Proposal

Colloborative Control Gameplay

A study on game design possibilities of a collaboratively controlled game system

Ryan Bland

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Abstract

This research study will find out the relevant game design issues of a collaboratively controlled game. A collaboratively controlled game in this case is any electronic gameplay that allows multiple users to collectively control a single entity to achieve a common goal. The purpose of the study is to reveal what game design aspects cause a collaboratively controlled game to become too difficult or unusable/unenjoyable for the players. In order to achieve this study, a collaborative control game system will be implemented along with a few games. Finally, a series of user test studies will be executed to determine how players respond to various types of collaboratively controlled games.

Introduction

The video games industry is in transition. While historically the game industry has brought us only a handful of game genres, franchises and control devices, a new trend is emerging that promises a myriad of new and innovative possibilites. The whole concept of video game is slowly reshaped and expanded into a new and larger paradigm. This creativity ensures the future livlihood of the video game industry and offers a cathartic release of primitive habits, but it does not come without a cost. To develop new ideas takes time and effort, and not every idea is bound to succeed.

The idea of an audience collectively participating in a video game is one such concept that has been chipped into, but never fully realized. The idea is certainly not original, but still remains almost completely absent from popular culture. This idea could be envinsioned in many possible ways: different methods of input, different games, different audience sizes, different venues. The possibilities are numerous and valuable. In many situations where a game is being developed for an audience to play, the exact circumstances of the final product cannot be recreated during production making relaible testing impossible. This makes it very difficult to know what the true results of the game production will be.

This study attempts to shed light on this matter and break up uncertainty. Our investigation looks into how design decisions will affect an audience driven game's usability and reveal what the posibilites are for this exciting concept. More specifically we will look into what makes a paticular game too difficult or unusable for an audience to play.

Terminology

Collaborative Control

Collaborative control refers to any game that allows multiple players to control a single entity. To better define this concept it is important to differentiate it from a common multiplayer. The difference being that in a conventional multiplayer game, each player has at least one entity that only they control. When a player controls exactly one entity, this entity is called an avatar. The manner or methods of control is irrelevant for our definition, as long as it is only one player making the control decisions for the entity. Of course the actions of other players may have a direct impact on a player's avatar, they may even induce involuntary changes; however, if the primary gameplay decisions are being made by only one player for an entity, the game is not collaboratively controlled.

A collaboratively controlled gameplay requires that there be multiple players controlling input to a single entity or system. Thus a group of players must work simultaneously and in concert in order to achieve their intended goals. This idea has been implemented in various forms (consider even the 3-legged-race) and has been applied in many venues. A collaborative control experience is not limited strictly to gaming. For example, the Interactive Dance Club (discussed later) created by Ryan Ulyate and David Bianciardi allowed for a myriad of users to interactively and simultaneously create sounds and imagery through the motions of their bodies and the manipulation of various inputs. Although the Interactive Dance Club was not necessarily a game in a traditional sense, it is still a collaboratively controlled musical experience shared by the patrons of the club.

Many-User System

A many-user system is a system that takes input from an audience (50 persons or more). If this system allows the memebers of the audience to participate in a game, gameplay will be very difficult if each player controls their own entity. Obviously, a collaboratively controlled game would be a much more preferable experience. We will refer to a general game or application that is collectively used by an audience or large group of people as a many-user system. Probably the first implementation of a many-user system at this large scale is Cinematrix Interactive Entertainment Systems ® created by Rachel and Loren Carpenter and presented at SIGGRAPH in 1991. This system utilized panels with opposing red and green sides that audience members held in front of them to cast a red or green vote as input. Several games were implemented for the Cinematrix system including a flight simulator and a classic pong style game all of which were collaboratively controlled.

Breaking Point

Measuring game difficulty is a nebulous concept. For the purposes of this study, difficulty will be measured with a simple and absolute concept call the breaking point. The breaking point of a game is the point of difficulty at which a game becomes too difficult for the player(s) to succeed in their objectives.

