better game characters by design: a psychological approach katherine isbister, ph.d. rensselaer...
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Better game characters by design:
A psychological approach
Katherine Isbister, Ph.D.
Rensselaer (RPI)
Better game characters by design
Overview
• Motivations• Approach• Findings• On measuring effectiveness• Some concluding thoughts• Q/A
Motivations
Primary motive: despair
Better game characters by design
lemons and oranges…
What makes game characters so much better?!
Approach…
Better game characters by design
Approach
• 2002-ongoing… • Analyzing characters in a wide range of game
genres, looking for design patterns grounded in social psychological* principles.
• Student research team and course projects magnified efforts and evolved pattern descriptions.
• Presentations at GDC 2004-2006 elicited input from industry experts.
Better game characters by design
Approach
*Why social psychology?– Applying human-human responses to human-
character dynamics makes sense and is experimentally justified (The Media Equation)
– Game industry had relied heavily prior to this on linear media (film, writing) for guidelines, but games are inherently interactive.
Better game characters by design
Approach
• End result: book!
• Meant for game developers, game design students, and the HCI/believable character community
Findings
Better game characters by design
Example Patterns
• Astute use of first impression cues
• Clever automation of nonverbal cues
• Emotional expectation management through social roles
Better game characters by design
Example Patterns
• Astute use of first impression cues– Baby faces– Stereotypes– Dom/sub and friend/foe
Better game characters by design
Baby faces
Better game characters by design
Baby faces
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Better game characters by design
Stereotypes
Better game characters by design
Stereotypes
Better game characters by design
Dominance and Friendliness
Better game characters by design
Example Patterns
• Clever automation of nonverbal cues– Gaze – Social body language
Better game characters by design
Gaze
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Better game characters by design
Social body language
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Better game characters by design
Example Patterns
• Emotional expectation management through social roles – Minions– Arch enemy
Better game characters by design
Minions
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Better game characters by design
Arch-enemy
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On Measuring Effectiveness
Better game characters by design
How do you know if it worked?
• Game industry folks do not typically make use of benchmarks/advanced usability testing.
• They rely on some combination of– Design vision– Astute developer management and Q/A– Market (evolutionary selection)– Informal user feedback/folklore
Better game characters by design
How do you know if it worked?
• They can benefit from shared terminology, well-grounded in research.
• My book focuses on giving them a common language to help calibrate their informal (but rigorous) process of evaluation.
Better game characters by design
How does this help believable character researchers?
• Researchers can learn from best practices of industry--the structural framework based upon psychology provides scaffolding.
• Sub-areas usually have accompanying measures that can be leveraged to test particular effects in isolation (e.g. baby face, dom/sub and friend/foe).
Some concluding thoughts
Better game characters by design
Some concluding thoughts
• Perhaps oranges come from orange trees, not lemon trees…
Better game characters by design
Some concluding thoughts
• Perhaps oranges come from orange trees, not lemon trees…(process and contextual pressures profoundly shape outcomes)
Better game characters by design
Some concluding thoughts
• Perhaps oranges come from orange trees, not lemon trees…(process and contextual pressures profoundly shape outcomes)– Emphasis on biggest impact on user experience– Extreme time pressure + rich resources– No need for theoretical rigor or implementation
elegance
Better game characters by design
Some concluding thoughts
• Can we make lemonade?
Better game characters by design
Some concluding thoughts
• Can we make lemonade?(setting valuable and meaningful research agendas)
Better game characters by design
Some concluding thoughts
• Can we make lemonade?(setting valuable and meaningful research agendas)– Addressing industry issues with respect
and seriousness– Finding ways to translate and re-translate
other areas of theory between domains
Better game characters by design
Thank you
• http://www.friendlymedia.org