Physical vs Digital Tabletop Games

Andreas Larsson Jonas Ekblad

Main field: Computer Science ​ Program: Game Development ​ Bachelor thesis 15 credits Spring 2020 Supervisor: José Maria Font Fernandez ​ Examiner: Alberto Enrique Alvarez Uribe ​ Final seminar: 1 June 2020 ​

1 Physical vs Digital Tabletop Games

Abstract

This paper shows the difference in User Experience between Physical and Digital tabletop games. The goal of the project is to get an understanding of how and why playing tabletop games differentiates depending on the platform. Seven tabletop games have been chosen from different genres with an official digital adaptation. We’ve measured four key factors, Usability, Aesthetics, Social Connectivity and Engagement. The key factors have been used to gather User Experience metrics that were used to compare the digital and physical versions of the tabletop games. The result from this thesis is that physical tabletop games have a higher rating than the digital versions in all key factors except in usability where the differences were miniscule. Games that rely on imperfect information offer a much higher social connectivity and engagement when it’s played around a table. Games relying on tile-placement offers a higher usability and engagement when played digitally due to the assistance provided by the game. Physical tabletop games are the preferred option of the two but the accessibility of the digital versions makes them remain relevant.

1. Introduction

Tabletop games have been around for thousands of years [1] and are now at their peak [2]. Games like Talisman, Magic: The Gathering and other popular titles are showing up on the digital platform. The digital versions make games more accessible than their physical versions. The online mode also gives the user a quick access to play with friends or strangers. Thanks to the digital adaptations, you can bring hundreds of tabletop games on your laptop instead of carrying around the physical games that stack up and take up space.

Playing tabletop games on the computer might change User Experience. Chief Marketing Officer of Asmodee Digital, Phillipe Dao claims “You can't really recreate the exact transposition of a physical board game to a digital platform; it's not possible,”. He further claims ”You can't replace the fact that you're playing with friends or family around the table and all the social interactions that you can have... So from this point of view you never have cannibalisation because it's a different experience” [3].

Researching this would let future developers or researchers make a better estimate of success concerning transitioning their tabletop game to digital. As well as what to expect concerning what users want in digital versions.

This study aims to fill this gap by first analysing seven tabletop games and their digital versions to

2 determine how they differ in terms of gameplay mechanics. The selection was made to cover the majority of existing genres. Following that a testphase where playtesters play both the physical and digital versions of the games while being monitored for reactions, conversations and mood. After finishing a set amount of sessions the participants are given a questionnaire. These will be the go to source of information to measure the user experiences.

1.1 Research Questions RQ1: What do players prefer in physical over digital tabletop games, or the opposite?

RQ2: What aspects of the game disappear in its digital implementation and is this a good thing?

RQ3: How does impressions of the game mechanics vary between the digital and physical version?

2. Related Research

2.1 Game Analysis

Clara Fernández-Vara describes how a game analysis should start with the participants playing the game extensively and critically. Playing critically requires making a series of choices about how to play since our choices may yield different information, we have to be methodical and aware of what we do while we play. This is followed by analysing the game context and mechanics. Clara Fernández-Vara suggests using these questions for describing the gameplay mechanics [4]. ● What does the player do in the game? ● What are the verbs that describe the basic actions? ● What are the core mechanics of the game? ● How are they meaningful? ● Which actions are less frequent? ● How does the player perform the actions in the game? Fernández further explains about elements such as surprising aspects of the interactions, assumptions made by the game, frustrations, recurring patterns and relationships with the context.

2.2 Measuring the User Experience In 2008, a book named Measuring the User Experience by William Albert and Arthur Thulis took up ​ methods of how to measure UX (User Experience) data[5]. They believe that the UX revolves around 3 ​ characteristics. ● A user is involved ● That user is interacting with a product, system, or really anything with an interface ● The users’ experience is of interest, and observable or measurable UX’s is increasingly getting a more important role as the product's complexity is getting more complex. With the use of UX in the development of complex products, there’s a possibility for them to still remain efficient, user friendly and engaging. Some of the metrics they take up as important are: task success,

3 user satisfaction, and errors. There are several questions that are needed to be answered between the physical and digital board games: ● Will the product be recommended by the users? ● Is the digital product more efficient than its physical counterpart? ● Are the core mechanics improved in the digital adaptation? ● How does the UX of this product compare with the other version? The benefit of using UX metrics is measuring the magnitude of an issue instead of being an assumption.

In this study the focus is comparing the UX between tabletop games with their digital counterpart. The ideal way of doing this, according to William Albert and Thomas Tullis, is by using the following steps; Task Success, Efficiency, Self-reported Metrics and Combined & Comparative Metrics. Task success measures that the user is able to perform certain tasks without help. Efficiency revolves around the time required to complete a task. An example of such a task would be placing tokens or setting up a session. The impact of efficiency may give interesting results as in the digital versions, most menial tasks such as shuffling a deck, dealing out cards and keeping the score are automatically managed, saving the user time. On the other hand, the time it takes to manage these tasks could potentially add to the social aspect as it gives them an opportunity to converse [6].

Self-Reported Metrics are metrics we gather by asking the participants about their experience. This will be managed by constructing questionnaires using a method known as GUESS[11]. These questionnaires will be using a Likert scale that is a statement which the users rate their level of agreement. The statements are from a positive standpoint and are scaled from 1-7 where high values are positive responses. Last step, Combined & Comparative metrics about what to do once all data has been gathered. As the name suggests, the data will be combined and then compared to one another. The comparisons will mostly be focused on physical and digital versions of each game but it can also be used to compare all physical and digital games as a whole.

2.3 Rise of board games The popularity and production of board games has had a steady increase ever since the 1950s with a couple of spikes here and there. One of the earlier spikes occurred around 1979 when the award Spiel de Jahres (“Game of the Year”) was introduced, awarding the best Card and Tabletop game of the year [7]. It was during the introduction of the class Eurogame, also known as German-style board game, that the production of games made the most significant spike. These are games that generally require the player to put in more thought and planning into their decision than party games. The most noticeable Eurogame was Settlers of Catan that was introduced 1995. After this the interest of tabletop games has increased and become more accessible due to the availability of various media. The Internet and Social Media gave players possibilities to connect and build communities. The online forum and game database Boardgamegeek rank went from 6000th to 2700th on the Most Popular Website between the years 2012-2020 [8].

4 Youtube and other streaming media offered ways to observe gameplay and reviews that has contributed to the increased interest in tabletop games. There are more reasons behind how and why tabletop games have grown in production and popularity but these are what’s considered the most important.

Milestones: ● Spiel de Jahres ● Settlers of Catan ● Pandemic ● Kickstarter ● TabletTop Show

Figure 2.3.1 Represents the number of board games published every year up to 2015 [9]. ​

“According to ICv2, a trade publication that covers board games, comic books, and other hobbyist products, sales of hobby board games in the U.S. and Canada increased from an estimated $75 million to $305 million between 2013 and ​ ​ 2016, the latest year for which data is available” [10]. ​

3. Description of Method

In this study we are going to figure out how the player experience may vary depending on what platform they’re playing on. As a player may enjoy rolling the dice, they may not enjoy the micro management of the pieces. We’ve avoided tools/games that aren't considered an official digital adaptation of the games. The importance of leading playtests in a correct manner will be crucial. Playtests run without preparation could lead to a faulty result. Also the importance of knowing what to look for and the most optimal way of gathering information and reaching a correct conclusion. Studies upon user experience metrics, game design, etc is what will give the result a higher depth. This step is relevant throughout this study, from start to finish. After finishing the research, we will go through all the relevant findings that will become the center of the discussion.

5 3.1 Selection criteria when picking games for the study ● Has a digital implementation ○ This study focuses on comparison between physical and digital tabletop games, it’s essential that there’s a digital implementation that represents the physical. ● Physical version released before its counterpart ● Represent a genre ○ The focus is to run a research on the difference between physical and digital tabletop games as a whole. This means that focusing on one specific genre would threaten the validity of this study. ○ Two games can’t be too similar in gameplay as the study tries to be as broad and informative as possible. ● Availability ○ Games that are offered for free gain an upper hand in the selection over many of their competitors. The games Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride were offered for free on the EPIC Games which impacted the selection in their favor. ● Fits within budget ○ Money ■ There are highly regarded games that would cost too much to run valid playtests on. One genre that usually falls into this category is Trading Card Games such as Magic: The Gathering. They offer thousands of cards that would expand far beyond the set budget. ○ Time ■ Gathering playtesters with the time to play up to seven games on two different platforms is a challenge of its own. Games that take too long is something that needs to be avoided. An example of such a game is RISK that has an estimated playing time of 1-8 hours [13]. ● Good reviews ○ Both versions of each game should have reviews available that gives insight on the type of game it is and how it’s played. This benefits the study as positive reviews lets us know that these games have a high probability of being fun and informative. ● Core mechanics intact ○ The implementation of the digital game should remain true to its physical predecessor. Meaning that the core mechanics should remain true and not be a spinoff of the original. This study focuses on the UX from games played on different platforms and how this change affects the UX. ● Limit the amount of games ○ Time is an important resource we have during this study. This means that picking too many games could threaten the completion of the study before designated time. This topic was discussed with our supervisor and we reached the conclusion that seven was a good number that would cover the majority of genres.

