall separating actor from audience)" often brakes the spell for an audience. These are the times when a character in a film or play directly addresses the audience, where the characters displays signs of knowing that they are in a work of fiction or reference something that they wouldn't know given the fictional world they exist in. In games, having characters referring to save points or controller buttons would be a clear example of this kind of brake. Even though it could be successfully employed if used conscientiously in the tongue-in-cheek manner of the Metal Gear Solid series (or more recently, the game Eat Lead).

A game always balance on what Murray calls "the enchanted threshold". Player's will always be willing to suspend their disbelieves (forsaking their primary framework for the fictional framework of the game), but will always be sensitive to brakes in the "fourth wall", especially if the game is attempting to portray a realistic virtual world.

Excerpts from the book "Hamlet on the Holodeck"

Here are some nice excerpts from Janet Murray's book "Hamlet on the Holodeck- The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace".

On Immersion:
"The experience of being transported to an elaborately simulated place is pleasurable in itself, regardless of the fantasy content. We refer to this experience as immersion. Immersion is a metaphorical term derived from the physical experience of being submerged in water. We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or swiming pool: the sensation of being surrounded by a compleatly other reality, as different as water is from air, that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus. We enjoy the moment out of our familiar world, the feeling of alertness that comes form being in a new place, and the deligt that comes from learning to move within it.... In a participatory medium, immersion implies learning to swim, to do things that the new environment makes possible." p.98-99

On regulating arousal (Murray claims that immersion will colapse both if percived as too fake and from being percived to be too real):
"In order to sustain such powerfull immersive trances, then, we have to do something inherently paradoxical: we have to keep the virtual world "real" by keeping it "not there". We have to keep it balanced squarely on the enchanted threshold without letting it collapse on either side." p.100

On The plasure of navigation:
"On form of agency not dependent on game structure yet characteristic of digital environments is spatial navigation. The ability to move through virtual landscapes can be pleasurable in itslef, idependent of the content of the spaces.... Pleasures specific to intentional navigation [are]: orienting ourself by landmarks, mapping a space mentally to match our experience and admiering the juxtaposition and changes in perspective that derive from moving through an intricate environment." p .129

On puzzle solving:
"The most dramatically satisfying puzzles are those that encourage the interactor to apply real-world thinking into a virtual world. (In Murrays own examples this could be as simple as knowing that the fire-breath of a dragon would melt an ice wall in the dungeon game Zork)" p.139

Overall, the chapters on Aesthetics and Agency (from where these excerpts were collected) are a very interesting read!

Week Summary: 16/3 - 20/3

So we're done with our initial user studies! Yesterday we held a two hour focus group in which different UI approaches (examples were taken from games such as Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Battlefield: Bad Company, Call of Duty 5, etc.) were discussed from a immersion/engrossment point of view, and the results that we've analyzed so far seem to strengthen the models we've previously layed forth.. which of course feels really neat.

Besides from this, we've looked at how a slightly modified design space might be motivated regarding the scope of our thesis, as well as taken a more deep look on how semiotics might be related to the immersion of game UIs. This according to previous posts.

The first two days of next week will be spent in Stockholm brainstorming with Anna, and the rest of the week will probably be spent analyzing the focus group results and how this might affect our future planning.

The design space revisited

The design space we settled for about a month ago relies heavily on the notion of diegesis. One problem with the notion of diegesis is that there are some potential gray areas between what is diegetic and what is non-diegetic. Take for instance the blood stains appearing when taking damage in Killzone 2; having your face splattered with blood seems quite realistic given that half of the characters' body mass consists of blood (which is usually a convention in action games), but the visual effect would most certainly not be distinctive blood stains on your eye retinas. Or the Mirror's Edge runner vision; objects in the game world with the potential of aiding your traverse of the terrain the turns red, yet is this what Faith really sees?

This might motivate an effort to look at an alternative way of mapping out a design space in which diegesis is not a dimension itself, but rather an area within the design space.


If the spatial dimension (is the UI element presented in the game space or not?) of our design space was to be kept, and the diegetic dimension is replaced with the existential qualities of the UI element within the game world (does the representation exist in the fictional game world or not?), the design space would be represented by the model pictured above.

