Authoring Multiplayer Serious Games

Transcription

1 Authoring Multiplayer Serious Games Design Templates, Formal Analysis and Rapid Prototyping Design Templates to support creation Formal Analysis to detect design errors Rapid Prototyping to assist game testing Christian Reuter, M.Sc. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Steinmetz KOM - Multimedia Communications Lab KOM_Five-Slides-CReu-2 v.01_ pptx author(s) of these slides including research results from the KOM research network and TU Darmstadt; otherwise it is specified at the respective slide 10-Dec-13 Template all v.3.4

2 Motivation Potential of Multiplayer Games Multiplayer is very popular [BG13], ubiquitous in entertainment games Training social skills [VK10] Enable collaborative learning [VK08] Problems of Multiplayer (Serious) Games Development is more complex compared to singleplayer games [ZNR00] Typically smaller budget of Serious Games Few multiplayer Serious Games Popularity of online multiplayer games [BG13] Goal Closing gap between single- and multiplayer Making multiplayer Serious Games feasible Multiplayer Serious Game Woodment [KOM] KOM Multimedia Communications Lab 2

3 Concept Approach RQ 1: Can player interaction types serve as building blocks to create multiplayer games? RQ 2: Can popular mistakes like imbalances between players and deadlocks caused by their interaction be detected? RQ 3: Can single authors test a game which is designed to be played by multiple players interacting with each other? Authoring Multiplayer Serious Games Focus: Collaborative gameplay, synchronous player interaction Design Templates to support creation Predefined building blocks for player interactions Enables guided process Inspiring inexperienced authors Formal Analysis to detect design errors Analyses basic structure Balance of effort / waiting times / possibilities Detecting deadlocks caused by interaction Rapid Prototyping to assist game testing Testing playable prototypes Usually multiple players, but a single author here Controlling several players at once KOM Multimedia Communications Lab 3

4 Concept Design Templates (Defining Patterns) Collecting player interaction mechanics Abstracted from well-received cooperative games Focus on collaborative, synchronous interactions Classification dimensions Space (Where does the interaction happen?) Time (And when?) Here: atomic, combinable Functionality (Who / what is involved?) Player (What are the effects?) Description Name Description Desired outcome Spatial relation Spatial location Player freedom Player experience Application restrictions Functional role flexibility Functional role count Functional requirements Functional genres Relations Example implementations Constraint: implementable as templates Selected based on author s requirements Adaptable variables Some creative work remains (story integration) KOM Multimedia Communications Lab 4

5 Concept Formal Analysis Model Colored Petri Nets Concurrent actions Differentiating players Describing spatial properties of my patterns Special case: Separation Gate S 1 (P a, P b ) A 1 S 2 Detecting unreachable scenes and deadlocks S 3 Specific location, forced (gathered) (P a, P b ) (P a, P b ) S 1 A 1 S 2 Special case: Gathering Gate S 1 (P a, P b ) A 1 S 3 Specific location, forced (separated) S 1 S 3 S 2 A 1 S x, Scene P a Player a (var.) S 2 S 4 A x, Action Player 1 (const.) KOM Multimedia Communications Lab 5

6 Concept Rapid Prototyping Visualization Splitscreen Volume level for each player, Visual notices when sounds are played Reduced overhead, no network setup Control Time-stop Record & replay of actions Editable queue Problem with (good) dependencies Auto-pause when possibilities change StoryPlay (gameplay side) KOM Multimedia Communications Lab 6