Record, Replay & Reflect -- a framework for understanding (serious) game play

Anton Eliëns, Zsofia Ruttkay

Creative Technology / University Twente
multimedia @ VU / Amsterdam

application context(s)


virtual heroes


Serious games and simulations are poised for a second revolution. Today's children, our workforce and scientists are increasingly playing, learning, and inventing in visually intensive "virtual" environments. In our increasingly experiential economy, immersive educational and training solutions are needed to advance the workforce of tomorrow. Game-based learning and technologies meet this challenge.

characteristic(s)


benefit(s) of symbolic machinima


level(s) of behaviour


web server


user action(s) / choice point(s)



  behavior      = [ choice = measures, action = reduction ]
  context       = [ context = debate, challenge = flooding ] 
  preference(s) = [ control(human_influence) = true ]

reference model


service management game(s)


desired/norm behaviour(s)



     a_1  = [ planet = green, profit = high ]
     a_2  = [ planet = green, people = happy ]
     a_3  = [ planet = red, profit = high ]
     a_4  = [ planet = red, people = happy ]

then we may, in an abstract fashion, deduce that if d( a_1, a_2 ) < d( a_1, a_3 ) then r(profit) < r(planet) , for a rating funtion r.

user


goal(s) of analysis


In this paper we have sketched the outline of a framework for understanding game play, which may be used for providing meaningful feedback to (serious) game players, allowing for replay on a sufficiently abstract level by deplaying semantic-enabled machinima.

Although we have partially implemented aspects of our approach in the XIMPEL platform, addititional research is needed to arrive at a sufficiently complete representation scheme for capturing events, user actions and resulting game state changes. It seems that, in particular, we must pay more attention to the domain ontology underlying a game, to enable the construction of user profiles using inferential reasoning based on the actions taken by the player when confronted with choices or challenges in the pursuit of a mission or scenario.

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