Information representations that is presented spatially in the game space and exist as entities in the game world, are diegetic representations. Take for instance the Doom 3 data terminals; they exist in the game world, they are also presented in the game space, and are hence very much diegetic. The same can be said for the Dead Space menus; the tech setting of the game (sci-fi) allows projecting information on virtual surfaces, hence the menus are not only a part of the game space but also of the fictional game world itself.

Representations can exist in the game world, but aren't necessarily visualized spatially for the player; these are meta representations. The Killzone 2 example above is an example of this; characters bleed when they get hurt, however the blood is visualized as stains on an overlay camera lense rather than in a realistic fashion. Other examples of meta representations would be the GTA IV cell phone (a 2D overlay representation of the character's cell phone), heart-beat audio indicating critical health level (you normally wouldn't hear your own heart beats, yet they exist and can be heard by others), ambient sounds such as thunder or breezing wind (usually just zone/area specific rather than actual spatial 3D audio sources), or the old Doom head indicating character health level and status (an overlay representation of the character's head, which is a representation of the status of the player).

Non-diegetic representations are disconnected to both the game space and the game world. This would be traditional overlay HUD elements such as health bars (there is no health bar visible for the in-game character), ammo digits representing how many bullets that are left in the clip, dynamic music, sub-titles, etc.

Finally, UI elements could be presented in the game 3D space without being an entity of the actual game world; spatial representations. Here, we find examples like the character outlines of Left 4 Dead (none of the game characters actually see the silhouettes of their teammates through walls, yet they are visible for the player), the highlighting of interactive/pickupable objects, Faith's runner vision in Mirror's Edge, Dead Space path guidance, or check point beacons in Mirror's Edge.


So what's the point of tearing down the design space just to re-assemble it in a slightly different form? Given our results and reflections so far, it seems like spatial representations and meta representations can be used to engross the player even deeper than what would be achieved with a completely diegetic UI! Spatial representations can be exploited to strengthen the player's in-game perception regarding external information - UI solutions such as runner vision in Mirror's Edge or the teammate silhouettes in Left 4 Dead makes up for the fact that players tend to loose their sense of direction when moving about in a virtual 3D space. Similarly, meta representations can be exploited to strengthen the player's perception regarding internal information; blood stains and heart beats, or even the old Doom head, helps players make up for the fact that the physical game interface (TV, speakers, controller) does not allow players to connect with their in-game avatar using the broad set of senses that is available to us in the real world.

A Semiotic approach to the HUD

This whole thing started with me attempting to do a Wenn diagram explaining Peirce's sign theory. For funnsies I tried to see if it all somehow could be applied to game HUDs. Turns out it can and works very well as a framework for analyzing HUD designs. The diagram brakes up into seven categories (A-G) and I will attempt to give one example from each.


A. Purely iconic signs: Signs that directly depict what they are representing. A photograph is a classic example of an iconic sign.

Example: The picture of Atlas in the bottom right corner, Note however that there also exists a indexial relation in this case. Also, the ammo icon in the bottom left directly depicts the kind of ammo equipped.

B. Purely indexical signs - These signs have a direct physical or causal connection to what they signify. Bread crumbs signify bread (Physical) and thunder signify lightning (causal). Almost all sound effects in games are indexical symbols.

Example: The sound signifying that shield-recharge has started in the Halo series.

C. Purely symbolic signs - All text and abstract signs are symbolic. These signs require that you know some "ground rules" in ordered to be interpreted (Like knowing how to read text or roman numerals).

Example: Text instructions in Killzone 2

D. Iconic/indexical signs - both directly depicts what they are symbolizing AND have a casual/ physical connection to something happening in the game.

Example: Blood stains in Killzone 2 - they directly depicts the blood that the player looses due to being wounded, the amount of blood is related to the amount of damage taken and the direction from where it gushes is related to the direction of the hit.

E. Symbolic/iconic signs - A sign that is depicting something, but symbolizing something else or something more general than the symbol suggests. Usually these kinds of signs are widely spread throughout our society. These signs are more abstracted than signs in from category A but still has some connection to their signifies unlike signs from category C.

Examples: A symbol depicting a floppy disk usually means "save" in general, not just "save to a floppy disk".

F. Symbolic/indexical - Thes signs are thing that change in some predetermined manner as an effect of changes in the game world - But still need to be explained to the player, unlike signs from D.Example: All the bars and indicators in Street Fighter 4 - what these bars represent and how they are connected to the actions of the player and the events in the game world is not apparent from the start.

