Paper Reading #5: Playable Character: Extending Digital Games into the Real World

Introduction

Playable Character: Extending Digital Games into the Real World was written by Jason Linder & Wendy Ju. Linder and Ju conducted their research at the California College of the Arts. Linder currently works for Adobe’s Creative Technologies Lab and Ju is a researcher at the Stanford HCI Group. 

Summary

Playable Character discusses a series of prototype games developed to explore how real-world activity could be incorporated into digital game systems. These games led to the design of Forest, a game developed for the Friends of the Urban Forest (FUF). The prototype games were developed as probes using paper or simple Flash or Processing programming. Informal testing of these prototypes was conducted using friends and colleagues as players. Data collection was integrated into the games whenever possible and supplemented with player interviews.

In Simulation City, players were asked to imagine playing SimCity with the added constraint that any buildings added to their city had to be photographed in the real-world. The authors found that selections were heavily skewed toward interesting buildings and art installations and responses indicated that player “...interest can be maintained simply by providing a facility for personalized collections of real-world items.”

SphereQuest explored the connections that could be developed between a player and his avatar by asking players to perform real-world tasks to enhance their avatars in-game. Players were required to document these activities and complete a survey for the purpose of data collection. The authors found that players that chose to complete activities that they could imagine their character doing (being stealthy as opposed to reading a book) connected with the game and enjoyed themselves.

The Other End was designed specifically for a known social setting to illustrate the importance of context in a game created to overlap with an existing social structure. The game consisted of checking in at a camera station, walking to the other end of a hall, and checking in at the other station. Scoring was done based on frequency of participation (with punishment for lack of participation) and improvement & the players with the most points, most trips, and best time were displayed on a leader-board. The game quickly created a competitive environment centered around achieving the fastest time, to the exclusion of the other leader-board types. This competition served to advertise the game and facilitate social interaction.

Cubelord, the second social engagement game, involved accumulating territory (cubicles) via the game’s virtual currency. The player with the most cubes at any moment was crowned “Cubelord” and given a cape and scepter. Each cube had a price, price increase rate, and return price to encourage players to formulate strategies. Currency was earned by performing tasks involving the disclosure of personal information, singing, cleaning, providing homework assistance, etc. Game runners collected this information and credited players with game funds. The current state of the game was available online and a terminal was used for purchasing cubes. The authors observed that players prioritized tasks by convenience and players cleverly attempted to get credit for less than accurate responses, but no actual cheating took place.

The design probes explored “...how the physical world could be mapped into the game world (Simulation City), how the virtual-world could prompt real-world actions (SphereQuest), how people's social and physical motivations could be organized, (The Other End), and how virtual motivations could motivate social disclosure (CubeLord).” These observations resulted in the formulation of five design patterns: personalized collection (Simulation City), narrative alignment (SphereQuest), gaming the game (The Other End), progressive disclosure (The Other End), and persistent convenience (CubeLord).

The authors developed Forest for FUF to explore how they could integrate what they learned from their probe experiments with specific real-world goals. The game structure was divided into three categories: real-world tasks, the virtual forest controlled by real and virtual choices, and status tracking. Forest is played by performing a set of tasks that activates virtual features of the game. These features take the form of badges and virtual currency (Leaves) that the player can use to customize their virtual forest (similar to CubeLord). Solo tasks were location-based (for convenience) and centered on individual trees that a player could “check in” to their game (similar to Simulation City). Cataloging trees involves collecting data that FUF can use in their tree care efforts and filling in missing data and trees (this is verified to prevent players from gaming the game). Team tasks are directly related to FUF participation categories: outreach, planting, and tree care. Leaves for team tasks are redeemed using QR codes prepared by FUF team leaders. The virtual forest functions similarly to FarmVille with the purpose of encouraging continued participation and social networking with other FUF members.