6 3.2 Games chosen for this study Following seven games were chosen for this study based on Section 3.3 criterias: 1. Carcassonne - Tile Based - Eurogame 2. Love Letter - Card Game, Strategy, Deduction, Renaissance 3. Mysterium - Cooperative, Mystery 4. Small World - Strategy 5. Ticket to Ride - Family, Railway 6. Twilight Struggle - Strategy, Wargames 7. UNO - Family, Card Game

3.3 Game Design Analysis Before any playtesting is done there will be a need to analyze the chosen tabletop games from the perspective of game design. This entails both the physical and digital versions as there’s a need to compare both versions of each game in this study. Clara Fernandez Vara has developed five steps in for making a game design analysis [4]. The steps five steps are : 1. Before you start writing: Play the game This step is to get a personal understanding of the games and their mechanics. ● Play the game extensively ○ Familiarize yourself with the game and its components. ● Takes notes while you play ○ Purpose of this is to keep track of what is happening during the sessions. Both good and bad things. ● Use walkthroughs wisely ○ In this particular case this means rule sheet etc. ● Read what other people have written about the game ○ To gain an understanding of what other people think about the game and learn more about the games. 2. Type of analysis These game design analysis are considered comparative analysis. The analysis is based on how the games are played and the difference between the implementations are. Comparative analysis is usually a double analysis where two different games are analyzed and compared. In this case the games compared are the same but on different platforms. 3. Contextualize In this step the analysis is given context. Information of the developers, genre, year it was made and technological context. Technological context focuses on what platform the game was originally made for. As all the games involved in this study are originally physical tabletop games and the digital copies are made PC 4. Game Overview This part involves number players, description of gameplay, rules and goals. This step gives an overview to the reader that is unfamiliar with the games that are in this study.

7 5. Formal elements As they are played using the same rules and mechanics the analysis of formal elements of the game will be the same.

3.4 Test phase This is a subject that heavily relies on user experience we’re going to use playtesters as our main source of information. The playtesters are going to play both physical and digital versions of the games. During the sessions the playtesters will be observed for reactions, conversations and mood. Fernández talks about elements to look out for are surprising aspects of the interactions, assumptions made by the game, frustrations, recurring patterns and relationships with the context [4]. Each board game in this study takes a different amount of times to complete. The digital versions have a tendency to take a shorter amount of time compared to their physical counterparts. The tests for the physical and digital are run in different manners as the physical games are tested on local and the digital are played online. Each game had a set amount of sessions in order for the playtesters a chance to get an understanding of the rules and give a fair evaluation. The downside of this was the time required to run the playtests but in return the results are more reliable. The playtests for the digital versions were made online due to the accessibility and the legitimacy towards games that depend on imperfect information. The downside of doing this is that we were not able observe their reactions during the playtests. On the other hand it allowed us to run more tests due not having to split the time between physical and digital games during our local playtests. The playtesters were first introduced to the Digital versions as it allowed them to learn the rules quickly and as there’s no need to manage artifacts.

3.5 Participants In total 30 individuals were asked to take part in this study. Due to difficulties with time schedule and Covid-19 several of the individuals couldn’t participate in any playtests. This also led to several individuals only managing to attend a few local play sessions and in several cases only taking part in the online tests. 19 individuals were able to attend in total spread across all games and platforms. There were five females and fourteen males. Everyone except two were within the age gap of 23-37 and the remaining two were 58 and 60 years old. 16 of the playtesters were experienced gamers, meaning they play at least 10 hours/week and three where playing games is only on rare occasions. Details regarding how many participants took part can be found in the result section.

3.6 Experiment Setup Several of the games offered tutorials but the playtesters were not allowed to go through them as navigating the game was something that was measured. However the playtesters were allowed to discuss this between one another. They were given a premise of the goals and rules of the game and during times that required clarification on the rules help was offered. Mysterium was a special case in that it’s an asymmetrical game that requires one of the playtesters to play as a ghost while the others play as mediums. Due to the nature of asymmetrical games there was

8 no other choice than to let one of the playtesters start out playing as the Ghost. After each session the positions were rotated and the player that played as Ghost went on to play as Medium while another became the Ghost. For communication we used the third party application Discord[23] to keep the social interaction between the players.

3.6.1 Scope of testing Table A1: Scopes of playtesting ​ Game Digital Time Physical Time Description

Carcassonne ~15-30*3 min ~30-90*3 min The sessions are played from start to finish. Each playtester got the chance to play each version three times. The participants were offered instructions regarding the goal of the game.

Love Letter ~15*3 min ~20*3 min The sessions are played from start to finish. Each playtester got the chance to play each version three times. The participants were offered instructions regarding the goal of the game.

Mysterium ~30*x min ~42*x min The sessions are played from start to finish. The amount of sessions depends on the amount of playtesters that took part in the session to offer everyone a chance to play ghost. X on time represents the number of players in the playtest. The participants were offered instructions regarding the goal of the game.

Small World ~30-50*3 ~40-80*3 min The sessions are played from start to finish. Each playtester got the chance to play each version three times. The participants were offered instructions regarding the goal of the game.

Ticket to Ride ~25-35*3 min ~30-60*3 min The sessions are played from start to finish. Each playtester got the chance to play each version three times. The participants were offered instructions regarding the goal of the game.

Twilight Struggle ~45-60*3 min ~120-180 min*3 The sessions are played from start to finish. Each playtester got the chance to play each version three times. The participants were offered instructions

9 regarding the goal of the game.

UNO ~10 min*3 ~30 min*3 The sessions are played from start to finish. Each playtester got the chance to play each version three times. The participants were offered instructions regarding the goal of the game.

3.7 GUESS During the playtests where going to ask questions revolving around observations. Questions could revolve around why a player makes a certain move or behaves in a way. Reasons behind this is to get a more in depth understanding of it. This could potentially confirm suspicions or add a point to reasons that otherwise might’ve been overlooked. Questionnaires were provided to our playtesters after a complete set of sessions for both versions of the game. The result provided from these will offer an overall sentiment of their user experience. The questionnaires structure was inspired by a method known as Game User Experience Satisfaction Scale (GUESS)[11] that uses a scale from 1-7. GUESS focuses on nine factors: ● Usability ○ The ease in which the game can be played with clear goals/objectives in mind and with minimal cognitive interferences or obstructions from the user interfaces and controls ● Narratives ○ The story aspects of the game (e.g., events and characters) and their abilities to capture the player’s interest and shape the player’s emotions ● Play Engrossment ○ The degree to which the game can hold the player’s attention and interest ● Enjoyment ○ The amount of pleasure and delight that was perceived by the player as a result of playing the game ● Creative Freedom ○ The extent to which the game is able to foster the player’s creativity and curiosity and allows the player to freely express his or her individuality while playing the game ● Audio Aesthetics ○ The different auditory aspects of the game (e.g., sound effects) and how much they enrich the gaming experience ● Personal Gratification ○ The motivational aspects of the game (e.g., challenge) that promote the player’s sense of accomplishment and the desire to succeed and continue playing the game ● Social Connectivity ○ The degree to which the game facilitates social connection between players through its tools and features ● Visual Aesthetics

10 ○ The graphics of the game and how attractive they appeared to the player

3.8 Customizing GUESS The downside of GUESS is that it only offers a rating around the nine factor and doesn’t focus on core mechanics. Another downside is it’s focus on Video Games and not physical tabletop games. To solve this issue we had to modify the GUESS method. Remove irrelevant items and factors regarding topics that appear in neither version. There was also a need to add questions that focus on core mechanics of the games and the genre itself. The result of this has led to having to narrow down the categories and categorize the questions into their related fields. The new categories are: ● Usability represents task success and efficiency. This involves understanding rules and game ​ mechanics. Also being able to navigate the game board, setting up a game, etc. ● Engagement represents how engrossed the player is in the session. If they are in suspense on ​ pending results, worried about getting found out and how engrossed they are in the game in general. ● Social Connection represents the social aspects of the game. Be it conversation between players, playing politics, etc. ● Aesthetics represent the visual and eventual audio aspects of the game. How art matches with the theme of the game, pretty to look at, etc. ● Enjoyment represents the amount of perceived pleasure and delight resulted from the player playing the game.

The reasoning behind these changes is to adapt the questions to the games and their platforms. Visual and Audio Aesthetics has been combined as the physical versions do not have any audio. Personal Gratification and Play Engrossment has been combined into Engagement. There are studies showing that engrossment or rather paying attention and keeping track of time is a result based on how engaged a player is in the activity [24]. This resulted in the decision to make this into a combined ​ ​ category. The factor Narratives focuses on characters development, progression through story, and how they identified themselves with the characters. Creative Freedom (CF) measures the extent the game triggers the player’s creativity, curiosity and to freely express their individuality. These factors were both excluded due to the similarities it carries in both versions of the game and doesn’t add any insight into the player experiences between Physical and Digital tabletop games. The games are compared using the same mechanics, rules and with the only difference being the way it’s played. In one of the aspects where CF might’ve differentiated is when cheating would’ve been involved [25]. Depending on what platforms the game is being played, there are different ways a player can cheat. The playtesters are however refrained from doing this.

3.9 Measure Results When all the playtests have been gathered, they will undergo a review. The response from each question will be added into a total score, divided by the amount of responses to get an average and

11 lastly divided by the highest score which is 7. Lastly this average score will be divided by 7 and multiplied by 100. This gives us a score that scales from 1-100 to gain a more precise value.

3.9.1 Scope of results

1 Strongly Disagree

25 Disagree

50 Undecided

75 Agree

100 Strongly Agree

4. Contributions

The goal with this study is to contribute knowledge on how intended game mechanics and impressions may change depending on what platform they’re being played. This is relevant for future developers or researchers to make a better estimate of success concerning transitioning their tabletop game to digital.

The common trend between digital games compared to their physical counterparts is efficiency. There’s no need for shuffling and dealing the cards, the game keeps track of what cards have been played and how many of them there are left. This makes the game time of each session faster and allows the players to play more games than they’d be able to in the physical version. All the game mechanics and rules remain the same through the adaptations. It’s important to note that the majority of the digital games that have been picked in this study are created by french producer and developer Asmodee Digital. But with this in mind, all of the game mechanics in the original tabletop games remain the same.

4.1 Carcassonne Designer: Klaus-Jürgen Wrede ​ Genre: Tile-based, Eurogame ​ Published: year 2000 by Hans im Glück ​ Digital Developer: Asmodee Digital, Frima Studio ​ Digital Publisher: Asmodee Digital ​ Digital Release: 2017 ​

12

Figure 4.1.1 Cover art for the Digital version of Carcassonne.