G. Everything at once! - Maps are a classic example of a sign(system) that occupy all the three groups at once. The map is iconic in that it depicts the actual world (from a top down perspective), it is indexical in that the distances on the map correspond to real world distances according to the maps scale and symbolic in that it often use symbols that need to be interpreted using the maps legend.

Example: The map in the bottom left corner in GTA4 - The map is an accurate depiction of Liberty City (Iconic), it makes use of a lot of small icons to denote special locations (Symbolic) and it reacts to player actions by constantly rotating and scaling the map (indexical).

This is useful for analyzing HUD designs form a component level - I belive that for an immersive singe player experience HUD elements should be represented as either A B or D signs. For an engaging and fun multi-player experience however signs from C, E F and G can be used to grate effect.

A diegetic approach to game UI's

Magnus and I were talking today about possible approaches to a games UI and HUD designs.
From that discussion I think we realized the benefits of approaching the games UI/HUD from a bottom-up perspective starting of in the diegetic design space that the game provides.

When it comes to the UI in general (read; menus) - start of with a design that utilizes diegetic elements from the game world itself and strip it down if necissary in order to simplify it and make it more usable. This diegetic approach yields very flavourfull interfaces with a strong tie to the game world serving as a nice trasition into the actuall game experience (Little big planet is a nice example) - in the same way as elaborate starting credits in movies (especially high-budget action movies). The menu should "set the stage" for what is to come and if possible introduce some of the game elements.

When it comes to the HUD, start with the game world and the character model and try to map as much as possible to that. Strip down and simplify these solutions in order to reduce complexity and ambiguity but raplace them only if necissary with non-diegetic or "meta-diegetic" solutions. - Remember that a diegetic solution that is a bit too ambigious can still be kept, serving as a complement to another, reinforcing, element.

Start of with the notion of no menu, no HUD and build from there, with a thorough rational for ever added componet instead of building on pre-existing patterns.

Singel and multiplayer games explained!

Having come to the realization that a multi-player and singel-player session of a game are two different experiences, dealing in different frames as well as motivational factors, I found this article by our friend Jesper Juul. (It's not access restricted).

Here Jesper explains this difference in that, what we call, multipayer games are games of Emergence whilst singel-player games are games of Progression.

Jesper summarizes like this: "As a rule of thumb, the simplest way to tell games of emergence from games of progression is to find guides for them on the net. Progression games have walkthroughs: lists of actions to perform to complete the game. Emergence games have strategy guides: rules of thumb, general tricks."

And here is how I think this ties into our hypothesis concerning Hud elements:

- In any given situation in a game that leans more towards emergence there are so many more choices for the player make than in any given situation in a progression based game. I can win a game of counterstrike in a million and one ways, but I can only complete a dungeon in Zelda by doing certain things in a certain order.

This difference in freedom of choice creates a need for more and clearer information to base these choices on when playing emergent games. Since this information is so crucial to the players performance he/she is not too bothered by the the way it is presented. This will therefore, in general, tend to generate more Hud elements.

- I'd bet that all of the games in our HUDless list are games of progression!

Week Summary: 9/3-13/3

This week we started to evaluate our model of FPS UI's and their relations to player frames. To do this we recruited some fellow gamers among students at the it-university and held one-to-one interviews with them.

These interviews were conducted very casually in what is called a semi-structured fashion.
We had a few topics we wanted to address, but other than that the interviewees were free to wander off topic from time to time. The interviews were recorded and transcribed and interesting quotes were compiled into a document for further analysis.

The results from these interviews looks very promising and seem to strengthen some of our notions of how the relevance of certain information carriers in the UI differ depending on frame(s) and game category. This framework is something that will be very helpful when constructing guidelines.

Other than this we have stumbled upon some interesting research form finland that to some extent deals with the same things we have been thinking about these last few weeks.

Next week we hope to host a focus group (consisting of the people we interviewed) were we all can discuss the ins and outs of FPS UIs. Most of all we want to address the effect of increased amounts of diegetic information carriers and the pros and cons of using Hud elements with spatial components.

The results of the interviews - early reflections

During the last two weeks we have conducted five interviews, trying to prove our hypothesis going something like this: a player engrossment/immersion model can be created using a taxonomy of games (competition, mimicry, vertigo) and frames (person/player/character), and this is reflected in the game UI and the diegesis-spatiality of conveyed information.


