Procedural content generation (PCG) has made substantial progress in shaping static 2D/3D geometry, while most methods treat gameplay mechanics as auxiliary and optimize only over space. We argue that this limits controllability and expressivity, and formally introduce High-Dimensional PCG (HDPCG): a framework that elevates non-geometric gameplay dimensions to first-class coordinates of a joint state space. We instantiate HDPCG along two concrete directions. Direction-Space augments geometry with a discrete layer dimension and validates reachability in 4D (x,y,z,l), enabling unified treatment of 2.5D/3.5D mechanics such as gravity inversion and parallel-world switching. Direction-Time augments geometry with temporal dynamics via time-expanded graphs, capturing action semantics and conflict rules. For each direction, we present three general, practicable algorithms with a shared pipeline of abstract skeleton generation, controlled grounding, high-dimensional validation, and multi-metric evaluation. Large-scale experiments across diverse settings validate the integrity of our problem formulation and the effectiveness of our methods on playability, structure, style, robustness, and efficiency. Beyond quantitative results, Unity-based case studies recreate playable scenarios that accord with our metrics. We hope HDPCG encourages a shift in PCG toward general representations and the generation of gameplay-relevant dimensions beyond geometry, paving the way for controllable, verifiable, and extensible level generation.
In this study, we explore the reasoning capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) within the context of the social communication game Werewolf, aiming to evaluate their performance in managing complex system states commonly found in computer games. Our agent architecture gathers data, refines them into detailed information, and plans actions based on this knowledge. To demonstrate the feasibility of using LLM based agents in computer games, we developed a simulation and evaluation tool using the Unity game engine. This software enables users to experiment with various LLMs and agent architectures and to measure model performance within the application. For evaluation, we tested three models: GPT-3.5 Turbo, Mistral-7B-OpenOrca, and Nous-Hermes-Llama2-13B. The results show that even smaller models can perform reasonably well in Werewolf. However, their error rate is significantly higher, highlighting the need for additional software modules or fine-tuning to improve their accuracy.
Core game design concepts such as player experience, balancing, level design, design patterns, and others are important elements when learning game design. One of the most common teaching techniques is to have students play, create, or modify small board or card games. This hands-on approach allows them to practice their design skills in an iterative and interactive way. Analog games are uniquely suited for this purpose as they are much easier to deploy and allow faster tweaking than digital ones. We wanted to overcome these hurdles and developed a suite of four digital games that allow experimentation and modification in accessible and interactive ways: JumpCrafter, FPS Balancing, RaceKart, and Pac-Mon. We have used these games for several years in our classrooms and collected qualitative feedback from 164 students over the course of 12 interventions. In order to identify important qualities of these games, we conducted a reflexive thematic analysis and have constructed themes that highlight four salient elements: The Unexpected Complexity; The Value of Experimentation; The Diversity in Designing; and The Trouble with Perspectives. We explore how these themes affect the continued use and development of our games and provide seven design considerations for future development of what we call "game design games".
Previous research investigated whether and how people from different countries differ in their playing behavior by clustering a large sample of players (n = 12,279 from 26 countries) based on responses to a survey capturing 29 constructs including key demographics (e.g., age, gender), gaming habits (e.g., playtime, spending, appreciation), and cultural attitudes (e.g., motivation, perspectives on community, perceived stressors). The earlier study employed country means and hierarchical clustering to identify eight distinct clusters. Clustering algorithms entail a certain amount of arbitrary decisions. Based on this work, the current study attempts to assess cluster stability by identifying clusters of similarity but this time based on a different set of metrics (cosine similarity) and a different clustering algorithm. Despite the methodological shift, the analysis again identified eight optimal clusters, which closely align with those from the previous study, evidence that the dataset can be segmented in stable clusters. However, some notable differences emerged, providing additional insights into cross-cultural gaming behaviors.
In this short paper we introduce the first version of a 'spell simulator' for 1 Billion Spells, an in development action game, and explore the simulator's utility for conducting large scale exploration and evaluation of that game's spell creation system. Using this simulator we conduct initial experiments to explore specific developer concerns about the game which would be challenging to explore with conventional playtesting. We argue that our initial exploration demonstrates the potential of this approach in evaluating content generation systems for games that have large player explorable possibility spaces.
This work investigates the role of uncertainty in Slay the Spire using an information-theoretic framework. Focusing on the entropy of game paths (which are based on procedurally-generated maps) we analyze how randomness influences player decision-making and success. By examining a dataset of 20,000 game runs, we quantify the entropy of paths taken by players and relate it with their outcomes and skill levels. The results show that victorious runs are associated with higher normalized entropy, suggesting more risk-taking. Additionally, higher-skill players tend to exhibit distinct patterns of risk-taking behavior in later game stages.