Prior Work

Although there are a multitude of studies and papers on gaming and game design in general, there is much less on the subject of effective game design for a many-user system. This is probably because, at present, many-user systems and collaborative control games have not been widely accepted or implemented, however; there is still wisdom to be gleaned from the history of the video game industry, as well as the practical experiences of the creators of existing collaborative control systems.

Video Game Industry History

The history of the video game industry has a diversity of stories that range between elated successes and miserable failures. From late 1977 to 1979 the video game industry faced its first major crisis. The market for home console games took a large hit as game sales plummeted. Looking back at the time period, this struggle is not so surprising. The games being produced for the three main game consoles of the day (the Channel F by Fairchild, the Studio II by RCA, and the Atari 2600) were mostly variations on a small handful of game concepts. The manufacturers were marketing the product simply by the technological advancements rather than trying to compete with innovative game designs. As a result the market was saturated with an overabundance of hardware and a shortage of software.

Whether or not the game industry has learned from their mistakes is debatable. Nevertheless we can follow a clear trend in the history of the game industry where the most well designed games quickly become the most successful and profitable and not necessarily the games that boast the most technological advancements. For example, Pac-Man which was developed by Namco in 1980 was wildly popular in the US and Japan. Quite notably, it was the first game to draw a female demographic to the arcades. Its design combined bright cheerful colors, quirky characters, breaks between levels and a simple four direction input to create a positive atmosphere. This attention to create a cohesive game experience was well worth the effort and in 1981 over 100,000 arcade machines were sold. It was not long after this that a myriad of sequels and clones were created.

In 1985 Shigeru Miyamoto developed the first of many sequels to the game Mario Bros. called Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros was an innovative game design in several respects. First, the game was stylized to look like an interactive cartoon. It was also the first game to scroll both left and right as well as up and down and boasted a series of unique level and worlds with different objectives, enemies and music. The main character of the game, Mario, was a fully developed hero, with a family, a profession, and a princess for a love interest. Again, the attention to details on the part of the designers gave the game depth that created a more involved experience for the player.

In recent years the volume of games being produced has reached a dizzying pace. We can still make note of several game concepts that are successful because of their effective design and/or unique gameplay experience. The very popular Half-Life series - although it fits neatly into the traditional first person shooter (fps) genre - affords a very complete and thoughtful game design experience. By combining rich visual and aural detail with an elaborate storyline, the game creates a powerful game experience that utilizes modern technology as a tool rather than relying on it as a gimmick for creating a successful game design. Other games rely on innovative methods of input to create a unique game experience. For example, the very successful series of Guitar Hero games use an electronic guitar as input rather than a more traditional controller. Nintendo's latest contribution to the home console line-up called the Wii has done very well around the world and has reached many new demographics. It is not surprising that the system provides an innovative method of input that steers completely around the traditional joysticks and buttons controller.

History makes a clear argument that the most successful model for the video game industry combines technological advancement with clever, fun and innovative game designs. Hence we see a wide variety of game genres, input devices, concepts and target demographics in the more recently produced games.

Existing Collaborative Control Systems

Squidball

There have been surprisingly few implementations of many-user systems since the Cinematrix presentation over 17 years ago. One recent development is Squidball, a massively motion tracked gameplay experience, developed for the 2004 SIGGRAPH. In Squidball the participants hit helium filled weather balloons into the air to try to hit virtual targets. This is an excellent example of a collaborative control gameplay where many users are collectively trying to achieve the goals of a single game instance.

Audience members control a Squidball game by hitting around several large helium filled spheres. The position of the spheres are then tracked in 3D space and used as input positions to a 3D game world represented on a projection screen. The creators of Squidball faced many challenges in implementing a system at this scale and the practical knowledge they gained is beneficial to this study. In addition to the technical challenges the creators had to make many decisions regarding their game design in order to make the experience enjoyable and easy for the participants.

