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Simulating Mechanics to Study Emergence in Games.
Abstract
This paper presents the latest version of the Machinations framework. This framework uses diagrams to represent the flow of tangible and abstract resources through a game. This flow represents the mechanics that make up a game's interbal economy and has a large impact on the emergent gameplay of most simulation games, strategy games and board games. This paper shows how Machinations diagrams can be used simulate and balance games before they are built. © 2011, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
... Although many gamification design frameworks exist [Mora et al., 2015, Morschheuser et al., 2017, Tondello et al., 2016, they tend to be at a high level of abstraction. There are some game design tools available, such as Machinations Framework [Dormans, 2011], Stateflow and Simulink from Mathworks. None of them has been used to provide support to non-experts in gamification design models and what influences balancing can cause. ...
... To develop an easy conceptual visual test of our model, we used the Machinations framework [Dormans, 2011] within the template "Tutorial Basic RPG experience progression system" [Morschheuser, 2015]. Finally, we defined the parameters and variables inherent to gamification and generated our process model based on BPMN. ...
To non-experts, balancing consciousness is even harder concerning their perception of how their decisions possibly affect employees. In this work, we interviewed three managers to understand their knowledge of balancing and their level of perception of the theme. Our results indicate they know it can affect user satisfaction, but they do not know precisely how. Also, visualization of a balanced progression system is an issue. Therefore, we generated a gamification process model that facilitates communication among project managers. Future work will implement this model and conduct an evaluation study of user satisfaction and perceived balancing based on this gamification balancing approach.
... On the other hand, unlike prior executable description languages (e.g. (Dormans 2011;Osborn, Grow, and Mateas 2013)), we retain the planning-like ability to specify generalized rule schema that apply in a multi-agent setting, allowing for causal analysis of event sequences. These statements can be made more meaningful after an introduction to the language, so we postpone further discussion of related work to a later section. ...
... For instance, Dang et al. model story choices as linear logic propositions and use a theorem prover to validate the space of possible story outcomes. Related formalisms, such as Petri nets (Araújo and Roque 2009) and the Machinations framework (Dormans 2011), have been used to similar extent. These investigations are all limited to atomic propositions, however, meaning that a predicate like at(C,L) must be instantiated at every character and location to make use of it in the model, and rules cannot be described generically over such entities. ...
We present a rule specification language called Ceptre,intended to enable rapid prototyping for experimental game mechanics, especially in domains that depend on procedural generation and multi-agent simulation. Ceptre can be viewed as an explication of a new methodology for understanding games based on linear logic, a formal logic concerned with resource usage. We present a correspondence between gameplay and proof search in linear logic, building on prior work on generating narratives. In Ceptre, we introduce the ability to add interactivity selectively into a generative model, enabling inspection of intermediate states for debugging and exploration as well as a means of play. We claim that this methodology can support game designers and researchers in designing, anaylzing, and debugging the core systems of their work in generative, multi-agent gameplay. To support this claim, we provide two case studies implemented in Ceptre, one from interactive narrative and one from a strategy-like domain.
... It should be noted that various aspects of automating the process of designing virtual environments are being actively developed in various fields of science. These fields are education [15], theoretical [16], [17], [18] and applied [2], [3] basics of game design, virtual environments programming [1], [4], methodologies for evaluating the performance of a UML model representing a software architecture [5]. ...
... In virtual gaming environments, it is also advisable to use these diagrams for analyzing the scenario of system behavior, identifying game objects, associated mechanics, and modeling behavior using state or sequence diagrams, as well as other diagrams necessary for describing and analyzing the behavior of systems. The method of creating game mechanics based on design and visual programming involves the use of a state diagram, Fig. 1, as mentioned earlier [1], [2] ...
... Combinations of individual game units or alliances formed between players can lead to unexpected emergent formations [36]. The effects of the feedback loops in the internal game economy can be explored by simulation once interactions between units have been quantified [11]. A Petri net derived model represents each component as a source, sink, converter or trader [11,32]. ...
... The effects of the feedback loops in the internal game economy can be explored by simulation once interactions between units have been quantified [11]. A Petri net derived model represents each component as a source, sink, converter or trader [11,32]. Even relatively simple models can provide insight into the relationships between attributes that affect choice of available strategies [39] [4]. ...
Trading card games challenge players to select a card from their personal deck to compete against cards from an opponent's deck with the outcome determined by rules specific to the game. Players desire that the cards in their decks offer meaningful choice relative to those held by the opponent since one player dominating removes all challenge from the competition. The issue of determining the existence and extent of meaningful strategies during competitive selection processes is common to range of other contexts, including picking units for combat in real-time strategy games such as StarCraft II. The approach described models game outcomes as a skew-symmetric matrix and presents an algorithm for excluding dominated and dominating units, and then further ranks the remaining meaningful choice options. A metric: band size quantifies the degree to which subsets of units can still contribute to meaningful game play. This process is applied to a single unit combat scenario using the StarCraft II rules to identify and rank a core set of 39 combat units that only offer meaningful choice within a limited neighbourhood of 12 units around each unit.
... Indeed, if we produce zero-sum games, branching stories and use confined rule systems, we can. There are multiple tools that successfully implement a mechanistic model to ensure that complex balances of asymmetric game play in resource based games are balanced (such as the Machinations framework [14]) and to ensure that a narrative does not contain logical fallacies, using STRIPS and systems spanning from STRIPS type planning systems [18]). However, a large portion of narrativefocused games, in particular games with thousands of simultaneous players such as MMORPGs, MOBA's, games using procedural content generation (PCG) and other IDN systems that allow co-authoring will not be predictable. ...
