Affective level design for a role-playing videogame evaluated by a brain–computer interface and machine learning methods

Abstract

Game science has become a research field, which attracts industry attention due to a worldwide rich sell-market. To understand the player experience, concepts like flow or boredom mental states require formalization and empirical investigation, taking advantage of the objective data that psychophysiological methods like electroencephalography (EEG) can provide. This work studies the affective ludology and shows two different game levels for Neverwinter Nights 2 developed with the aim to manipulate emotions; two sets of affective design guidelines are presented, with a rigorous formalization that considers the characteristics of role-playing genre and its specific gameplay. An empirical investigation with a brain–computer interface headset has been conducted: by extracting numerical data features, machine learning techniques classify the different activities of the gaming sessions (task and events) to verify if their design differentiation coincides with the affective one. The observed results, also supported by subjective questionnaires data, confirm the goodness of the proposed guidelines, suggesting that this evaluation methodology could be extended to other evaluation tasks

EEG-Based Emotion Recognition: A State-of-the-Art Review of Current Trends and Opportunities

“…One such example of emotional signals is expressed through facial expression which is known to be one of the most immediate means of human beings to communicate their emotions and intentions [ 41 ]. With the advancement of technologies in brain-computer interface and neuroimaging, it is now feasible to capture the brainwave signals nonintrusively and to measure or control the motions of devices virtually [ 42 ] or physically such as wheelchairs [ 43 ], mobile phone interfacing [ 44 ], or prosthetic arms [ 45 , 46 ] with the use of a wearable EEG headset. Currently, the advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning is being actively developed and researched to adopt to newer applications.…”

A Confrontation Decision-Making Method with Deep Reinforcement Learning and Knowledge Transfer for Multi-Agent System

“…In the last decades, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has made remarkable progress. As an excellent test platform for AI research, video games have provided strong support for the development of AI technology, such as the traditional Atari video games, imperfect information games, and so on [8]. However, classical methods only consider video games in smaller scenes and researchers only need to control a single agent in these game environments.…”

A taxonomy and state of the art revision on affective games

“…Gilleade and Allanson [44] SDK for emotional feedback loop [45] Player's frustration detection and game's adaptation to it Gilleade et al [46] Game design principles for affective games Dekker and Champion [47] Horror-games enhancing through affective detection Liu et al [48], Rani et al [49] Automated difficulty level adjustment through player's anxiety Tognetti et al [50] Affective Games data benchmark Balducci et al [51,52] Level design evaluation from affective analysis Martínez et al [53], Yannakakis et al [54] Affective camera control in 3D games Dekker and Champion [47] focused on how to enhance a horror themed videogame using biofeedback gathered from the player, namely heart rate variability and skin response information. The authors come out with some enhancements to the game at two levels: gameplay and artificial intelligence of the non-playable characters.…”

“…Beyond using physiological metrics to adapt the videogame to the player emotional state or induce emotions to her/his, it is possible to find in the literature additional applications. For instance, Balducci et al [51,52] used several affective metrics to evaluate the level design of Neverwinter Nights 2, a role-playing game. In this case, the authors used brain signals measured with a cheap neuro-signal acquisition and processing wireless headset known as Emotiv EPOC Headset.…”