Visualizing navigation difficulties in video game experiences

Abstract

When developing video games, gameplay metrics allow to track and analyze the behaviors of users interacting with the game. Here, we propose to harness player's spatial trajectories to objectively quantify their gaming experience. Spatial trajectories are complex signals that are determined both by the players and by the topology of the virtual spaces they evolve in. In this paper, we propose a new methodology to measure and visualize how the entropy of trajectories is distributed in virtual spaces, and explain how it can inform game developers on the design of the game levels. We apply our method on the Sea Hero Quest dataset, consisting of the trajectories of over 4 millions players finding their way in water mazes.

Navigates Like Me: Understanding How People Evaluate Human-Like AI in Video Games

“…To scope our study, we focus on a 3D video game where agents must navigate from one point to another. This form of navigation is pervasive in many video games, making it a key area of interest for game developers [3,18]: in embodied games, players must move from place to place to accomplish their goals or explore the world. More generally, it is considered fundamental to embodied biological intelligence [26,59], making it of interest to cognitive scientists [56,62] and researchers interested in intelligent behavior [87].…”