Thesis Title

Design of a tactical turn-based game for mobile devices Ricardo Andre´ Machado da Silva Thesis to obtain the Master of Science Degree in Information Systems and Computer Engineering Supervisors: Prof. Carlos Antonio´ Roque Martinho, Prof. Pedro Alexandre Simoes˜ dos Santos Examination Committee Chairperson: Prof. Ernesto Jose´ Marques Morgado Supervisor: Prof. Carlos Antonio´ Roque Martinho Member of the Committee: Prof. Mario´ Rui Fonseca dos Santos Gomes October 2016 Acknowledgments I would like to thank everyone that supported me through my 24 years of existence. To my family, for being present from the start. To my friends, for allowing me to decompress during hard times. To my mother, for providing me with everything I ever needed. To my girlfriend, for putting up with my constant tantrums and breakdowns. To my professors, for clearing all my doubts and guiding me to the right direction. There is no way around hard work. Embrace it. Roger Federer i Abstract With the mobile games market growing by the day, more and more gamers are shifting to mobile platforms. Most of the games, however, are very simplistic, which leads to non interesting gameplay for veteran players, or are ports of preexisting games, which leads to poor interfaces and user experience. This project focuses on the second problem, trying to understand what the best user interface/user experience is in tactical turn based games for mobile platforms. Keywords Tactical, Turn-based, Mobile devices, Strategy, Mobile game, User experience, User interface iii Resumo Com o mercado dos jogos moveis´ a crescer a um ritmo elevado, mais e mais jogadores estao˜ a aderir a plataformas moveis.´ No entanto, a maior parte dos jogos ou sao˜ bastante simplistas, o que levam a jogabilidade pouco interessante para jogadores experientes, ou sao˜ ports de jogos pre-existentes´ noutras plataformas, o que leva a mas´ interfaces e experienciasˆ de utilizador. Este projecto foca-se no segundo problema, tentando perceber qual a melhor interface/experienciaˆ para os utilizadores num jogo tactico´ por turnos para plataformas moveis.´ Palavras Chave Tactico,´ Turnos, Dispositivos moveis,´ Estrategia,´ Jogo movel,´ Experienciaˆ para o utilizador, Inter- face para o utilizador v Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................... i Abstract ................................................. iii Resumo ................................................. v Table of Contents ............................................ vii List of Figures .............................................. ix List of Tables .............................................. xi List of Acronyms ............................................ xiii 1 Introduction ............................................. 1 1.1 Motivation . 1 1.2 Objectives . 1 1.3 Outline . 2 2 Related work ............................................. 3 2.1 Tactics vs strategy . 3 2.2 Turn based types . 5 2.2.1 Classic turn based . 5 2.2.2 Active Time Battle (ATB) . 5 2.2.3 Simultaneous execution . 6 2.3 Game examples . 6 2.4 Interesting mechanics . 8 2.4.1 Use space . 9 2.4.2 Variable terrain . 9 2.4.3 Dynamic environment . 10 2.4.4 Directional facing . 11 2.4.5 Several controllable characters . 12 2.4.6 Specialize the characters . 12 2.4.7 Variable distance . 13 2.4.8 Resource management . 13 2.4.9 Multiple attack options . 13 2.4.10 Support multiple objectives . 14 2.4.11 Delayed attacks/Automatic actions . 14 2.4.12 Character revival . 15 vii 2.4.13 Conclusion . 15 2.5 Mobile constraints . 15 2.5.1 Hardware capability . 16 2.5.2 Display size . 16 2.5.3 Control schemes . 17 2.5.4 Interface design . 17 2.5.5 Environmental constraints . 17 3 Proposed solution ......................................... 19 3.1 Backstory . 19 3.2 Game mechanics . 19 3.3 The map . 20 3.4 Units . 21 3.5 Unit movement . 22 3.6 Combat . 23 3.7 Items . 23 3.8 Available actions . 24 3.8.1 Special actions . 25 3.9 Aturn .............................................. 25 3.10 Progression . 26 3.11 Unique selling points . 27 3.12 Replayability/Player retention . 28 3.13 Discussion . 29 3.14 Technology used . 29 4 Developed work ........................................... 31 4.1 New solution . 31 4.1.1 Control mode . 33 4.1.2 Basic range mode . 34 4.1.3 Auto attack mode . 35 5 User tests .............................................. 37 5.1 Setup . 37 5.2 Results . 38 5.3 Discussion . 46 6 Conclusion .............................................. 49 6.1 Future work . 50 Bibliography ............................................... 53 Appendix A Gameplay summary tables .............................. A-1 Appendix B User questionnaire ................................... B-1 viii List of Figures 2.1 Different phases of a game: (a) Strategic phase, (b) Tactical phase. 3 2.2 Different strategies in a Real Time Strategy (RTS): (a) Rushing, (b) Turtling. 4 2.3 A classic Turn-based (TB) example. 5 2.4 An ATB example. 6 2.5 An example of XCOM’s combat. 7 2.6 An example of Fire Emblem’s combat. 8 2.7 A screenshot from an Advance Wars game where different terrain types are visible. 10 2.8 Fog of War in Fire Emblem . 10 2.9 An unit in XCOM taking cover. 11 2.10 A list of the playable characters in Fire Emblem. 12 2.11 Different class abilities on XCOM: (a) Sniper class, (b) Assault class. 13 2.12 A ”meld canister” in XCOM, a secondary objective present in some of the missions. 14 4.1 An image where the vulnerability indicator is visible. If the airplane moves to the gray squares it will be in attack range from at least one enemy unit. 33 4.2 Input method 1. 34 4.3 Fire Emblem’s movement and range indicator. 34 4.4 Input method 2. 35 4.5 Input method 3. 36 5.1 Control methods preference . 38 5.2 Summary of the differences between the different modes using Wilcoxon’s signed-rank test................................................ 39 5.3 Bar graph showing the user distribution amongst different play modes. 40 5.4 Box-plots depicting the evaluation users gave to the different play modes. 40 5.5 Box-plots depicting the evaluation users gave to the reach and quickness questions . 42 5.6 Summary of the statistically difference between experienced and novice players . 44 5.7 Box-plots depicting different evaluation depending on the users experience with tactical games. 44 5.8 Comparison between mode 1(a) and mode 2(b). In (a), the user knows that the tank can hit the soldier after moving, while in (b) the users has to count the number of spaces tomove.............................................. 47 5.9 Auto attack mode attack example. 48 ix List of Tables A.1 Different attributes and what they inﬂuence . A-1 A.2 Types of spaces and their interaction with movement and combat . A-1 A.3 Different specializations and their characteristics . A-1 A.4 Available special actions unlocked via level-up . A-1 A.5 Consumable items . ..

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