Challenge in Digital Games: Towards Developing a Measurement Tool

Challenge is arguably the most important experience that players seek in digital games. However, without a measure of how challenged players feel during the act of play, it is hard to design games that are neither too easy nor too hard and, therefore, truly enjoyable. Especially in industry, challenge is dominantly assessed by means of manual play testing in ad-hoc trials. The aim of this research is to create a more systematic, complete, and reliable instrument to evaluate the level of players' experienced challenge in games in the form of a questionnaire. This paper presents the key results from an extensive literature survey which will inform further development. We survey definitions of challenge, challenge types, and their relation to player experience based on the observations of game designers. We furthermore draw from empirical findings in a diverse range of fields such as game studies, human-computer interaction (HCI) and artificial intelligence (AI).

[1]  Frans Mäyrä,et al.  Fundamental Components of the Gameplay Experience: Analysing Immersion , 2005, DiGRA Conference.

[2]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  The Importance of Challenge for the Enjoyment of Intrinsically Motivated, Goal-Directed Activities , 2012, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[3]  Katie Salen,et al.  Rules of play: game design fundamentals , 2003 .

[4]  Paul A. Cairns,et al.  Not doing but thinking: the role of challenge in the gaming experience , 2012, CHI.

[5]  Robert Zubek,et al.  MDA : A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research , 2004 .

[6]  Jesper Juul.  Fear of Failing ? The Many Meanings of Difficulty in Video Games , 2011 .

[7]  E. Loftus,et al.  Mind at Play; The Psychology of Video Games , 1983 .

[8]  E. Deci,et al.  The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior , 2000 .

[9]  K. Poels,et al.  "It is always a lot of fun!": exploring dimensions of digital game experience using focus group methodology , 2007, Future Play.

[10]  Ben Shneiderman,et al.  Direct Manipulation: A Step Beyond Programming Languages , 1983, Computer.

[11]  Jesse Schell,et al.  The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses , 2019 .

[12]  Andrew K. Przybylski,et al.  The Motivational Pull of Video Games: A Self-Determination Theory Approach , 2006 .

[13]  Shang Hwa Hsu,et al.  Exploring Design Features for Enhancing Players' Challenge in Strategy Games , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[14]  Peta Wyeth,et al.  GameFlow: a model for evaluating player enjoyment in games , 2005, CIE.

[15]  Ernest Adams,et al.  Fundamentals of Game Design , 2006 .

[16]  Sheng-Chin Yu,et al.  journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu , 2022 .

[17]  Peta Wyeth,et al.  Operationalising and Evaluating Sub-Optimal and Optimal Play Experiences through Challenge-Skill Manipulation , 2016, CHI.

[18]  John L. Sherry,et al.  Narrative and interactivity in computer games , 2006 .

[19]  H. Marsh,et al.  Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Optimal Experience: The Flow State Scale , 1996 .

[20]  Noirin Curran,et al.  Comments on the Article 'Characterising and Measuring User Experiences in Digital Games' by IJsselsteijn et al. (2007) , 2013, Interact. Comput..

[21]  Julian Togelius,et al.  Matching Games and Algorithms for General Video Game Playing , 2021, AIIDE.

[22]  Paul A. Cairns,et al.  Emotional and Functional Challenge in Core and Avant-garde Games , 2015, CHI PLAY.

[23]  Christoph Klimmt,et al.  Effectance and Control as Determinants of Video Game Enjoyment , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[24]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Flow. The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York (HarperPerennial) 1990. , 1990 .

[25]  Thomas W. Malone,et al.  Toward a Theory of Intrinsically Motivating Instruction , 1981, Cogn. Sci..

[26]  Gavriel Salvendy,et al.  Measuring Player Immersion in the Computer Game Narrative , 2009, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[27]  N. Lazzaro.  Why we Play Games: Four Keys to More Emotion without Story , 2004 .

[28]  Paul A. Cairns,et al.  Measuring and defining the experience of immersion in games , 2008, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[29]  Randy J. Pagulayan,et al.  A survey method for assessing perceptions of a game: The consumer playtest in game design , 2019, Game Stud..

[30]  Karolien Poels,et al.  Characterising and measuring user experiences in digital games , 2007 .

[31]  John Harold Feil,et al.  Beginning Game Level Design , 2005 .

[32]  Carl Gutwin,et al.  Effects of view, input device, and track width on video game driving , 2011, Graphics Interface.

[33]  Richard Rouse,et al.  Game design : theory and practice , 2001 .

[34]  Christoph Klimmt,et al.  Explaining the enjoyment of playing video games: the role of competition , 2003, ICEC.

[35]  Julian Togelius,et al.  General Video Game Evaluation Using Relative Algorithm Performance Profiles , 2015, EvoApplications.

[36]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Enjoying the possibility of defeat: Outcome uncertainty, suspense, and intrinsic motivation , 2015 .