“Carcassonne is a tile-placement game in which the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it. The tile might feature a city, a road, a cloister, grassland or some combination thereof, and it must be placed adjacent to tiles that have already been played, in such a way that cities are connected to cities, roads to roads, etcetera. Having placed a tile, the player can then decide to place one of their meeples on one of the areas on it: on the city as a knight, on the road as a robber, on a cloister as a monk, or on the grass as a farmer. When that area is complete, that meeple scores points for its owner [14].”

Analysis Tile-based Eurogame for 2-5 players. It’s a tile-laying area control game. The players take turns placing connecting tiles to build up cities, fields and roads. Completing projects earns the players Victory points depending on the size of said project. At the end of the game the points are tallied based on controlled tiles and their neighbours.

This is a casual family game and it aims towards players that enjoy casual tile-based games which emphasize strategy and careful planning. There’s a high skill cap due to all the possible paths available.

A turn in Carcassonne 1. Draw a tile from the deck. 2. Locate area to place the tile 3. Rotate the tile so that it matches adjacent tiles. 4. Place the tile 5. If possible a. Area is not occupied by another meeple b. Player has meeples available 6. Place a meeple a. If the tile leads to an area getting completed i. Roads have crossroads at both ends. ii. Cities when they have city walls completely surrounding it. iii. Monasteries have eight neighbouring tiles surrounding it forming a 3x3 with the monastery at the center.

13 7. The player with a meeple on a finished project gets to pick up their meeple again and is rewarded with Victory points matching the size and type of the project. 8. Turn passes over to the next player. 9. This repeats until the last tile of the deck is played.

The game starts with only one tile present but as the session delves deeper a landscape is soon built with several cities, long roads and monasteries. The randomness that comes from what tile is drawn gives the game a high replayability as no game looks the same.

There are ways for the players to impact each other in detrimental ways but there’s also possibilities for politics. The players can’t play meeples on projects that are already inhabited by another Meeple, but they can do it indirectly if they place a similar tile nearby. As long there’s a tile in between that doesn’t connect the projects the player can place a Meeple there. If these two projects later get connected by a tile, it means that both are working on it and both are rewarded points once the project is finished. However if one of the players somehow manages to get more Meeples than their opponents in a project, it leads to a hostile takeover. Meaning that the player with the more Meeples takes all Reward for the finished project for himself.

Judging from observations and own experiences, the game is considered fair and not based much around luck. The only random factor in the game is what tile the players draw. Other than that there’s no other random factors. There are possibilities to gain an advantage by drawing favorable tiles, it’s more important to play consistently and with good strategies. Physical version’s estimated play time is between 30 to 90 minutes and digital lies between 15-30 minutes.

4.1.1 Difference between Physical and Digital The digital version of Carcassonne offers the possibility to play Pass N’ Play, against bots, and through the Online mode. They’ve also added a Matchmaking Rating that adds competitiveness to the Online mode.

At the beginning of the turns the players are given a tile and then must plan out where this tile will be placed. The digital version makes it easier for the player to locate the positions where a tile can be placed by highlighting possible areas. The rotation of each tile is also enforced to follow according to the rules as it doesn’t visualize the incorrect variations of the rotated tiles.

There are a finite amount of tiles with certain patterns that eventually runs out. This runs the risk of certain projects no longer having the chance of being finished due to a certain block has run out. These positions are then highlighted with the color red and a big red cross. Similar mechanics include where the meeples can be placed after putting down a tile. The players can also see how many turns there are left through the tile tracker.

14 Many of the features in the digital version are implemented to ease the players’ time required to locate areas to place out and position their tiles. These mechanics reduce the time required to play a session.

4.2 Love Letter Designer: Seiji Kanai ​ Published: 2012 by Z-Man Games ​ Genre: Card Game, Strategy, Deduction, Renaissance ​ Digital developer: Nomad Games ​ Digital publisher: Asmodee Digital ​ Digital release: 2018 ​

Figure 4.2.1 Cover art for the Physical version of Love Letter.

“Love Letter is a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2–4 players. Your goal is to get your love letter into Princess Annette's hands while deflecting the letters from competing suitors. From a deck with only sixteen cards, each player starts with only one card in hand; one card is removed from play. On a turn, you draw one card, and play one card, trying to expose others and knock them from the game. Powerful cards lead to early gains, but make you a target. Rely on weaker cards for too long, however, and your letter may be tossed in the fire! [15]”

Card game for 2-4 players where the player with the strongest card at the end of the round wins a token. This continues until one player reaches a predetermined number of tokens. It’s a game of deception where the players are trying to figure out the cards of their opponents while keeping their own card a secret. The goal is to end each round with the card with the highest value or take out the competition with deduction. The game is over when a player has reached a certain amount of tokens.

15 Love Letter targets an audience that enjoys casual games with a focus on deception and deduction. It has simple rules and not a big variety of cards to consider which makes the game easy to pick up. This is for those that enjoy figuring out their opponents patterns and signs while at the same time trying to disguise their own. All of this while trying to remain as anonyme to the other contenders to not become a target.

A turn in Love Letter 1. Draw a card (Should have 2 during your turn) 2. Deduce the optimal course of action depending on the cards in hand a. Offense with cards such as Guard and Baron b. Control or gather information with cards like Priest, Prince and King c. Defense with Handmaiden 3. Play card. 4. Turn over

There are 16 cards in the deck representing 8 types of characters. Each character carries a value and a feature that is played upon discarding it. The impact of each feature is reflected by the it’s value. The Guard offers the value of 1 and may not win the player a round by biggest value; it carries the feature of taking out an opponent from a round by guessing the correct card that the opponent is holding. On the other hand, there’s the Princess that has the highest value in the game and definitely will win the player the round if it lasts until the last card has been drawn. The downside of the Princess is that if discarded, the player is automatically out of the round. These simple mechanics turn Love Letter into an intriguing game of deception and deduction. The Challenges the players face in this game is to get a read on their opponents as at the same time not allowing their opponents to get a read on their own card. There are optimal plays in this game turn the game in your favor but these plays have a chance to eventually be predictable. An example of this is only playing a baron when holding the highest card that is the princess. Baron is a card that challenges an opponent in a duel, the duel being about who holds the highest card, the player with lower value is out of the round. There are plenty of ways of mixing up the plays without taking too much of a risk of getting struck out of the rounds.

There are possibilities of unfairness in a game such as this. With most games the cards that are drawn are unpredictable. There are ideal cards to get during certain turns and less than ideal during others. The most ideal card to draw is the Princess during the last turn, that occurs when the last card has been drawn. That usually leads to an auto win. Though there are horrible cards that can lead to an automatic loss. For example if we draw the Princess on the last turn again but this time the other card is the King. The King forces an opponent to swap hands with you, which would lead to giving away the win instead. It’s important to note that the round doesn’t end until the player that drew the last card has played a card which in this case would force the player to play the King and swap. But in many cases when it comes to card games it’s more important how the game is played rather than relying on luck.

16 Love Letter has a high replayability due to the variety of possible scenarios. It’s a game with simple rules and only 8 different types of cards but due to the factors to consider and tense situations that may occur is what makes this game feel so rewarding.

4.2.1 Difference between Physical and Digital: The big difference between the physical and digital versions are sitting face to face in the physical version. In a game of deception and deduction; the players can gather a lot of intel about the players from their “physical tells”. Like many other card games such as Poker, spotting tells and patterns makes a big difference when trying to figure out an opponent’s next move. Spotting physical tells is an impossibility when playing online but there’s still a possibility to spot patterns [16]. Be it how they play depending on what kind of cards they hold or their goals. A factor like physical tells is something that can’t be replicated through a basic digital implementation that doesn’t implement advanced Virtual Reality mechanics. The Digital version offers the possibilities to play single player against bots, against friends in private multiplayer or against other players in online mode.

4.3 Mysterium Designer: Oleksandr Nevskiy, Oleg Sidorenko ​ Genre: Cooperative, Mystery ​ Published: year 2015 by Libellud ​ Digital Developer: Asmodee Digital, Playsoft ​ Digital Publisher: Asmodee Digital ​ Digital Release: 2017 ​

Figure 4.3.1 Cover art for the Physical version of Mysterium.

“In Mysterium, a reworking of the game system present in Tajemnicze Domostwo, one player takes the role of ghost while everyone else represents a medium. To solve the crime, the ghost must first recall

17 (with the aid of the mediums) all of the suspects present on the night of the murder. A number of suspect, location and murder weapon cards are placed on the table, and the ghost randomly assigns one of each of these in secret to a medium [17].”

Cooperative board game with aspects of murder mystery and card-based guessing games for 2-7 players. One player plays as a ghost and the others play as detectives. The ghost can only communicate through cards with images and the detectives need to interpret these card to solve this murder. The game is played for only seven turns in which the detective players have to interpret correctly where the murder was done, the murder weapon and the murderer. If the murderer is discovered then everyone wins, if the wrong person is picked as the murderer or the turns run out then everyone loses. Estimated play time is 40 minutes for the physical version, and about 10 to 20 minutes for the digital version.

Mysterium was chosen to represent the genre of cooperative deductive mystery games. The choice to use Mysterium over other games such as Clue were the cooperative aspect. None of the other chosen games features any intentional cooperative play.

Formal Elements The Ghost is a role one of the players chose to play as. At the start of the game the Ghost takes 3 cards from 3 different decks for each other player in the game. These cards represent each player’s murder suspect, the place of the murder, and the murder weapon. The Ghost keeps these cards hidden from the other players.

The other players all play a Medium who communes with the Ghost player using Vision cards to guess who their murder suspect, place of murder, and murder weapon is.

The Vision cards are used by the Ghost to provide hints to the other players. They are the only means of communication the Medium players have with the Ghost player. Each turn the Ghost takes 7 Vision cards and gives a Medium player 1 or more Vision cards. The Ghost refills their hand to be 7 Vision cards after each Medium player gets their Vision cards.

Each Medium player has Clairvoyance tokens to use. Their function is for players to either agree or disagree what another player’s guess is. If the player who used their Clairvoyance token is correct they recieve Clairvoyance points to use in the Epilogue round.