When talking to our interviewees, we tried to elicit what they consider to be an engrossed/immersed game experience, and what elements that breaks this experience. According to the model above, the results of an early analysis of the comments and states made by each person interviewed can be visualized in the following way:

Dimitry prefers authentic and realistic war themed FPS games, and although he plays competitive multiplayer games to a high extent (stating Red Orchestra as one example) he seems to be playing for a mimicry experience rather than the competitive aspect. He does not want to be reminded that it is "just a game", hence he moves between the person and the character mimicry frames (taking his real-world knowledge into the game-world). Dimitry prefers diegetic UI solutions and no HUD at all, although he do think that the HUD-heaviness of games such as Team Fortress 2 is ok as the game does not aim for a realistic experience.

Guy enjoys both pure gameplay and more immersed experiences; according to him, he plays story-heavy games like Bioshock for more of an experience, while (quote) ”TF2 [and other multiplayer games] are so absurd.. you’re playing them as a game rather than an experience”. Hence, we would say that in a mimicry situation Guy engrosses himself on a character frame level, while playing more competitive games in the player frame. Guy is one of the two interviewees that have played Mirror's Edge, in which he seeks an experience of being embodied as Faith in the game-world rather than enjoying the story told. HUD-wise, Guy feels that it is good to have more information in a competitive multiplayer situation, but finds it desirable to find alternative solutions to a traditional non-diegetic overlay HUD in single-player experiences.

Robert is as diverse as Guy, describing himself as a player both enjoying competitive multiplayer and story-based single player games. In single-player games, he is in it for the story and the game universe, while he plays competitive multi-player games for competing and feeling better than others. Robert has played Mirror's Edge as well, naming one of the reasons he enjoyed the game so much was because (quote) "it was just you and the game [no hud] and not a lot of other stuff you had to look at”. As with Guy, Robert playes competitive games by moving between the person and the player frame, while single player mimicry experiences is played largely in the character frame. Robert prefers games that strive for a fully transparent HUD because (quote) “the HUD does not help immerse you into the game and sometimes it even disturbs the experience”, however he also says that (quote) "in some games you really need to know stuff like how much ammo you got".

Mattias describes himself as a "classic gamer", having played a lot of Counterstrike in his past but have now moved on to more single player games. To him, an engrossing multiplayer experience is when he is really focused on what happens at the moment and what his teammates and rivals is doing, while he enjoys single-player games for the unexpected turns of the narrative and puzzle solving. This could be interpreted as that Mattias plays competitive games in the player frame, while in story-heavy games he moves between the character frame and the player frame. Mattias don't believe that the game experience is very dependent on the HUD strategy chosen by the developers - as he is a "classic gamer", he prefers explicit solutions such as overlay health bars as it helps him make in-game decisions, however he admits (when asked about it) that fully transparent HUDs is more realistic and is probably suited for games aiming for a high level of realism.

Henke mostly play single-player games, though not for experiencing the story but more as playgrounds. He really enjoyed Halflife (1), and mentions the ability to play around with the physics as one reason. He does mention Bioshock as a game he enjoyed because of the thrilling game-world, however he found the non-varied nature of the gameplay to be irritating. This points at Henke playing mimicry games in the player frame. As Mattias, Henke does not believe that the HUD play a large role in the engrossment/immersion of a game, stating that (quote) "I can be sucked into a game no matter if it has a good HUD or not". When asked, he believes that more information makes sense in multiplayer games, hence a more HUD-heavy UI strategy might be of importance in those compared to single-player experiences.

Altogether we're quite content with this non-quantative interview user study, as we've gained some knowledge. Our immersion/engrossment model seems appropriate, however it seems that it can be modified into the following:


In competitive game situations, players move between their person frame (personal goals, striving towards a sense of achievement) and the player frame (exploiting the game rules). In a mimicry game situation players seem to move primarily between the person frame and the character frame - carrying over real-world knowledge into the game-world. The same goes for vertigo-focused games. A traditional HUD seems to be most important when acting in the player frame, hence a 2D overlay UI strategy might be suitable for competitive games, while alternative strategies might be desirable in mimicry and vertigo situations.

Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

This is footage from CoC:DCOTE - another hudless game. It has some nice hand animations and uses a lot of character dialogue to convey information - Also, the save points are really cool. I intend to play this on PC this weekend in the hope of learning more.

Jurassic Park: Trespasser

Can't help but marvel at how far ahead this game was in many respects.

Check out this video of how they use sound to convey info about the weapons. Read more about the game here. It has many similarities with ME and I think it is worth studying in detail - both the things that worked and the things that don't.

Dabbling with some Psychology

I've looked up some psychology stuff lately in the hope of finding something interesting for our thesis. First I fond this excellent list of cognitive biases that can perhaps help understand player behavior in any testing we might do in the future as well as providing us with an extensive vocabulary (like the lovely "von Restroff effect").

Then i stumbled upon this - a document describing the use of a so called Attribution Style Questionnaire in evaluating athletic performance. Could not help but thinking that this approach would be very helpful in adjusting the challenge level when game testing in order to account for both hardcore and casual gamers (and their respective attributive styles). Something worth looking into for DICE and EA perhaps?

Immersion user study tied to imagination, challenge and perception

In the article mentioned in the previous post, the authors also conducted a user study partly with the purpose of proving their sensory/imagination/challenge gameplay model. The results of the study show the balance between the three different gameplay experiences for a number of games:


While the results of this study shouldn't in any way be taken for the absolute truth (and I'm a little bit skeptic to the sensory immersion category as it only seems to take the pure audiovisual quality of the game into account), it's interesting to see that in games like Halflife 2 and Halo 2, players are immersed through challenge rather than imagination.

http://www.uta.fi/~tlilma/gameplay_experience.pdf

Another taxonomy of gameplay experience, tied to immersion

Two finnish researchers proposes a taxonomy of gameplay experience quite similar to the one we are looking at (competition/mimicry/vertigo), in which gameplay experience is divided into the following three components.

Sensory immersion: according to the authors this more or less corresponds to the audiovisual qualities of games.

Challenge-based immersion: the balance of challenges and abilities, striving towards goals and achieving them.

Imaginative immersion: becoming absorbed with the stories and the world, feeling identity for the game characters, etc.

It's easy to draw comparisons to Caillois' game taxonomy of competition, mimicry and vertigo, which we currently feel can be of use as a base for understanding when different HUD approaches are appropriate. However, the authors of this article seem to speek of sensory immersion as the audiovisual qualities of the game, while we speek of sensory-rich experiences beyond that. I still think that this can be of use to us.

http://www.uta.fi/~tlilma/gameplay_experience.pdf

The 13 Basic Principles of Gameplay Design - Applied to UI Design

In this Gamasutra article Matt Aller has taken the "12 principles of animation" (developed by Disney) and applied them to games. Since both animated films and games share a strong engrossment factor as well as an iconic/symbolic language this seems like a clever thing to do. For some of these principles the author has exemplified how it affects UI design, but I feel that this can be further expanded. Here Goes:

1. Focal point - Never allow the player to guess what they should focus on.
- My example: The Menu system of the Wii has very prominent buttons hinting at the "right choice".

2. Anticipation - Time is needed to inform the player that something is about to happen.
- My example: Use of audio or visual queues to prepare the player for certain actions/events.

3. Announce Change - Communicate all changes to the player. This short step occurs between Anticipation and the event itself.
- My example: Image filter to communicate change in internal status.

4. Believable Events and Behavior - Every event or behavior must occur according to the logic and expectations of the player.
- My example: The now ever prevalent "fade-to-death" effect, it represents our notion that our vision, as well as the rest of our physical and cognitive abilities, would be impaired when we are close to dying (although most of us have never experienced this in reality.).

6. Physics - The player's primary logic operates within the known possibilities of physics.
- Authors example: The GUI's theme references scrapbook elements. In which case, animated transitions, highlights, etc. follow the physical characteristics of paper.

7. Sound
Authors example: Only visually prominent UI elements should have sound effects attached to them, so as not to muffle the auditory experience.

8. Pacing - Keep in mind the desired sense of urgency, the rate in which events occur, the level of concentration required and how often events are being repeated.
- My example: Status updates in a Death match (like; "so-and-so kill so-and-so with a shot gun") updates frequently but is of minor importance to player performance - should therefor demand very little visual attention.

(9. Spacing - Understand how much space is available both on-screen and in-world, recognize the spatial relationship between elements and take into account the effects of modifying those spaces.)