The first issue the Squidball creators faced was on how to educate the game participants on how to play the game. No instructions were provided to the audience members, simply 24 large helium inflated balls were dropped onto the players' heads and the game began. In their SIGGRAPH paper they say: Several specific design choices were made to facilitate the discovery of rules. First, we had to establish a one-to-one connection between the balls in the physical space, and their representation as virtual objects on screen. In order to make this relationship clear and as easy to ascertain as possible, we chose to represent the balls as colored spheres on screen, and to attach visual and audio trails to the objects to help communicate the spatial trajectories of the balls. This visual one-to-one correspondence was intended to help players understand the link between the physical and virtual representations of the balls, and to lead them to understand that action taken with the balls in the real world space translated into action taken within the virtual game space.

The creators also faced a legitmate concern that the participants would be more interested in simply playing with the balls for the fun of it rather than trying to achieve the objectives of the collaborative control game. The creators noted that participants did tend to start by haphazardly (and selfishly) playing with the Squidballs. As the game progressed and more and more participants came to understand the game's nature and goals their actions became more coordinated. In order to reenforce the game aspect of the system the creators gave clear goals for each game, put a time limit on each level, and provided auido and visual feedback regarding the audience's success or failure in the game. The creators noted, "This transformation from audience member to game player happened consistently within the first four minutes of the game, and players that made the connection began to shout out this understanding to other players, acting as agents of the game rules."

Squidball also implemented several aspects to manage game difficulty. The system was designed such that the difficulty could be adjusted during gameplay. This concept is called DDA for Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment. First, the duration of the previously metioned time limit provides a simple variable that changes game difficulty. Next, the Squidball games required the participants to hit virtual targets with the squidballs. The sensitivity of these targets was also made a dynamic component to the game. Finally, in order to provide a good opportunity for success in the game the creators gave several chances (lives) for each level of the game before a final failure condition was reached.

Squidball also encountered several issues that the creators either did not considered in the design phase or were unable to resolve. First, the participants' ability to interact with the system was hampared by the fact that they had to watch both the game screen as well as the physical balls to play effectively. The creators contend, "It requires some ergonomic ingenuity to look up and forward at the same time, which was one of the weaknesses of the current design. As a result, some players decided to only watch the screen. Others ignored the screen and simply pushed the balls towards the center of the room." Second, the system did not anticipate the posibility that a full 4000 person audience would not be present for some executions of the game. As a result targets over mostly empty sections of the audience became difficult to reach. Finally, some players - even after they understood the mechanics of the game - still did not participate in any expected manner.

Interactive Dance Club

In addition to the practical lessons of Squidball, Ryan Ulyate and David Bianciardi have submitted a research paper in relation to the creation of an interactive dance club for the 1998 Siggraph. Their efforts to create a dance club that allowed participants to generate music through their actions and motions gave them a wealth of knowledge in creating unique interactive experiences. In their research paper: Avoiding Chaos In a Multi Participant Environment they offer 10 commandments of Interactivity:

  1. Interfaces and Content Should Encourage and Reward Movement
  2. Participant’s Actions Elicit an Immediate and Identifiable Response
  3. No Instructions Allowed
  4. People Do Not Need To Be Experts to Participate
  5. No Thinking Allowed
  6. Actions Receive Aesthetically Coherent Responses
  7. Keep It Simple, Immediate, and Fun
  8. Responsiveness Is More Important than Resolution
  9. Think Modularly
  10. Observe and Learn

Although these ideas were intended for specifically an interative dance club many of them are still applicable to a general multi-user system or collaborative control game. For example the researchers recommend that the interactive system should make it clear to the user(s) how their actions are influening the system. In general, these guidelines point to the importance of the activity over the technology (e.g. Responsiveness Is More Important than Resolution, People Do Not Need To Be Experts to Participate, and Keep It Simple, Immediate, and Fun). Finally, most of these guidelines hint at an attention to the user's experience and the system's ease of use/input.