In the Epilogue round the Ghost shuffles the different murderer suspect, murder location, and murder weapon cards and picks a new combination cards. The Ghost player then picks 3 Vision cards, one for the suspect, one for the location and one for the weapon. How many of these Vision cards a player can see depends on a Medium player’s Clairvoyance points. First the Mediums with the least points see the first Vision card. These players then make their guess on the murder combination. Afterwards the player’s who fill the required points to see the second card get to see that Vision card and make their guesses. Finally the last card is revealed for those who unlocked all cards and they get to guess. The Epilogue round does not start until all Medium Players reach it.

18 If the correct combination of murder suspect, murder location and murder weapon are chosen then all players win. If not then everyone loses.

A turn in Mysterium 1. Ghost player draws 7 Vision cards. 2. The Ghost player gives the first Medium player 1 to 7 Vision cards the Ghost player thinks contain hints pointing towards the Medium player’s suspect card. 3. The Ghost draws new Vision cards until their hand contains 7 Vision cards and repeats step 2. This repeats for each Medium player until all have received their Vision cards. 4. The Medium players now use the Vision cards to attempt to find the right clue connecting the Vision card with their suspect card. 5. The Medium players make their guesses on their individual suspects. 6. Each Medium player now has a chance to use their Clairvoyance tokens. 7. The Ghost player reveals if a Medium players guess is correct or not. The Mediums who were right moving on to the next level, which is either location, murder weapon or the Epilogue round. 8. The Clairvoyance Points are counted based on the amount of correct Clairvoyance tokens. 9. If the Ghost player has any Vision cards left on their hand at the end of the turn these carry over to the next turn. 10. Turn is over.

Mysterium being a guessing game means it involves a fair bit of luck. From the Ghost player’s luck with drawing their Vision cards to the Medium players’ guesses. The latter example however can be either luck or skill, or both depending on the player. Some players can see a connection between several Vision cards and take a guess based on their own deduction. A skillful Ghost player could do the same when giving a Medium player their cards. The skill part of Mysterium lies in being able to make the connections.

4.3.1 Difference between Physical and Digital The ghost player has to drag and drop each vision card onto the medium players’ suspect cards and press a confirm button to hand them their cards.

The clairvoyance tokens and the amount available to use are set into the UI. The medium players have to drag and drop from the UI and place them on the players they think are correct or incorrect in their suspect guess. Each medium players’ clairvoyance score is also kept on the UI next to the token amount instead of the designed archway in the physical version. The ghost players raven tokens are applied on the same UI border.

In the online version the medium players have access to a chat which the ghost player is unable to see or enter. For local play they offer the possibility to play pass and play which rely on the medium players not

19 peeking on the ghost player when it is their turn, a warning is given when the medium player's turn ends to prevent them accidently peeking.

In Pass N’ Play the medium players are still capable of socially interacting with one another like in the physical version. For the ghost player it does not change as their role is to not speak in both versions of the game.

4.4 Small World Designer: Philippe Keyaerts ​ Illustration: Miguel Coimbra and Cyrille Daujean ​ Genre: Strategy ​ Published: year 2009 by Days of Wonder ​ Digital Developer: Days of Wonder ​ Digital Publisher: Days of Wonder, Asmodee Digital ​ Digital Release: 2013 ​

Figure 4.4.1 Cover art for the Physical version of Small World.

Small World is a strategy, simulation game for 2-5 players. The base game offers 14 different races and 20 unique special powers and several maps that are chosen based on the amount of participants.

Formal Elements At the beginning of the game six races and special powers are offered and each player gets to choose a combination they believe will help them conquer areas and gather as many coins at the end of the turn. Each race and special power offers a unique ability and will encourage the players to adjust their strategies based on these features. At the end of each turn the player gets coins based on the race, special powers and amount of territories occupied. The player with the highest amount of coins at the end of the session wins.

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A turn in Small World 1. There are 2 options in the beginning of the turn a. Put race into decline that leads to the end of the turn. i. Going into Decline means that the player has chosen to pick a new race. This forces the current race to turn upside down and can’t be played anymore. Can only have one race in decline at the time. ii. Next turn the player is allowed to pick a new race and play it as the new active race. b. Play turn as normal and continue down the 2. Get tokens that the player can use to take new areas. They get it from: a. Areas that have more than one token. b. From areas that have been lost during opponents’ turns. 3. Conquer new areas using tokens and some special powers. a. If the player doesn’t have enough tokens to take over an area they have the option to roll an reinforcement die that adds to the amount of tokens used to attack. 4. Redeploy phase. Tokens that are not required to hold down a territory are given back to the player. With these tokens they can place them out on areas to bolster their defenses. 5. Gather Coins based on: a. The amount of areas the player occupies. This includes the race that’s in Decline. b. Race’s special ability. c. Special Power’s. 6. Turn is over.

Note: Races and Special Powers may affect how a turn is played.

4.4.1 Difference between Physical and Digital The digital version of Small World offers the possibility to play Pass N’ Play, against bots, Local games over WiFi and through the Online mode. The online also adds a Matchmaking Rating that offers competitiveness to the online games. The physical version involves managing many tokens which becomes obsolete in the digital version as the game itself manages that part. Tokens that need to be redeployed after losing a battle or failing a reinforcement are automatically given back to the player to redeploy. Some of the more unique racial and special powers abilities get highlighted to indicate that they’re active. An example of this is the sorcerer’s ability to transform a lonely token on an area into a sorcerer token. The players’ combat turn is over once they’re out of tokens to place, after they’ve done a reinforcement roll or pressed the redeploy button. Going into decline can be a bit confusing at first as the button is simply a picture of a pillar without giving any context while hovering over it. When picking a new combination a window opens up and shows the same information that is on the physical sheets that comes with the game.

21 4.5 Ticket to Ride Designer: Alan R. Moon ​ Genre: Family, Wargames ​ Published: year 2004 by Days of Wonder ​ Digital Developer: Days of Wonder ​ Digital Publisher: Days of Wonder, Asmodee Digital ​ Digital Release: 2012 ​

Figure 4.5.1 Cover art for the Physical version of Ticket to Ride.

“With elegantly simple gameplay, Ticket to Ride can be learned in under 15 minutes. Players collect cards of various types of train cars they then use to claim railway routes in North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who fulfill Destination Tickets – goal cards that connect distant cities; and to the player who builds the longest continuous route [18].”

Ticket to Ride is a family railway game for 2 to 5 players. The goal of the game is to claim railway routes for points. Physical version takes 30-60 minutes to play and the digital version 20-40 minutes.

Formal Elements At the start of the game each player picks a colour to play as and 45 train cars of the same colour. Next the player picks 2 destination tickets from a choice of 3 random ones picked from a shuffled deck. Any tickets not chosen will be put in the bottom of the destination ticket deck. Each player then receives 4 train cards from the train card deck to start them off. 5 more cards are then drawn from the same deck and placed face up and these are the revealed cards.

During a player's turn they are allowed to pick 2 new cards from the shuffled deck, the revealed cards or a mix of both. If one of the revealed cards is a locomotive card then a player is only able to pick one card should they pick the locomotive card. A player can also decide to instead pick 1 to 3 new destination tickets to add to the tickets chosen at the start of the game. A final option for the player is to use their train cards to claim a train route if they have the corresponding amount of train cards with the same colour as the route. A player can claim any route not already claimed by another player.

22

The game enters the final turn when one player has two or fewer train car tokens left. At the end of the final turn the points are initially counted based on the amount of train cars placed, the length of the route and a 10 point bonus to the player with the longest continuously connected set of routes. Then the players reveal their destination tickets to add the points shown on the ticket to their score if they successfully completed the route, with points subtracted for any incomplete routes. The player with the highest score at the end of the session wins.

A turn in Ticket to Ride 1. There are 4 options in the beginning of the turn a. Pick 2 train cards from either the shuffled deck or the revealed cards. b. Pick 1 locomotive card from the revealed cards. c. Pick 1 to 3 new destination tickets. d. Claim a train route with the players available train cards. 2. Turn is over.

Judging based on observations and our own play sessions, the game has a fair mix of luck and skill. The biggest random factors being what train and destination tickets the players draw as well as the selection of revealed train cards. These factors decide what possibilities each player has. There is still room for strategies such as how to hide which routes the players are building for and blocking other players by taking routes they were building for. What cards a player choses from the revealed cards also encourages players to use their observation skill to predict what other players are aiming for.

4.5.1 Difference between Physical and Digital The player tokens are handled by the UI. The amount of placeable trains and score is tracked and updated in the lower right corner. Each player's cards are likewise kept in the lower part of the screen. If a collection of same colored train cards are selected it is possible to hover over train routes to see if it’s possible to claim that route with the cards selected. To get a new destination or train cards their respective decks have to be pressed. This either opens up a selection of destination tickets to choose from or give the player a new train card.

The digital version of Ticket to Ride offers the possibility to play Pass’N’Play, against bots, Local games over WiFi and through the Online mode. Playing it pass and play does limit the social aspects of playing as each player has to take care not to look as the turn skips from one player to the next.

There are no changes to the game mechanics between the physical and digital versions beyond visual representation and those which have already been mentioned previously.

4.6 Twilight Struggle Designer: Ananda Gupta, Jason Matthews ​ Genre: Strategy, Wargames ​ Published: year 2015 by GMT Games ​

23 Digital Developer: Playdec, Inc ​ Digital Publisher: Asmodee Digital ​ Digital Release: 2016 ​

Figure 4.6.1 Cover art for the Physical version of Twilight Struggle.

“Twilight Struggle inherits its fundamental systems from the card-driven classics We the People[19] and Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage[20]. It is a quick-playing, low-complexity game in that tradition. The game map is a world map of the period, where players move units and exert influence in attempts to gain allies and control for their superpower. As with GMT's other card-driven games, decision-making is a challenge; how to best use one's cards and units given consistently limited resources [21].“

Twilight Struggle is a strategy wargame for 2 players set in the Cold War. A player can play as either the USA or the USSR, with the other player playing as the one not chosen. Players take turns playing cards for either their Event effect or the Operation Value the card has. The Operation Value determines how much Influence the player can invest into taking control of countries on the game board map. The game is set up into 3 stages called the Early War, Mid War, and the Late War. These stages are divided over 10 turns.