Related Works

1. Towards Massively Multi-user Augmented Reality on Handheld Devices by D. Wagnet, T. Pintaric, F. Ledermann & D. Schmalsteig
2. ARQuake: The Outdoor Augmented Reality Gaming System by W. Piekarski & B. Thomas
3. Touch-Space: Mixed Reality Game Space Based on Ubiquitous, Tangible, and Social Computing by A. D. Cheok, X. Yang, Z. Z. Ying, M. Billinghurst & H. Kato
4. From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining “Gamification” by S. Deterding, D. Dixon, R. Khaled & L. Nacke
5. Rethinking agency and immersion: video games as a means of consciousness-raising by Gonzalo Frasca
6. Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces by Carolyn Snyder
7. Player-Centered Game Design: Experiences in Using Scenario Study to Inform Mobile Game Design by Laura Ermi & Frans Mäyrä
8. The PowerHouse: A Persuasive Computer Game Designed to Raise Awareness of Domestic Energy Consumption by M. Bang, C. Torstensson & C. Katzeff
9. A Video Game for Cyber Security Training and Awareness by B. D. Cone, C. E. Irvine, M. F. Thompson & T. D. Nguyen
10. The Digital Game-Based Learning Revolution by Marc Prensky

This research touched on many different fields and ideas, none of which were particularly novel on their own. Gamification is the central idea behind Playable Character and has become a very popular topic of research in the last decade. From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining “Gamification” is a paper that analyses the idea of using non-game context to motivate user activity and retention. Playable Character also incorporates augmented reality gaming into their prototypes and in the Forest mobile-application. 

Towards Massively Multi-user Augmented Reality on Handheld Devices and ARQuake: The Outdoor Augmented Reality Gaming System explore applications of AR gaming very similar to Forest. Towards Massively Multi-user Augmented Reality on Handheld Devices is similar to Forest in its mobility and its emphasis on multi-user experience. ARQuake’s emphasis on outdoor AR gaming is very similar to Forest’s focus on trees. Touch-Space: Mixed Reality Game Space Based on Ubiquitous, Tangible, and Social Computing leverages AR and social networking to create an application aimed at being convenient to the user, much like Forest’s social networking and emphasis on convenience as a means of keeping users interested.

Rethinking agency and immersion: video games as a means of consciousness-raising and The PowerHouse: A Persuasive Computer Game Designed to Raise Awareness of Domestic Energy Consumption  discuss the use of gamification to increase player awareness of important topics. A Video Game for Cyber Security Training and Awareness and The Digital Game-Based Learning Revolution discuss gaming as a teaching tool. These are concepts very central to the purpose of Forest, which is to increase membership, participation, and fund-raising for FUF.

Playable Character’s contributions include the methodology used in the study as well as the applications. Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces is a book that explores paper prototyping as a method to conduct informal studies. Much of the experimentation in Playable Character was conducted using paper prototyping and similar informal methods. Player-Centered Game Design: Experiences in Using Scenario Study to Inform Mobile Game Design is a study conducted in the same style as Playable Character. This study conducts small experiments in an informal way and applies the knowledge gained from this experimentation to the design of mobile games.

Evaluation

The only evaluation came in the form of informal feedback from test users and FUF members. Feedback during the experimental stages served to guide the development of Forest. Forest feedback was discussed in the paper but the application of this feedback was outside the scope of the research. Evaluation was purely qualitative, systematic, and informal.

Discussion

This is by far the most unusual CHI paper I have read. While the contributions made by Playable Character aren’t readily apparent, I do feel that there is something to take away from this study. The authors explored a variety of novel game scenarios through quick prototyping and applied their findings to a real-world application. This topic, while unusual, offers an interesting perspective that I found very unique. Evaluation of the prototypes developed in Playable Character was entirely informal, qualitative, and unstructured (no mathematical or statistical measures were applied to the analysis of their qualitative data). Normally this would pose a problem, but due to the nature of this research, I feel that their evaluation was adequate.