Audience Participation Study

The most relevant research that has been done specifically on audience controlled games is the work of Dan Maynes-Aminzade, Randy Pausch, and Steve Seitz. Together they prototyped three different methods of inputs for collaborative control gameplay and then compiled the results and lessons learned from these trials. The three implemented methods allowed audience members to give gameplay input by (1) leaning left and right, (2) batting a beach ball into the air and using it's shadow as a tracking point (similar to Squidball), and (3) pointing a laser pointer dot at the projected game screen.

The purpose of the study by Maynes-Aminzade et. al. was primarily to find effective methods for an audience to provide game input. For them, creating effective game designs was only of interest out of the necessity of the project. For a collaboratively controlled game the input method is an important consideration although for this study the focus will be specifically on what makes a successful game design. Nevertheless, their work provides a good departure point for this study. As a casual result of their work Maynes-Aminzade et. al. offer several guidelines for designing an audience controlled game system as well as for designing collaborative control games.

Guidelines for an Audience Participation System
  • Focus on the activity, not the technology.
  • Make the control mechanism obvious.
Guidelines for Effective Game Design
  • Vary the pacing of the activity.
  • Ramp up the difficulty of the activity.
Social Factors
  • Play to the emotional sensibilities of the crowd.
  • Facilitate cooperation between audience members.

From these guidelines we find several useful suggestions that will directly apply to this study. First, the authors reenforce the point that the technology is only incidental to the success of the game design. Although an entire audience playing a video game is a relatively novel idea it is only interesting as a gimmick for a short while. Next, the point is made that if the audience members are not sure that they are actually controlling the game they quickly loose interest. This reenforces the rule stated by the creators of the Interactive Dance Club.

Next the authors make a good case that varying the pace of a game is more effective than having a constant demand on the participants. Giving short reprieves in the game give the player's a chance to react to a recent success or failure: Pong provides sudden deadlines separated by rest periods, race car driving requires a more sustained behavior to keep the car on the road. The punctuated deadlines give the audience a chance to succeed or fail; the rest periods give them a chance to cheer, applaud themselves, and prepare for the next moment of tension. Also, the researchers suggest that the difficulty of the game is increased over time. This reenforces the knowledge aquired by the creators of Squidball. Ramping up the difficulty is a good game design principle for any game, particullary in collaborative games starting the difficulty very low allows the users to learn how to play the game a little better in each round. This way, if only a few participants understand what is happening in the first round they can carry the entire group. Later as more and more participants come to understand the rules the group begins to act more cohesively and effectively as a team allowing for more difficult gameplay.

Finally, the authors consider the social components of a collaborative gameplay experience. They make the point that building a camaraderie among the participants is a primary factor for creating a successful gameplay experience. In fact, even with gameplay concepts such as the beach ball the researchers report that, "...the lottery effect (“I might be next!”) and the cheering or booing of one another fully engages all of the members of the audience, even though technically only one or two out of 500 people were directly participating." The creators of Squidball made a similar observation, " The role of spectator was engaging in and of itself, due to the spectacular nature of the balls moving around the large auditorium and the energetic pandemonium that ensued once the balls were introduced into the space.

Relevance

Electronic games have become a significant part of modern society and culture. They are reaching a steadily swelling domain of demographics and are embedding themselves even deeper into our lifestyles. The consequences of this fact have come under thorough and often hostile scrutiny. This is nothing new. Even before the age of electronic games during the time of mechanical amusement in the early 20th century, coin-op Arcades were considered only for prurient interests. "In spite of their huge and immediate popular appeal, penny arcades were often considered morally questionable, accused of being breeding-grounds for vice and even for infectious diseases. Penny arcades attracted a socially mixed crowd, including women. They were seen as dark and gloomy."