Formal Elements The cards in Twilight Struggle have both an Event and an Operations Value on them. They are either coloured red, white, or split between both red and white. Red represents cards with Events meant for the USSR and white for the USA. If a player plays a card not meant for their faction then the Event always triggers. There are 3 different types of cards. The first and most common one is the Event card.

Another type of card that a player can draw from the deck is a Scoring card which cannot be held at the end of a turn and must be played before then. The Scoring card has 3 different brackets for the region it affects, the first is Presence which awards Victory Points if a player controls at least one country within the region. The second bracket is Domination where a player has to control more battleground countries

24 and non-battleground countries in the region to earn Victory Points. The last bracket is Control where a player has to control all battleground countries and more countries overall within the region.

The final card type is called the China card and there is only one of these cards in the entire game. The USSR starts with this card. It gets passed over to the other player if played.

Influence Points are used to place into taking control of countries across the game map. This is done either by a Coup, Realignment, or placing points into an unclaimed country. The points necessary to take control of an unclaimed country is the stability score of that country with the opponent players placed Influence added on should they have any in that country. The player can only place Influence in countries that are adjacent to countries they already have Influence in at the start of that round.

Coups are another way to take control of a country the opponent already has Influence in. If a Coup is attempted in a country designated as a Battleground by the game board then the DEFCON Status gets lowered by 1. Coups are calculated by adding together the Operations Value on the card played with a die roll then subtracting that with the Stability score of the country multiplied by 2. This value is how much Influence the other player loses in that country and any left over is how much Influence the player gains.

Realignment rolls have the same region-restrictions as Coups and the simple Influence investment. Each player rolls a die and adds a +1 to the roll for each adjacent country that they control, +1 if it’s adjacent to their main country, and +1 if they have more Influence than their opponent in the country. The player with the highest roll gets to remove the other player’s Influence in the target country by an amount equal to the difference between the players rolls. Realignment does not decrease DEFCON Status.

DEFCON Status is represented by a scale of 5 to 1 where 5 is peace and 1 is nuclear war. If the DEFCON Status reaches 1 the game is over and the player who lowered it loses. 4 to 2 on the scale symbolises conflict and prevents the players from attempting Coups or Realignment rolls in certain areas of the game world depending on the DEFCON Status value.

The Space Race Track works by using Operations Points to move up the Space Race Track. Once the Operations Points are spent the player rolls a dice and if the dice roll is within the required score the player moves up the Space Race Track. The first player to reach a new level of the track gets more Victory Points. At certain levels the player gets other bonuses such as using two cards on the Space Race Track per turn.

Military Operations Status is checked at the end of a turn. It goes from 1 to 5 and represents the amount of military operations a player has done, such as coups. Every player needs to do the same amount of military operations as the DEFCON level and any point away from that amount gives Victory Points to the opposing player. The Military Operations Status resets to 0 each new turn.

A player wins if the other player reaches DEFCON 1 on their Action Round. Another way to win is when a player has Control level on Europe when the Score card for Europe is played. The Event card named

25 Wargames being triggered also results in a win. If one player reaches +20 on the Victory Point scale they win. The Victory Point scale is shared between both players and each positive point or negative point moves the score to one player's benefit. If no player triggers any of the previously mentioned win conditions then at turn 10 whoever has the most Victory Points is declared the winner.

A turn in Twilight Struggle 1. The turn begins with the DEFCON Status being raised by 1 up to a maximum of 5. 2. Then each player gets dealt cards from the current stage deck until their hand contains 8 cards. 3. Next comes the Headline Phase. Each player has to select 1 card from their hand to reveal at the same time. The card with the highest Operations Value is played first. If the Operation Value is the same on both cards then the US player’s card is played first. The Event on the card is then carried out followed by the Event on the other player’s card. 4. The Action Rounds happen after the Headline Phase. The Action Rounds last for a total of 6-8 rounds depending on the war stage of the game. During the Action Rounds both players go back and forth playing their cards. There are 3 options of what to play the card as. a. Play the card for its Operations Value. i. Place the Operations Value as Influence points into controlling a country. ii. Attempt a Coup. iii. Realignment roll. b. Play the card for its Event. c. Use the card to further the player on the Space Race Track. 5. Check Military Operations Status 6. The player with the China Card has the option to use it. 7. Advance turn marker. 8. Turn is over.

Twilight Struggle has elements of luck such as the dice rolls and drawn cards. There is also much room for strategy concerning what to do with the cards. A player could decide to hold onto cards that are beneficial to the opposing player to keep them from getting it themselves. Using cards that are detrimental to the player on the Space Race Track is also an option for off-loading cards.

4.6.1 Difference between Physical and Digital Twilight Struggle’s digital version features online, local, against an AI, and hotseat play. There are many tokens and cards to keep track of in the physical version, these are handled by the UI in the digital edition. The digital version gives suggestions of what to do with event cards such as play events or place influence. The computer handles the updates of the DEFCON status, the Military Operations status and the Space Race status. The way Twilight Struggle’s game mechanics function does not change beyond the resource and score management in the digital version. Having all the information handled by the computer allows for quicker matches. All hotseat digital games face the potential issue of players attaining information about the other player when turns

26 change, Twilight Struggle does as well. Social conversations between the two players for hotseat change as players cannot view the other playing their turn without peeking.

4.7 UNO Designer: Merle Robbins ​ Genre: Family, Card Game ​ Published: year 1971 by International Games, Inc ​ Digital Version Name: UNO With Friends ​ Digital Developer: Digital Attitude Games ​ Digital Publisher: Digital Attitude Games ​ Digital Release: 2019 ​

Figure 4.7.1 Box for the Physical version of UNO.

“Players race to empty their hands and catch opposing players with cards left in theirs, which score points. In turns, players attempt to play a card by matching its color, number, or word to the topmost card on the discard pile. If unable to play, players draw a card from the draw pile, and if still unable to play, they pass their turn. Wild and special cards spice things up a bit [22].”

UNO is a family card game for 2-10 players. The objective of the game is to be the first player to reach 500 points. Estimated play time is 30 minutes.

Formal Elements Each new game round starts with each player being dealt 7 cards. The dealer then takes 1 card and flips it over face up, this card starts the discard pile. Beginning clockwise from the dealer the players play one card each turn. This card has to match either the colour or the symbol off the top card in the discard pile. If the first card in the discard pile is a special card then one of five rules apply.

27 ● If the first card is a draw 4 wild card it gets shuffled back into the deck and another card is drawn. ● If the first card is a regular wild card the first player picks a colour to start with. ● If the first card is a draw 2 card the first player draws 2 cards and skips their turn. ● If the first card is a reverse card the dealer goes first. ● If the first card is a skip card then the first player skips their turn.

There are 6 different types of cards in UNO. ● The most common card is the coloured number card. They come in 4 colours which are red, green, blue and yellow. The number on the card represents the point value of that card at the end of the round. Within the round the card can be placed in the discard pile if the number or colour is the same as the last card in the discard pile. ● The reverse card likewise comes in the 4 colours mentioned. It can be placed in the discard pile if it has the same colour or symbol as the last card in the discard pile. If played the order of play reverses. ● The skip card can be played in the same manner as the reverse card. If played the next player skips their turn. ● The draw 2 cards work the same way as skip cards with the addition of the next player also having to draw 2 turns while skipping their turn. ● The wild card is playable whenever a player has one. It is used to change the colour played to any of the 4 colours the game uses. The next card played has to have the same colour but not a matching symbol. ● The draw 4 wild card can be played whenever a player doesn't have a card matching the colour played. If played the next player has to draw 4 cards and skip their turn and the player who played the card gets to decide the new colour. The player about to draw 4 cards can challenge the other player if they believe they played the draw 4 card illegally. That player then has to show that player their hand. If the card is played illegally then the one who played the card draws 4 cards instead and returns the draw 4 card to their hand. If however the player did follow the rules then the challenger draws 2 additional penalty cards.

If a player has no cards that can be legally played then they may draw one card from the deck. If this card can be played they may immediately do so. A player may also choose not to play despite being able to and instead draw a card. If a player still can not play then their turn is skipped.

By the time a player has only 1 card left on their hand they have to call out UNO. If other players catch them not saying UNO then they have to draw 2 penalty cards. If nobody notices a player not saying UNO when that player only has 1 card left then there is no penalty. It is valid to win a round ending with any of the 6 different cards. Once a player has shed all their cards they are declared the winner of that round. They receive points from any unplayed cards their opponents have on their hands. The numbered cards give their face value in points. Reverse, skip and draw 2 cards give 20 points. Wild card and draw 4 wild card gives 50 points. The first player to 500 points wins the entire game.

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A turn in UNO 1. At the start of a player’s turn they have 3 options. a. Place any legal card on the discard pile. b. Choose not to play a card and draw a new card. They may choose to either play this card or keep it. c. Have no legal card and be forced to draw a card. They may play this card if it is a legal card, otherwise they keep it on their hand. 2. The other players play their cards clockwise, or counterclockwise should a reverse card get played, until all have played. 3. Turn is over.

UNO contains a fair mix of luck and skill. Luck decides what cards each player draws while skill decides what a player does with the cards. Through observing play sessions it is noticeable that skill plays an important part in when to play a game changing card. Holding onto a draw 4 card for example can allow a player to make an opponent skip their turn so that the player can shed their final cards the next turn without the opponent interfering.

4.7.1 Difference between Physical and Digital UNO With Friends features offline play against AIs, online match-making and being able to set up an online match against friends. The user experience playtests were conducted using the online play with friends mode. The cards are handled by the computer. The computer delivers a prompt to draw a new card if no legal move is possible with the players current hand. The option to challenge a player who uses the draw 4 card is not present in the digital version. The computer prevents illegal use of cards such as using the draw 4 card when another card can be played. There is another rule change between the digital and the physical version. Draw 4 cards can be played whenever and not only when there are no cards with the same colour as the last card in the discard pile. The digital version does not feature voice communication between players in the online mode. The text communication is limited to prewritten phrases and emojis.

