Gamer Stress - Assessing Success

Partner Entity’s objective

To create a game that creates difficult situations which increase the likelihood a person would become frustrated. Once a player is sufficiently frustrated, they are to stop playing and take advantage of cues (outside of play) designed to de-facilitate stress (these cues could range from breathing exercises to repetitive arm movements, all rooted in psychology and counseling theory). Once a player is deemed sufficiently “un-frustrated”, they would return to the game immediately to try and complete the original, stress causing, gameplay situation.

Our Game specific objective

The primary goal of “Wire Loop”, is to frustrate gamers in as short a time span as possible (5 minute increments) so they may practice de-facilitating stress and trying to play the same frustrating instance of gameplay with a clearer head.

The combination of speed and player-input precision required to beat the provided and randomly generated (to prevent cheating) timed mazes will result in players losing often (through player fault; we don’t want to make a game with surprise traps like a kaizo Mario game), resulting in increased stress after a period of just a few minutes. Following a short interval where players will work directly with Nicholas Dill practicing using specific methods to de-facilitate stress levels, they will be able to return to play and try again with a calmer mindset (the game rewards patience and practice - two things you won’t have when stressed out). Ideally another session or two of gameplay will result in player victory… or at the very least more controllable stress levels compared to before.

We think this will work with the entity because gameplay is so simple, and player deaths are purely the result of player input. Careful maneuvering only to die so close to the end will discourage players (game will have no checkpoints, unless the overseer - Dill - activates checkpoints through the Overseer Panel, a feature that simultaneously allows Dill control over specific aspects of the game, as well as review statistics indicating if the cues he encourages can lower overall player frustration and aid in getting players to solve the in-game situations), stress them out, and as a result they will begin to die more often in less time.

Assessment Values to measure

• Assessment Value 1 (Player Frustration Levels) - We want to measure the player frustration levels during a player’s initial playing of “Wire Loop” (those critical 2-5 minutes of play time before working on de-facilitating their stress levels. We want to measure it again as they play a second time, hopefully seeing a drop.

• Assessment Value 2 (Play Time to Death Statistics) - In order to determine if our game is a success, it’s critical we measure how long it take for players to die - lose - at our game. We’re specifically looking for a decrease (in time) of play time before death from the start of play (the 2-5 minutes they will be given to play) to the end of play - this will prove player frustration (as players get more and more frustrated at their losses, they will play sloppier than before - believing they won’t get as far as they got last time, leading to quicker deaths & rising frustration in a shorter amount of time). We then want to see an increase when they play a second time, signifying their calmer attitudes aren’t leading to slip ups as often as before.

• Assessment Value 3 (Overall Maze Difficulty) - Levels are randomly generated (to avoid players improving through sheer memorization) to encourage better understanding of the controls (controls that require focus and calm to successfully master). We don’t want levels being to easy or to hard. We’re looking to measure how difficult the stages generated are - and we can do that through study of Assessment value 1 & 2.

Assessment Measurement Procedures

• (Player Frustration Levels) - To measure the frustration level, the best option is having a test run of the game. At the end of the test run, you should ask them to write down their frustration level from 1 to 10. This will allow us to find out if the game has any effect on the players.

• (Play Time to Death Statistics) - We want to gather all the information of their death statistic. Usually when the player is die that’s when they will get angry because all their achievements are gone. We want see the overall times of the gameplay to compare the time results. If the time remains certain average, it means there aren’t any improvement. Otherwise if the time continues to rise, it means they were able to overcome their anger.

• (Overall Maze Difficulty) - We want a number rating system (where 1 is the easiest and 10 is the hardest) at the end of the game where players could determine the difficulty of overall level. People could comment which part of the level gave them the most trouble. This allow us to see if the game gives the player trouble or not. We probably want the value to be in between 6 to 8 because this mean the game is hard but is not impossible.