Table of Contents 1 Preface ............................................................................................................................................................ 2 2 Personal Motivation ....................................................................................................................................... 3 3 Introduction and Initial Problem Statement: ................................................................................................. 4 4 General Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 5 5 Pre-Analysis .................................................................................................................................................... 7 5.1 Literature Review .................................................................................................................................... 8 5.1.1 Understanding Games ...................................................................................................................... 8 5.1.2 The Basic Selection of Game Elements: ......................................................................................... 15 5.1.3 Flow ................................................................................................................................................ 16 5.1.4 Narratives ....................................................................................................................................... 18 5.1.5 Player Engagement ......................................................................................................................... 21 5.1.6 Why do we play games? ................................................................................................................. 24 5.1.7 Visual Storytelling ........................................................................................................................... 26 5.2 State of the art - Game Products ........................................................................................................... 28 5.2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 28 5.2.2 Far Cry 3: ......................................................................................................................................... 29 5.2.3 Proteus: .......................................................................................................................................... 30 5.2.4 Thirty flights of loving ..................................................................................................................... 31 5.2.5 Hitman Absolution .......................................................................................................................... 32 5.2.6 State of the Art - Summary of findings ........................................................................................... 34 5.3 Requirement Specification .................................................................................................................... 34 6 Design ........................................................................................................................................................... 35 6.1 Game Description .................................................................................................................................. 35 6.2 World Creation & Inspiration ................................................................................................................ 35 6.3 Features of Iteration .............................................................................................................................. 36 7 Implementation ............................................................................................................................................ 37 8 Preliminary Test ............................................................................................................................................ 37 8.1 Target Group.......................................................................................................................................... 37 8.2 Questionnaire Setup .............................................................................................................................. 37 8.3 Test Setup .............................................................................................................................................. 38 Arne Grinder-Hansen AAUK-Medialogy Summer - 2013 10th semester 8.4 Participants ............................................................................................................................................ 38 8.5 Results and Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 38 8.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 40 9 Final Problem statement .............................................................................................................................. 41 10 Methodology - Grounded Theory Method ................................................................................................. 41 11 Design ......................................................................................................................................................... 43 11.1 Changes to test environment .............................................................................................................. 43 12 Design of test .............................................................................................................................................. 43 12.1 Target Group........................................................................................................................................ 43 12.2 Questionnaire Setup ............................................................................................................................ 43 12.3 Test Setup ............................................................................................................................................ 44 13 Results & Findings ....................................................................................................................................... 44 13.1 Participants: ......................................................................................................................................... 44 13.2 Noteworthy results .............................................................................................................................. 45 13.3 Findings ................................................................................................................................................ 45 13.4 Limitations ........................................................................................................................................... 50 13.5 Comparison with others ...................................................................................................................... 50 14 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 53 15 Future Development................................................................................................................................... 53 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................................... 54 1 Preface Parts, chapters, sections: The chapters of the report are denoted with running numbers for each chapter and subchapter. Subchapters (referred to as sections) are reset to 1 in the beginning of each new chapter. Chapter four subchapter two is therefore denoted as: 4.2. Quotes, figures and tables: Quotes are indicated by the use of italic, centered and with "" Figures are clearly marked with numbers, as figure x. 2 Arne Grinder-Hansen AAUK-Medialogy Summer - 2013 10th semester Reader´s guide: This report differs some from the standard format, as the creation of the test environment takes places in the pre-analysis and therefore the pre-analysis also contains what would usually be located in the analysis. 2 Personal Motivation Game developers create a game considering tradition, gameplay and story among many other things. However when creating a game, one rarely considers the individual influence of a game element, that serves no higher purpose, i.e. when the game element in question is just included to create the environment one desires. So it this a potentially overlooked area? Would a game element in itself be able to change the experience of the player, and if so could a conscious use of this effect be utilized to improve upon the game? In other words this is a matter of considering how ordinary parts of an environment may play a role that does not appear fully understood, and if such an understanding might lead to an improved use of selected environmental game elements. What drives my interest in researching games are topics in that area of game research, where one gains an insight into how the game and player interact grants new understanding of both the player and the game, all with a