5. Results & Analysis

Disclaimer: 20-30 people were asked to do the tests, only a few were able to attend due to the Covid-19 situation and how the tests were conducted.

29 5.1 Carcassonne

Figure 5.1.1. Carcassonne UX Diagram

On the diagram in figure 5.1.1 we can see a high score in Usability in favor of the Digital and relatively low for Physical. The biggest issue revolved around calculating the Victory Points. In the physical version there were issues with knowing how many points were awarded for finished projects and calculating the points at the end of the session. In the digital versions the players can get an overview over what the Fields cover but in the physical version the players need to figure out how far it expands depending on the tiles. Ultimately this led to more work and time spent during each turn and in the last phase where the players collect the points for unfinished projects and fields. What followed with the digital’s higher efficiency was that the players remained more engaged with what was happening during each turn. On the other hand the slower pace of the Physical version also led to a rather high Social Connectivity compared to the Digital. After combining all the factors, the average were 78.1 points to Digital and 72.7 points to Physical showing that it’s more enjoyable on PC. We had 8 playtesters for this game, all experienced gamers. There were five males and three females with the age span between 24-37. Three of them were not able to make a physical appearance which resulted in them only being able to evaluate the Digital version. The number of players that partook in each playtest varied between 3-5.

30 5.2 Love Letter

Figure 5.2.1 Love Letter UX Diagram

Love Letter is a simple game with not too many components or game mechanics involved. In a game with only 16 cards where only 8 of them are different it’s easy to learn the mechanics and where there’s barely anything to manage, both scored high points in Usability. As shown in figure 5.2.1 the Digital version got a slightly higher score in Usability. The reason behind this slight difference is because the Digital version offers a better overview of the cards that have been played during the round. Otherwise the Physical version was a clear winner in every other category. Even in its Aesthetic representation, where no music or animation was available. Areas where Love Letter far exceeded its Digital adaptations is the Social Connection and Engagement. Though simple, it creates competitiveness with the Deduction and Deception elements. There was high competitiveness during our playtests in both versions but due to missing the face-to-face element it completely changed the experience. Situations where a player tries to read off another player’s expression was common and it added intensity to the playtesting. Everyone paid close attention to every move and the interaction when someone makes an impactful play there was a mix of laughter and astonishment. In a simple game where imperfect information is so important, this shows the impact it does when players are sitting together vs on separate locations. We had eight playtesters for this game, all experienced gamers. There were seven males and one female with the age span between 24-37. Three of them were not able to make a physical appearance which resulted in them only being able to evaluate the Digital version. The number of players that partook in each playtest varied between 3-4.

31 5.3 Mysterium

Figure 5.3.1 Mysterium UX Diagram

The scores for the Digital and Physical versions in figure 5.3.1 are near equal overall with a slight exception for the Social Connection. It was not a problem for Mysterium as only the Ghost has cards to keep secret from other players. Players discussed each other's clues and cards freely in both versions. The close result in 5.3.1 was accredited to the majority of testers saying they preferred the Physical version due to being easier to set up at social gatherings compared to playing it on computer. This speaks well for the Digital version as its main draw is its online play mode which is meant for distance gaming rather than social gatherings. There were 8 playtesters for Mysterium. 6 males and 2 females in the age spans 25-32 and 58-60. 6 of the playtesters are experienced gamers. The number of players that partook in each playtest varied between 3-5.

32 5.4 Small World

Figure 5.4.1 Small World UX Diagram

In figure 5.4.1 we can see that the rating of Usability is very close between the Digital and Physical versions. The playtesters rated the Aesthetics and Social Connectivity heavily in favor of the Digital versions. From our observations of the Digital version was leaning more towards the chaotic side of the game. When asked why, they responded that they enjoyed sabotaging their opponents rather than aim to win. There was less politics than the Physical version but more in friendly banter. In the physical version there was more focus on politics and competitiveness compared to the Digital which led to the higher Engagement rating. Another reason behind the higher rating in Engagement was the impact of the players placing and removing the tokens from the board. The playtest was conducted with 6 playtesters, 5 males and 1 female with the age span between 24-37, all being experienced gamers. Out of the 6 playtesters, 5 of the participants were able to attend the playtest of the physical versions. Each playtester was able to playtest each version at least three times. The number of players that partook in each playtest varied between 3-4.

The Digital version wins by going by the average of the factors’ rating but according to the players, the Physical version was the more preferred option[Figure 5.4.2]. It’s too close of a call in all factors, rating and preferred to make a clear call. Each version has shown strengths on different factors. Two of which had a significantly higher rating in favor of Digital and one closer in favor of Physical. There’s a possibility that in this type of game, Engagement has more of an impact than Social Connectivity and Aesthetics or

33 rather, not having enough of Engagement could lead to the other two factors making less of an impact on the overall experience.

5.5 Ticket to Ride

Figure 5.5.1 Ticket to Ride UX Diagram.

As shown in figure 5.5.1 the major score differences between the Digital and Physical versions were Engagement, Social Connection and Enjoyment. From playtester interviews the reason for a higher score in Engagement for the Physical version was given that it was harder to keep the players card a secret in the Digital version when playing Pass and Play. Seeing the train car tokens on the Physical board made some testers feel a bigger impact from their actions compared to the Digital version. Pass and Play was also stated as the reason why the score for Social Connection favors the Physical version. The slower pace was also accredited as a reason why the Social Connection was better in the Physical version. There were 8 playtesters for Ticket to Ride with 3 testers not trying the Physical version which resulted in them only evaluating the Digital version. The playtesters were 6 males and 2 females in the age spans 26-32 and 58-60 of which 3 were experienced gamers. The number of players that partook in each playtest varied between 3-5.

34 5.6 Twilight Struggle

Figure 5.6.1 Twilight Struggle UX Diagram.

In figure 5.6.1 it shows that Social Connection scores in favor of the Physical version with a score of 81 points on Physical and 61.9 points on Digital. For a micromanagement heavy game the Usability scores were close to the same in the Digital and Physical versions. The reasons given for the mild scores were that in the Physical version the micromanagement was intensive while in the Digital version that was handled by the computer. This gave the testers a feeling they had less control of how to play while playing the Digital version. The average score with all factors combined proved that the Physical version had a fairly higher score than the Digital with 75.6 points to Digital and 80.3 points to Physical. As the score was higher in favor of the Physical version, the Digital version was appreciated by the players due the fact that it’s less time consuming. There were 3 playtesters for Twilight Struggle. They consisted of 3 males with 2 being experienced gamers. The ages were 29, 32 and 58. All tested both versions of the game. As this is a 1v1 game, only two playtesters partook in each session.

35 5.7 UNO

Figure 5.7.1 UNO UX Diagram.

The Physical version of UNO scored higher than the Digital version in all metrics as seen in figure 5.7.1. For usability the two versions were quite closely matched. The authors believe this is due to the already easy to use Physical version which is only a deck of cards with no additional tokens. The micromanagement was therefore not significant enough for the Digital version to score higher. The Aesthetics metric also favors the Physical version. The Digital versions low score in this had to do with the look of the version chosen to represent UNO digitally. The lack of proper online communication in the Digital version was given as the reason for the very low score in Social Connectivity for the Digital version of UNO. A big part of the informal gameplay of UNO is the communication between the players. The discrepancy between the scores in Engagement was primarily from the inability to read other players intentions. The score in Overall Experience was low for the Digital version due to the combination of previous metrics. There were 6 playtesters in the age span 24-32. The gender divide was 5 males and 1 female. All considered themselves experienced gamers. The number of players that partook in each playtest varied between 3-5.

36 5.8 Total Averages

Figure 5.8.1. Total Average for each metric across all games for both Digital and Physical versions.

6. Discussion

6.1 Discussing Usability There was an expectation that Digital tabletop games would ultimately have more of a significant lead in this area. The rule enforcement and handling of micromanagement raises the games’ efficiency and reduces time per game immensely. Adding all Usability scores from all games together resulted in 80.1 to Digital and 79.5 to Physical which is surprisingly close. This could be because of the age groups and player experiences among the testers. The older testers preferred the Physical versions when asked during playtests. They felt that it was easier to set up and play compared to learning the Digital version UIs. Younger testers with previous gaming experience tended towards the Digital version.

6.2 Discussing Aesthetics Aesthetics was difficult to measure as it is highly individual which the results show. The testers focused on different things in the Digital and Physical versions, such as a clean simplistic look in the Physical while a simplistic UI in the Digital version was less appealing. Adding up all the Aesthetic scores from all the games gave the result 76.2 for the Digital version and 78.3 for the Physical, as shown in figure 5.8.1.

37 The scores were quite positive while none were overly appreciative of the aesthetics in either version. We speculate that neither version really impressed any of the testers.

6.3 Discussing Engagement As depicted in 5.8.1 the Physical version scored 9.1 higher when the score from all the games were added up. Physically placing tokens instead of seeing a representation of them in the Digital version was important to playtesters. The only game where Engagement was higher in the Digital version was Carcassonne where placing tiles was thought of as better by the testers. This tells us that it’s important how the implementations for game mechanics are done when making a Digital version for a tabletop.

6.4 Discussing Social Connectivity It’s difficult for Digital games to recreate the Social Connectivity as they can not recreate the fact that the players are sitting around a table with friends and family. The results for this factor was as expected with a big win for Physical with an average score across games of 85.9 against Digital’s 71.3. While Physical edition did win it was not as significant as expected. We speculate this was due to both out of game software such as Discord enabling players to speak even online and Pass and Play not preventing it significantly. Allowing testers to use Discord for communicating when playing the digital versions and thereby enabling part of the missing interactions did show a raise in Social Connectivity scores for the games where testers did use it. Both Twilight Struggle and Ticket to Ride which were tested without Discord showed a wider gap between the digital and physical versions. Testers were however encouraged to try out the ingame forms of communication which could be a reason why the digital version still scored lower despite the third-party tool used.