Prototyping is a vital process in game design and a core component of many game development educational programs. Traditional physical prototyping makes use of common office supplies to allow both technical and non-technical designers to quickly test and share design ideas. While fields such as architecture, product design and engineering make great use of LEGO prototyping, its application to games has thus far been limited. This work collects student data from two undergraduate introductory game development courses (n=40) in which students physically prototype game ideas with both traditional materials and LEGOs. Self-assessments show that participants enjoyed the inclusion of LEGO sets, found them to help communicate ideas faster and more clearly, and were easier to produce than traditional paper prototypes.
This paper seeks to understand the connections between two previously disjoint subfields of game research and design: 1) the study of emotionally impactful games and 2) the study of game feel. Regarding games and emotion, we now understand aspects such as how negative emotions are appreciated in games and can be a desirable quality for designers and players alike. We also understand aspects of game feel such as the importance of responsive player character control and juicy (i.e. exaggerated) feedback for player actions. However, the literature on game feel rarely links to emotion research and focuses on a narrow subset of emotions/feelings such as satisfaction and control. Research is lacking on how game feel design can impact a wider palette of emotions, including negative ones, and how this may require one to "break the rules" of good game feel design, e.g., making it purposefully hard to control the player character. We bridge this gap by employing Constructivist Grounded Theory Analysis to understand a dataset comprising of interview data from 15 participants and 116 game mechanics from a diverse selection of games such as Journey, Celeste, and Freedom Bridge. Through this, we propose Expectation Modulation as the core theory to capture how game feel can elicit emotional experiences. Additionally, we identify 9 design techniques as central to crafting emotional experiences through game feel design.
This paper describes a workshop that offers participants an opportunity to interact with the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a controller designed for those with motor disabilities. The workshop is designed to prompt discussion and reflection on how controllers affect accessibility in video games. While the Adaptive Controller was designed for those with limited mobility, this workshop uses the controller as a tool for raising awareness about how controllers shape and constrain gameplay and how they can sometimes even serve to exclude certain players. This research is being conducted by a research group at the Rutgers University-Camden Digital Studies Center (DiSC) called Well Played. Well Played conducts hands-on research and leads hands-on workshops about video games. Well Played research has addressed a range of research topics since its launch in 2014. For the past year, the Well Played group has been conducting research on accessibility and video games in collaboration with the Rutgers-Camden Office of Disability Studies. This paper addresses the latest phase of that research by describing a workshop that the group is currently piloting.
Video games can provide controlled environments for the research and testing of stimuli in an engaging manner. In this pilot study, we present the development of De Weg Naar Boven, a serious video game that is designed to act as a hearing test that simulates challenging real-world sound conditions. In the game, participants are tasked with hiking up a mountain and encounter other travelers along the way who share mysterious messages that the player has to relay via an in-game walkie-talkie. Along the way, they encounter challenging listening conditions such as wind noise, as well as visual distractions that are part of real-world situations. The game was evaluated with 12 participants through observations, interviews, and a survey, receiving positive reactions while completing what is functionally the same hearing test as if no game was involved. We conclude with a summary of development recommendation for games that serve a research or clinical purpose.
When generating game levels, it is desirable for them to be completable. Depending on the designer's goals, it may also be desirable to generate levels without softlocks. A softlock is a situation where the player has not won or lost, but cannot make progress toward the goal, and is thus stuck (unless they reset, or possibly lose the level). In this work we present a constraint-based approach to generating 2D tile-based levels that are completable and do not have areas where the player can get stuck. The approach uses a constraint-based reachability categorization of locations during level generation. This categorization can be used to prevent softlocks by ensuring that all locations reachable going forward from the start of the level are also reachable going backward from the goal, unless they are sinks (areas where the player will inevitably lose the level, e.g. falling off the bottom). Using this approach, it is also possible to intentionally generate levels with softlocks and to repair levels to remove softlocks.
Educational games offer an effective means to enhance interactive learning experiences. However, developing high quality educational games is difficult. In particular, integrating didactic goals into a game's design, and verifying the learning outcomes is a complex iterative process. Due to a lack of control over these concerns, fully developed games may lack the intended educational value. We aim to improve educational game development by structuring and partly automating this process. We propose Didactics-Driven Development, a novel framework for keeping didactic goals and concerns in focus throughout the development process. By making didactic concerns explicit, it enables testing interaction patterns against opportunities for learning. We discuss how the approach has been applied to three case studies and how this has informed ongoing development of the framework.
Protests, riots, or demonstrations have been common scenarios in strategy and simulation videogames. In this article, I propose a design toolkit of ludic contentious politics when developing videogames for protesters. To do so, I outline four central game systems that can distort the game narrative: the camera, the reward system, the NPCs faction system, and the game engine. This toolkit addresses the question: How can game makers critically engage players with protest narratives by eliminating policing mechanics or, at the very least, minimizing their presence on the player's screen? After laying out the design guidelines, I will discuss how they informed the design of a videogame titled Return to Sender, created as part of a research-creation project. Eventually, this toolkit aims to challenge the underlying policing ideologies embedded in videogames mechanics depicting protest.