Still today, video games are accused of being the source of many social problems including teen violence, dropping test scores and anti-social behavoirs. The effects of gaming on society however does not always need to be bathed in blood. Recently, we have seen a new tendency in game concepts such as Guitar Hero and in game consoles suchs as the Nintendo Wii for games to be an agent of socialization and friendship. This tendency is beneficial to the game industry for two reasons. First, it is attracting new demographics to the gamer community that were previously unreachable. These "casual gamers" bring new life to the industry and hint at the vast realm of unexplored oppurtunites in game design. The second beneift of positive social effects in games is the truth they reveal that while some games may (and probablly do) have negative impacts this does not need to be the standard. Shedding this positive light on gaming helps to ensure the successful future of the game industry.

Certainly some games exist that have an isolating effect on it's players, however; other games exist that have helped to bring together communities, cultures, and continents. In the case of collaborative control games we see the continuation of this tendency for socialzation (collaboration afterall by definition is social). We could even consider collaborative control to be the final step of this presently emerging trend.

Goals and Objectives

As we have seen, the most successful game experiences are the ones that are easiest for the audience to understand and use, while the more convuluted and difficult a game design is the less enjoyable it is. However, effective game designs should ramp up difficulty over time. This gives the participants a sense of accomplishment and keeps the game enjoyable for a longer period. The primary goal of this study will be to discover at what point of sophistication or difficutly a collaborative control game becomes too difficult for the players. Thus the question at hand is essentially, "How much is too much?"

This study will test several collaborative control game design concepts with variable degrees of difficulty that will increase during gameplay to test each game's breaking point. A secondary goal of this study will attempt to establish the correlation (if one exists) between the number of participants and the breaking point of each game. Equipped with this knowledge the creators of future collaborative control games will know how to make wise game design decisions to create fun, usable, and scalable gameplay expriences.

Methodology

Methodology...

Implementation

Implementation...

Expected Results

The exected outcome of this study is that game designs that have arbitrary solutions (luck based) will be more difficult for participants who are collaborating in larger groups compared to smaller groups or single-player participants. This is expected because a game with arbitrary solutions will create divisions between players in large size groups. For players to achieve their goals in a collaborative control game they will have to coordinate their efforts. The only way this is possible in a game with arbitrary solutsion is if a leader emerges from the group and the players all maintain an open line of communication. Doing so is intuitively more difficult in a larger group.

Similarly, it is expected that games with clearer goals and solutions will be easier for larger groups compared to games with arbitrary solutions but will still be slightly easier for smaller groups and single-player partipants. Although divided decisions will still occur in a game with partially aboslute solutions there will be a tendency for players to choice the "best" solution and it will be easier for a confident player to take a leadership role.

Finally, games that have very clear goals and solutions but present challenges through player skill will likely present a very close level of difficulty to all group sizes. Depending on the system, the level of accuracy demanded may have an impact on difficulty relative to group size. However since very little decision making is required when the solutions are absolute the group may start behaving like a single player with a skill level of the groups average ability.

Evaluation

The evaluation of this project will be determined by the success of the individual tasks involved. The first milestone of this thesis will be to create the input system using several laser pointers, a projector, and a webcam. This system will need to be robust and reliable to ensure that the participants using the system are challenged by the games themselves and not the input system. To help create this system a simple application will be implemented that indicates the position on screen of each located laser dot. The success or failure of the input system will be transparently provided by the responsiveness (lag) between the movement of the laser dot on the screen and the reaction of the testing application and the accuracy of the measured position of the laser dot to its real position. Any other measurement of success of the system will be based on personal observations.

The second task required for the success of this research will be the creation of the collaborative control games. Each game will be unique in its gameplay experience but similar in design and style. The success of each game will be measured primarily through personal observation and the responses provided by the single-player participants. For this study, an important part of the research will be determing if a game concept is effective as a collaborative control game. In other words, if a game is practical and enjoyable for a single participant and a collaborative group the game design will be considered successful. If a game is a reasonable difficulty for a single player but is too difficult for a collaborative control group, this does not indicate a failure of the game design. It is simply part of the answer to the research.