This data gives an answer to RQ1. Age and a background in gaming defines the testers preferences when it comes to Digital and Physical versions. The younger testers who have gaming experience showed a higher preference for the Digital versions due to it being easier to set up online games. Older testers showed a preference for the Engagement and the Social Connectivity in the Physical version. Ease of setting up the board and managing the game tokens was not considered as important.

6.5 Discussing Enjoyment The Enjoyment scores fluctuated between each of the individual games yet ended up with an 8.5 difference in the total average of all games. 4 out of the 7 chosen games deviated from the total average by either the digital version getting significantly lower score or both versions scores being low. The results show that Enjoyment more shows which game the testers liked and the preferred versions. So for 3 of the games the digital version was nearly equal to physical with the exception of Carcassonne where it had a slightly higher score in Enjoyment for the digital version.

6.6 Imperfect Information The physical versions of tabletop games that rely on imperfect information was expected to have a higher score in Engagement and Social connectivity. This was proven true in our The free-for-all games

38 that focused on Imperfect Information in this study were Love Letter, Ticket to Ride, Twilight Struggle and UNO had the largest margins in results in the previously mentioned factors. This is due to the impact of sitting face-to-face with their opponents compared to sitting behind a screen with only Discord as a way of social interaction.

"You can't really recreate the exact transposition of a physical board game to a digital platform; it's not possible. You can't replace the fact that you're playing with friends or family around the table and all the social interactions that you can have.[3]” (Asmodee Digital chief commercial and marketing officer Philippe Dao)

The majority of the playtesters agreed that playing without sitting in front of their opponents affected the gameplay in a bad way. They were missing the social connection that comes with playing the physical versions. This we think gives one answer to RQ2, although it does not disappear entirely the social aspect of tabletop games certainly changes. Mysterium was the game with imperfect information that was least impacted by the different platforms. An explanation for this is that the players playing as Mediums wanted the least amount of help from the Ghost. Once the Ghost had delivered the clues to the players he/she was a silent observer, watching and listening to the discussion unfolding between the Mediums. The fact that interacting face-to-face adds to the Social Connectivity gave it a higher rating but not as much as expected [Figure 5.3.1].

6.7 Helpful Guidance The Digital versions are programmed to make sure that the players are following the rules. It offers helpful interfaces that aids the players in their decision making. Another benefit is that the games calculate points awarded and lower the time per game immensely by handling menial tasks. These are mechanics that were suspected to give the Digital category a high rating in Usability but surprisingly the overall score differentiated by a mere 0.4 points. When asking the playtesters about this difference the overall sentiment was that they felt a bit disconnected and didn’t have a complete understanding of what was going on while playtesting. The interface was difficult to understand and sometimes the players were indifferent when making moves. The only digital game that Usability impacted the Engagement factor in a way that surpassed the physical version was Carcassonne. Being a game that focuses on building and controlling areas, the guidance aided the players immensely. The digital version points out where and how the tiles can be placed which was a welcome help for our playtesters. This helped the players avoid frustration from overlooking positions tiles could’ve been placed on. It also sped up the gameplay a lot and in return kept the players more engaged. The digital version of each game enforced the rules that help keep the gameplay fluid and just. But since the playtesters had to try out the Digital versions first later as they played the Physical version they went in with a similar impression from when playing the Digital. Due to the lack of rule enforcement they had to keep track of the rules themselves. This is when it was noticeable that several playtesters were unsure how certain mechanics worked because the help and guidance was gone. This was less obvious in the simpler games like Love Letter and UNO but most noticeable in more varied games like Small

39 World and Twilight Struggle. Playing the digital versions first gave the player insight on how the games should be played without needing to figure out how to enforce it themselves. We believe this provides an answer to RQ3 as the impressions of how game mechanics worked was changed when switching versions. Testers playing the digital version first did have some further problems. As the testers learned the game rules in the digital version they might have also gotten the reverse impression than mentioned before. If the tester struggled to learn the game in the digital version it might have negatively impacted the score they gave. Finding instead that the physical version more enjoyable due to not having to relearn the rules.

6.8 Playtests By using the research methods from [section 3.2 ] we believe we’ve reached a solid result that has represented most of our expectations. Limited number of playtesters may have impacted the results but in general their response has been fairly even and thoughts on aspects of the game have been similar. Ideally there would’ve been more playtesters for each game. Each game was first tested with the Digital version, they usually offer tutorials and trying the games out takes a shorter amount of time making it a good way to learn the game and its rules. The biggest challenge in this study was arranging playtesters for sessions to try the physical games. Due to the times that this study is taking place, with Covid-19 and finding a time that fits for the playtesters has led to a lot of delays. In the beginning of the study the goal was to test both the physical and digital versions locally on one computer. This led to a lot of time being required to get fair results where the players are experienced enough to give a fair evaluation of the games. There were many delays due to this. Feedback and suggestions led to the playtests of the Digital being tested online which made it much easier to arrange meetings. The downside of this was that we were not able to directly observe the playtesters reactions while they were testing. This also led to each player needing to own the games themselves. The solution to this was to give several copies of the games to the players. Due to this the amount of playtesters we’ve had for each game has been impacted.

7. Conclusion

“RQ1: What do players prefer in physical over digital tabletop games, or the opposite?” In this study we’ve proven that digital tabletop games still can’t compare with the social interaction that their physical counterparts bring. Along with the social interaction comes a higher level of engagement as the players are more involved in each step of the game. These results pointed stronger towards this conclusion in games with mechanics surrounding imperfect information. This resulted in a deeper connection to the user experience. There are exceptions however where games with a high social connectivity results in the opposite and these are the games that don't revolve around imperfect information(see 6.6 for list of games). In this study we’ve also uncovered that the only aspects where Digital is higher rated than Physical with a slight margin is Usability. The only situation it has resulted in a high score in other factors such as Engagement is when the game revolves around Tile Placement.

40 One factor that gives the Digital tabletop a big boon is something that hasn’t been asked to our playtesters but proven important during the playtesting. This factor is Availability that allows people to spontaneously gather a group and play a couple of games online. “RQ2: What aspects of the game disappear in its digital implementation and is this a good thing?” While no aspect of the games fully disappeared in any of the chosen games there were aspects that changed significantly. Social Connectivity has the most change in the digital implementation. Without third-party tools for communication the social aspects of the game were diminished or barely usable like with UNO, where the only form of internal communication were prewritten lines and emojis. Which by testers was not considered a good thing or an improvement. “RQ3: How does impressions of the game mechanics vary between the digital and physical version?” When testers moved from the digital to physical version their impressions of the rules and how tokens were used between versions changed. We deliberately chose games with digital versions that closely matched how the physical versions game mechanics worked. This was done to prevent testers getting too different impressions when switching versions. For future research, we would expand the amount of playtesters and with a more varied background in gaming. In this study the majority of playtesters were experienced gamers and only two with a limited background in playing games. It would also be interesting to see the results when there’s three or more games for each genre we’ve tested and if we added games that relied more on dice. Further the effects of using third-party communication tools such as Discord has on the player experience for digital tabletop games. Other researchers could use this thesis as supporting data when researching either physical or digital tabletop games.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank our supervisor José Font who has supplied us with the materials and guidance to do this study. Another thanks goes to our playtesters that have taken their time out of their busy schedules to attend to the playtests and supplied us with the materials that we’ve needed for our research.

References

1. Attias, Peter. The full history of Board Games, Medium, 2016 https://medium.com/swlh/the-full-history-of-board-games-5e622811ce89 2. MaxOnBBG, A look into the Golden age of board games, BoardGameGeek, 2018 https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1943195/look-golden-age-boardgames 3. Taylor, Haydn. 2018, Tabletop games are bigger than ever, and its driving growth in the digital sector, Gamesindustry, https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-10-25-asmodee-digital ​ 4. Fernández-Vara, Clara. Introduction to Game Analysis, Routledge, 2019 ​ ​ 5. Albert, William. Measuring the User Experience, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers In, 2013 ​ ​ 6. Bianchi-Berthouze, Nadia. Woong Kim, Whan. Patel, Darshak. Does body movement engage you ​ more in digital game play? And Why?, ResearchGate, 2007, http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/people/n.berthouze/paper/BerthouzeKimPatel.pdf

41 7. Boardgamegeek, Spiel des Jahres, https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Spiel_des_Jahres ​ 8. Alexa, viewed 10 May 2020, https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/boardgamegeek.com#section_traffic 9. Verstraeten, Julie. 2018, The Rise of Board Games, Medium, https://medium.com/@Juliev/the-rise-of-board-games-a7074525a3ec 10. Kay, Jonathan. 2018, The Invasion of the German Board Games, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/german-board-games-catan/550826/ 11. Phan, Mikki. Keebler, Joseph Roland. Chaparro, Barbara S. The Development and Validation of ​ the Game User Experience Satisfaction Scale (GUESS), ResearchGate, 2016 ​ 12. ADJP Quad, Research Tools: Interviews & Questionnaires, Research Methodology in Education, 2016, https://lled500.trubox.ca/2016/225 ​ ​ 13. Wikipedia, Risk (game), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(game) ​ ​ 14. Boardgamegeek, Carcassonne, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/822/carcassonne ​ ​ 15. Boardgamegeek, Love Letter, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129622/love-letter ​ 16. http://www.pokerology.com/lessons/poker-tells/ 17. Boardgamegeek, Mysterium, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/181304/mysterium ​ 18. Boardgamegeek, Ticket to Ride, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9209/ticket-ride ​ 19. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/620/we-people 20. Boardgamegeek, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/234/hannibal-rome-vs-carthage 21. Boardgamegeek, Twilight Struggle, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12333/twilight-struggle 22. Boardgamegeek, UNO, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2223/uno ​ 23. Discord, computer software, downloaded 2020, https://discord.com/ ​ 24. Badioze Zaman, Halimah. Robinson, Peter. Smeaton, Alan F. Shih, Timothy K. Velastin, Sergio, Terutoshi, Tada. Jaafar, Azizah, Mohamad Ali, Nazlena. 2017, Advances in Visual Informatics, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-70010-6 ​ 25. Jackson, Linda A & Games, Alex Ivan. 2015, Video Games and Creativity, DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-801462-2.00001-1

Response Letter

First and foremost we would like to thank our reviewers for their helpful and constructive feedback. It has helped us immensely when revising our paper. We have made sure to carefully go through each point and do the changes accordingly as well as opened our eyes to errors that otherwise would’ve been overlooked in further documentation. Below you can go through each point and the changes that have been made accordingly.