Logic and formal reasoning are essential skills for programming and computer science. Still, they are challenging to teach due to their abstract nature. This paper explores how Game-Based Learning (GBL) can simplify logic concepts, making them interactive and engaging for young learners. We introduce LogiCraft, an educational framework for co-designing board games that teach propositional logic. The framework includes three illustrative tile-based board games: notsignSCR.BL, Tautoblocks, and Deducto. These games teach propositional logic by merging computational thinking with handson gameplay. By integrating syntax and semantics in new ways, notsignSCR.BL focuses on logic formulas construction and truth tables visualization, Tautoblocks introduces more advanced concepts of negation, tautology, and contradiction, and Deducto highlights translation and model-based reasoning. Playtesting sessions with students and teachers suggest that our games can enhance logic skills and promote cooperative learning. Our initial classroom results show potential for broader applications in game-based learning.
This study investigates efficient AI agents for the multi-player deduction game Cluedo. We propose a knowledge representation method based on constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) and formalize the deductive reasoning process into two key modules: knowledge updating and action selection, enabling the creation of multiple distinct AI agents. Experimental results demonstrate that constraint-solving methods can be effectively applied to build powerful Cluedo AI agents.
Procedural Content Generation (PCG) has long enabled efficient and varied game level creation. However, integrating high-level design intentions and game mechanics into complex 3D environments remains challenging. This paper introduces a comprehensive framework that transforms narrative-level descriptions into playable 3D game levels. First, Large Language Models (LLMs) parse natural language descriptions of game environments into a structured Game Level Description Language (GLDL), capturing essential spatial constraints. Next, we model level generation as a Facility Layout Optimization problem, ensuring that facility placements and configurations adhere to specified design criteria. Through comprehensive experiments, including automated constraint evaluations and agent-based simulations, our approach ensures both the feasibility and stability of the constraints extracted from textual descriptions. We confirm that the resulting game levels remain interactive, reasonable, and controllable to their original specifications.
In this work, we designed and developed Dice Adventure, a turn-based multiplayer game where three characters work together to reach their individual goals and then a shared team goal to complete each level. Using Dice Adventure as the environment, we hosted a game competition with two tracks: agent and player. Participants could join one or both by submitting an agent they developed and/or signing up to play with the agents submitted by other developers. We collected competition game play data as part of a human-AI teaming pilot study to understand team behaviors, performance, and to test our systems. Insights from the competition also informed the design of a randomized controlled study for future experiments and competitions, aimed at exploring key human-AI teaming questions-such as how role assignments, team compositions, and team dynamics influence team performance. Our work introduces a novel gaming environment to support future research on human-AI teaming and offers preliminary insights into the design of such studies.
As player demand for information about esports games surges, live companion tools were developed to help them understand game-related knowledge, make decisions, and review post-game data. Despite growing interest, little is currently known about how different users perceive and use commercially available apps and their different features. However, this is important for creating tools that actually meet players' needs. To help fill this gap, we selected two companion apps for two different competitive game genres and explored them with respect to four dimensions - understandability, informativeness, decision making, and trustworthiness - across professional and nonprofessional players. Towards this end, we first conducted an online survey to assess users' perception around these dimensions. This was followed by online interviews to gain further insights. Through statistical and thematic analysis, our results highlight commonalities and disparities in user behavior and preferences across user groups, contributing to our understanding and future design of live companion tools.
Competitive play in the multiplayer online battle arena game (MOBA) League of Legends (LoL) is a popular and engaging form of leisure. While it is well-understood what draws players into such games, less is known about the process of disengagement from play sessions in competitive multiplayer settings. However, disengagement is a necessary part of play, and one that has a significant impact on player experience. Our work addresses this knowledge gap through an exploratory interview study that examines the disengagement experiences of regular LoL players (n=8) and coaches (n=2). Leveraging grounded theory, our preliminary results identified four key contributors to the experience of disengagement: (1) satisfaction and frustration related to player performance, (2) team dynamics and social interaction, (3) individual and social aspirations, and (4) the role coaching in the structure of play sessions. These themes structure the complex dynamics of player experience at the end of play sessions. Building upon our initial findings, we propose a lens on disengagement in competitive online multiplayer games, adding nuance to the existing body of literature that has examined disengagement in single-player settings.
This paper explores the challenges and requirements of board game designers in the digital era. While digital tools have become increasingly prevalent-especially for prototyping and playtesting-they often fail to fully support early-stage design and lack the social and tactile elements crucial to board games. Building on a previous survey study, this research delves deeper into these challenges employing a quantitative survey followed by qualitative interviews with 9 individual board game designers. The interviews followed a semi-structured format, covering key discussion points such as the design process, time and cost factors, and digital tools. The findings reveal key limitations in existing digital tools, particularly in facilitating ideation and replicating the nuanced interactions of physical playtesting. The paper also discusses the potential of emerging technologies like AI and XR to further revolutionize board game design by addressing current limitations and enhancing the creative process. Based on these insights, the study outlines a set of specifications to be integrated in digital tools, aiming to bridge the gap between digital innovation and the hands-on nature of traditional board game development.