(10. Linear Design versus Component Breakdown)

11. Player - How does the player factor into this? How does the player interact with everything that has been designed? More than just device input, address how the player contributes to the experience.
- My example: Test your solutions on actual players! Observe rather than ask.

(12. Communication - Is the appropriate team member correctly aware of the objective?)

13. Appeal - When addressing anyone, ask yourself, "Does this draw the audience in?" This applies to (but is not limited to) the player, the spectator, your fellow developers, the publisher, and their marketing team. If it's not a good idea, there's no need to continue until it becomes a good idea or is replaced by something better.
- My example: Strive for appealing, intriguing and eye-catching solutions that provide players with a novel experience (Runner's Vision is an excellent example)

This is very interesting and I think that it could be worth while looking over the results from our objective game study (the Hud element list) with these principles in mind. The Author again and aging refers to the Primary logic of the player, or what we call "the primary frame".

My opinion is that the more realistic (mimetic) a game experience is the more sensitive players are to the game breaking primary frame logic. The setting however, have a huge effect on this - a well implemented setting will instead make player sensitive to brakes in, what we call, the character frame.

Differences between film and game

In his dissertation Ulf Wilhelmsson has this to say about the difference between a first-person game and a so called subjective shot in a movie.

" In a movie, it is the lack of motor control, motor access to the diegetic environment that makes us wish for a visual presence of a protagonist. Computer games, on the other hand, will afford motor control. A lack of bodily presence and a lack of motor control is the very basis for a ”subjective shot”. It is what makes the shot subjective. "

This might be worth putting into the report when/if discussing the relationship between films and games.

Ulf goes on stating that it is the motor-link between player and what he calls Game-Ego (the object in the gameworld that the player has direct control over) that is the foundation of what we call game engrossment/immersion.

"The body of a Game Ego is anchored, it is made manifest, through the tactile motor/kinesthetic link between the game player and the game environment. We are really there. The concrete actions taken by the game player are the foundation for the identification with the abstract cognitive model of a Game Ego. It does not matter whether the movement is performed in 2-dimensions or 3-dimensions, as long as it is direct. The game player imagines him- or herself as moving in the environment. The color depth, i.e. the amount of colors, is also not important. Two colors are enough. As soon as something is possible to be perceived, to be something separated from its environment, it gets to be an object. It gets to be a PART in a PART–WHOLE configuration."

Immersion, agency and affordances.

In the article "Interaction and Narrative" (by Mateas and Stern) the authors talk about the concept of Agency as being crucial to player engagement/immersion in a game experience.

Agency is the players sense of being able to act in, and therefor be part of, the game world. To achieve a high sense of agency there has to be a good overlap between the material and formal affordances of the game.

Material affordances are the things in the game world you can interact with and any effects that you as a player can achieve.

Formal affordances is what motivates the player and help him/her choose between and prioritize between all the available actions.

To give some examples the authors imply that most classic adventure games (Monkey island etc.) have a heavy imbalance between material and formal affordances. In any adventure game there are often tones of items and objects to interact and fiddle with (many material affordances). However, oftentimes players have a hard time understanding why these interactions matter in the overarching plot of the game and how to prioritize certain actions over others (few formal affordances).

On the other hand the authors hail Quake as finding a very good balance between material and formal affordances. Given the plot (more like a proto-plot actually) and setting of the game there are basically these formal affordances: Everthing that moves is trying to kill you, You shold try to kill everything, You should try to move through as many levels as possible.

These formal affordances are perfectly matched by the games material affordances; you can pick up and fire different weapons, you can pick up objects that make you stronger, you can pick up keys and interact with buttons that help you proceed through the levels.

The fact that you can not talk to any of the monsters or reareange the furniture of the dugeons will therfor never bother anyone playing Quake.

The authors also gives the guideline that game interfaces should be transparent in order not to disturb the players sense of agency - witch I have a hard time really agreeing with. A person playing World of Warcraft will have a screen full of icons, buttons and bars - but, I would argue, still has a strong sense of agency in the world.

- I find all this super interesting and this idea of agency might, I believe, be the explanation for why shooters are such a popular genre. In games Agency is Everything and the shooters of today are probarbly the best at balancing material and formal constraints in a way that is possible to realize within the time and budget of a normal game project.