Having said this, the thesis still needs a fair amount of work and the following points should be addressed in the thesis to have a readable, complete, and thorough work.

42 1. The thesis needs several phases throughout the whole text to improve readability, cohesion, and in general, get a coherent text. As it is right now, it is hard to read and grasp the idea due to choppy text and not a clear connection between paragraphs; thus, it doesn’t have a “red thread” throughout the text [text is not consistent]. The paper has been under review and updated and hopefully has a “red thread” throughout the text.

2. Your work is missing a fair amount of academic work, only 5 out of the 23 references are academic, and most of the other references are blogs. While it is fine to use blogs, and other type of popular work, it shows that the research framework and previous work is very weak. I had already commented this in my review at the handledarkollegium and unfortunately, the expectations were not met. I strongly suggest that you get more related academic work that you can use, for instance in player experience, when GUESS have been used, other player experience alternative questionnaires, game design, tabletop research, etc. Several studies have been added and should hopefully meet the standards.

3. Throughout your text and the study, there are many assumptions made that guided the path in your research and that you need to support and elaborate. The text has been updated and should have more support to the assumptions and be more elaborate.

3.1 For instance, removing Narrative and Creative Freedom from the GUESS questionnaire, as you assumed that it wouldn’t add any insight into the player experience discussion, which is the only reasoning stated in the text for removing them. Instead, what you should have done is to have that assumption as one of your hypothesis and then through the GUESS factors, reject (or approve) the hypothesis. Then rather than assuming that it wouldn’t add any insight, you actually prove it. Anyway, given that you have done already your study, I would say that you should elaborate further on your decision, and if possible, it is strongly encourage that you use previous research to support your statements. The decisions behind the removed key factors from GUESS has gotten a more elaborate explanation to why they were removed.

3.2 Furthermore, you combined certain factors, which also does not seem to have enough discussion from your side, which I strongly suggest that you do. For instance, your engagement factor combines play engrossment, personal gratification and enjoyment, which I find confusing why would you aggregate those 3 into a single factor, diminishing your possible discussion into what of the 3 factors could for instance, be more relevant. Again, related research that has done this or similar, should be used. Enjoyment was an oversight from our part and has now been added to the study. The Engagement factor that involved Player Engrossment and Personal Gratification has gotten more of an explanation to why these were combined with related research that supports this.

43 3.3 Another instance of this, was raised by the opponents, specifically when you discuss about usability being higher in the digital version of Carcassonne, where you assume that “The reason behind this are the menial tasks in the game”. Furthermore, this is misleading because you have it in your results, and mixed with the other text, which feels like it was either a comment from the testers when you did your interview or it was one of the questions. There are several areas where many hypotheses from the authors have been explained as facts. As the paper has been under its review, these areas have been corrected to be seen as beliefs rather than facts or gotten more of an explanation with related research to support the claims.

4. In the thesis, It is not clear how the interviews were conducted. In the seminar, you said that the questions were based on observations and that you did not have an interview guide at hand, rather the interviews were unstructured. This needs to be clearer and present in the thesis The interviews have been a vague tool and haven’t been constructed in a way that leaves more questions than answers. Due to this response and the unstructured ways it’s been constructed we’ve decided to remove the interviews and instead hold the results from the questionnaires as the main source of information.

4.1 Further, which version the testers prefer is inconclusive and irrelevant without knowing the reasoning behind. You either have this data from the interviews or your have it through the GUESS factors. However, you don’t explore these factors individually neither what were the questions that the users answered, which makes it very hard for the reader to know and follow what the testers did and answered. Thus, you should present further and elaborate on the individual factors, presenting and discussing, for instance, what aspects of usability seemed to be more in favor of digital versions than tabletop in the likert scales.

5. You need to elaborate on the possible problems and limitations that testing one version before the other one could have in your tests and study. Specifically, you touch upon this in page 45, section 6.6. Normally, when you want to do this type of comparison study, you would like to make the testers play randomly one version or the other first, so you can discard that your results are not influenced by the players learning the game or similar issues. The possible problems have been elaborated on in 6.7.

5.1 In line with this, did the players play the tutorial in the digital version before doing the test? They did not. This has been added into the text.

6. You are lacking a section on the experimental setup for readers to know how you ran the tests, for instance, how many times each game, what order?, did the same player played as the ghost in mysterium, what tools were available for them and for you to evaluate, how they play the digital version, etc.

44 Experiment Setup has been added in section 3.6 Experiment Setup as this was an oversight from our part.

6.1 In your discussion, you bring up that people could use discord, but that for me breaks part of your evaluation, since you enabled a third-party tool, since you are not testing only the games themselves but enabling a missing interaction. Elaborate in your discussion, how do you think this affected your results? Elaboration on possible effects of using Discord has been added.

7. You do not bring the number of players in games as relevant to certain metrics, but I can imagine, for instance, that the interaction in twilight struggle is more important as it is a 1v1 game rather than mysterium. Or perhaps it is even more important in those games where there are cooperative elements. Thus, do you think it had any effect on how the game was played and the scores? The fact that you enabled Discord, might affect how you answer this question. The fact that we used the third party program Discord definitely affected the social connectivity score as it allowed the participant to interact with each other. In a game like Mysterium, the social element was important as it allowed the playtesters playing as Mediums to interact with each other and suggest ideas. Mysterium being a cooperative game where the players play against the game, we believe that allowing the player to talk to each other raised the players’ enjoyment. The ghost got to listen to the players’ thought process as the players got to figure out the clues together.

8. In the conclusions, you should recap your Research Questions, and answer them, so it is clear how your research, evaluation, and discussion, answer those questions. The research questions and answers to them have been added to conclusion.

9. To wrap up, a final question I did not have the time to go through in the seminar, is How do you think that your research is going to be taken and used by others? what are the main contributions that others can build on? You should develop further your Future Work, since as it is right now, it is reduced to doing more testing rather than exploring how others could use your data and evaluation. Thus, the link to the bigger picture, the area of concern is missing. Future research has been elaborated a bit, yet as it is a user experience study there is not a lot of grand things you can build on it aside from using as a data reference for other research.

From Laila 1. Explain Enjoyment This was an oversight from our part and has now been added into the paper.

2. Specify playtesters for Mysterium This has been added into the paper.

45 3. Please refer to the names of the games that were considered to have imperfect information or simply what section this was explained. As a reader I could not remember all the games that had this and would rather not look through the whole thesis again to find out. Section 7(Conclusion):‘’ There are exceptions however where games with a high social connectivity results in the opposite and these are the games that don't revolve around imperfect information.’’ This has been under review and added to give the reader a reminder of the games that have the Imperfect information element.

From Albion 1. Key factor Enjoyment was removed but no explanation of why was given. Not putting in the key factor Enjoyment was an oversight from our part. Enjoyment has been added in and gotten more of an explanation. 2. More pages on information about every game than on the main objective. I don't see how this much or if any information about the the game (except the name and slight description of differences), benefits this study This was suggested from a reviewer from an earlier segment to give the reader a game design analysis to read through and understand what games were tested without needing to do their own research. ○ Why would a reader need to know what Luck vs Skill is for example

3. The analysis of the results is stated as facts, and is in no way proven This has been under review and updated with either clear information or corrected the sentences so that it’s more of a hypothesis.

From Ola 1. Titles of subsections 3.1 and 3.2 does not seem to fit the section text. Looking it over we can agree that the texts in these two sections doesn’t add much to the methods and has been adjusted and gotten it’s title removed to work as an introduction to the Method.

2. It might be suitable to describe the used research method GUESS, in subsection 3.1 Research Methods instead of 3.5 Questionnaires & Interviews. The whole chapter has been under review and gotten a new updated format that should make more sense.

3. The colours in the tables and pie-charts should be changed, because when printing the paper in black/white it is really hard to tell them apart. They are also quite blurry. This could be imrpoved for increased readability. The Pie charts has been removed as it hasn’t been fleshed out and doesn’t seem to benefit the study. The other charts have gotten updated with a color scheme with different contrasts that should be more readable in black and white.

46 4. The numbering of 4.0.1 Common Differences does not seem to follow the same system as the rest of the paper, probably just a typo. The section title has been removed to be more consistent with the rest of the paper.

From Daniel 1. Despite the critique being addressed about the research method in 3.1 the section still feels very unclear. It reads more as an introduction to the rest of the section than anything else. Looking it over we can agree that the texts in these two sections doesn’t add much to the methods and has been adjusted and gotten it’s title removed to work as an introduction to the Method.

2. Likewise section 3.2 feels like it’s just floating there because there’s no other place to put that text. I believe that these two sections could, perhaps, be combined and used as an introductory section under 3.0 if that is the case. Same as the first response.

3. Otherwise they both need to be fleshed out further. The pie charts are blurry and difficult to read, especially when printed out on paper. Part of this can be attributed to horrid jpeg artifacts along the edges between pie chart sections. None of the charts, pie or otherwise, work very well in black and white; the colors are far too similar and end up looking nearly identical and compression artifacts around the numbers make them difficult to read on paper. The Pie charts has been removed as it hasn’t been fleshed out and doesn’t seem to benefit the study. The other charts have gotten updated with a color scheme with different contrasts that should be more readable in black and white.

4. Though this could be a weakness the amount of grammar and spelling issues are so profound that it makes the paper difficult to read in places and also makes one have to read several sentences a couple of times to try and figure out what they mean. This is mostly apparent throughout section 3 but a theme in the entire paper. The text has been read through and gotten a lot of corrections regarding bad grammar and has hopefully gotten a higher readability.

Sincerely, Andreas Larsson and Jonas Ekblad Students at Malmö University

47