The third and most crucial task will be to execute the actual study with a test group. As in any study, reliable results will be dependent on the consistency of all control variables in each test group. Relability and consistency of the games and input system, are mostly dependent on the success of the previous two evalutated tasks. However the responsiveness of the system may be altered by extraneous factors that were unconsidered or difficult to control. For example, the system may experience significantly more lag when 20 participants are playing a game compared to having only 1. Compensating for this difference may become an issue. Of course the ideal situation is that all lag is minimized.

Whether or not the study execution is successful will also be based on the reactions of the participants in each test group. By design, the experience should be fun and enjoyable for all participants. If the participants are completely disinterested and apathetic to the outcome of their game, not only does this indicate a failure of the game's design it also has an undesirable influence on the results of the study. The intention of the study is to challenge the players but not lose their interest.

Finally, the success of the study may be indicated in the data that is collected. If no correlation can be shown between any of the variables this may indicate that the methodology or implementation was flawed, but the case may also be that simple no correlation does exist. Nevertheless, intuition suggests that the results of the study should establish some correlation between the test variables.

Future Work

This study itself could be continued by conducting trials with more (and larger) test groups. The research here is meant only to give a brief glimpse of what the possibilites are for collaborative control game design. Similar studies to this one could examine additional parameters that will likely influence the effective collaborative control game design. For example, how does using other methods of input affect the gameplay experience. Using a laser pointer is useful as an input device because all users can see their collaborators input to the game. Other input systems may not have this advantage and having a larger number of participants could prevent this from being an option. Changing the input method could significantly affect gameplay and will certainly require a change in approach to collaborative control game design.

Other future work could prototype new and creative input methods for a many-user system. Several existing methods have been mentioned in this study but I believe we have just found the top of the ice berg. Several methods of input were considered for this study. For example, one possibility was to use a camera to track players showing or hiding different color glow sticks. Another option was to use an electronic voting system where each player pressed a button on control pad to indiciate a choice from up to 4 options of input. Finally, an input system was considered where each player used a typical mouse and keyboard computer terminal to give input to a single collaboratively controlled game system. Such a system would not require the players to be in the same physical location. Yet another study could examine how the proximity of players affects their collaborative gameplay experience and/or performance.

Historically, electronic games are not a very common area of academic or empirical study. During my research process I found a large gap in existing research: classifying and measuring game difficulty. Presently the closest studies in this area examine issues such as measuring player skill (and luck vs skill), distinguishing game difficulty level from brain activity, and defining a user's gameplay experience in general. Although it is not a direct implication of this study I feel that a study that identifies and defines the dimensions of game difficulty would be very worthwhile and relevant. It would be beneficial to acadmemic game research - including this study - and would be very practical for commerical game development.

References

  1. Maynes-Aminzade, Dan, Randy Paush, and Steve Seitz.Techniques for Interactive Audience Participation.
  2. Malliet, Steven, and Gust de Meyer. The History of the Video Game. pp 23-44. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005. 26-29.
  3. Calvert, Sandra.Cognitive Effects of Video Games. pp 125-130. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005. 26-29.
  4. Huhtamo, Erkki.Slots of Fun, Slots of Trouble: An Archaeology of Arcade Gaming. pp 3-21. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005. 26-29.
  5. Ulyate, Ryan and David Bianciardi. The Interactive Dance Club: Avoiding Chaos in a Multi-Participant Environment.
  6. Girouard, Audrey, Erin Treacy Solovey, Leanne M. Hirshfield, Krysta Chauncey, Robert J.K. Jacob, Angelo Sassaroli, Sergio Fantini. Distinguishing Difficulty Levels with Non-invasive Brain Activity Measurements.