What happens when scholars approach novel phenomena such as Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN)? How can we be certain that theoretical frameworks, analytical approaches, and vocabulary are adequate,which means that they are able to fully describe the specific characteristics of the novel phenomena? The same goes for approaches in the practice - how can we be sure that the chosen design methods enable the use of the full expressive potential of a novel phenomena? Furthermore, we ask how we can critique and improve categories and approaches? We reflect on how theory and analytical approaches have been produced so far, identify issues with the current practice, consider alternatives and propose a number of measures to improve the situation. Amongst them are increased efforts on the meta-level in terms of theoretical development and reflective works which concern themselves with the further development of the field, iterative approaches towards theory and method, a more critical approach in education, multi-method analysis, and dynamic representations.KeywordsNovel phenomenaAnalytical approachesSemantic creepAnalytical blurIDN studiesIDN DesignMulti method analysis
... Dormans [5], inspired by Petri nets, proposes the Machination framework that allows designers to model and simulate games in an early stage of development. The author indicates that this Figure 3: Activable behavior pattern (a) and pickable behavior pattern (b) modeled with Petri nets formalism framework seems to be more relevant for strategy games, simulation games, and board games, mainly because the internal economy of these types of games plays a more important role than in certain other types of games. ...
... Loopy, by Nicky Case, is a platform for designing emergent simulations based on direct graph flows 5 . Similarly a simulation of emergent behavior in game systems can be modeled as a directed graph, as in Dorman's Machinations (Dormans 2011). Sometimes multiple simulations in each of these styles will interact with each other. ...
Several frameworks exist to describe how procedural content can be understood, or how it can be used in games. In this paper, we present a framework that considers generativity as a pipeline of successive data transformations, with each transformation either generating, transforming, or pruning away information. This framework has been iterated through repeated engagement and education interactions with the game development and generative art communities. In its most recent refinement, it has been physically instantiated into a deck of cards, which can be used to analyze existing examples of generativity or design new generative systems. This Generative Framework of Generativity aims to constructively define the design space of generative pipelines.
... Critical mechanic discovery [22], i.e. the process to automatically find which mechanics to teach inside a tutorial, provides a useful family of methods to feed an automated tutorial generator. However, tutorial generation methods are limited and have drawbacks, chief among those being a reliance a complex game graph of mechanical relationships similar to the graphs created by Machinations framework 2 [16]. ...
We present a new concept called Game Mechanic Alignment theory as a way to organize game mechanics through the lens of environmental rewards and intrinsic player motivations. By disentangling player and environmental influences, mechanics may be better identified for use in an automated tutorial generation system, which could tailor tutorials for a particular playstyle or player. Within, we apply this theory to several well-known games to demonstrate how designers can benefit from it, we describe a methodology for how to estimate mechanic alignment, and we apply this methodology on multiple games in the GVGAI framework. We discuss how effectively this estimation captures intrinsic/extrinsic rewards and how our theory could be used as an alternative to critical mechanic discovery methods for tutorial generation.
... Finally, some researchers are exploring automated playtesting, in which AI agents play through games either in their original form or in simplified simulations [12,16,[19][20][21]. Our work can enable automated playtesting by providing a simplified simulation of potential player interactions, obviating the need to fully simulate the physics, animations, and other computationally intensive mechanics of the original game logic. ...
Interactivity and player experience are inextricably entwined with the creation of compelling narratives for interactive digital media. Narrative shapes and buttresses many such experiences, and therefore designers must construct compelling narrative arcs while carefully considering the effects of interaction on both the story and the player. As the narrative becomes more structurally complex, due to choice-based branching and other player actions, designers need to employ commensurately capable models and visualizations to keep track of that growing complexity. However, previous models of interactive narrative have failed to fully capture interactive elements with automated, operationalized visualizations. In this paper, we describe an algorithm for automated construction of a framework-driven, graph-based representation of interactive narrative. This representation more fully and transparently models structural and interactive features of the narrative than did prior approaches. We present an initial evaluation of this representation, based on modified cognitive walkthroughs performed by interactive narrative design and research experts from our research team, and we describe the takeaways for future improvement on interactive narrative modeling and analysis.
... However, Hom and Marks [22] explore automated approaches to balancing through changing game rules until agents are able to play against each other with relatively equal winrates and few draws. Through his Machinations framework, Dormans [17] helps designers make small rule changes early on to ensure balance throughout the design process. Alternatively, Jaffe et al. [25] present a framework to evaluate balance through comparing standard gameplaying agents to those with restricted freedom. ...
Quality diversity (QD) algorithms such as MAP-Elites have emerged as a powerful alternative to traditional single-objective optimization methods. They were initially applied to evolutionary robotics problems such as locomotion and maze navigation, but have yet to see widespread application. We argue that these algorithms are perfectly suited to the rich domain of video games, which contains many relevant problems with a multitude of successful strategies and often also multiple dimensions along which solutions can vary.
This paper introduces a novel modification of the MAP-Elites algorithm called MAP-Elites with Sliding Boundaries (MESB) and applies it to the design and rebalancing of Hearthstone, a popular collectible card game chosen for its number of multidimensional behavior features relevant to particular styles of play. To avoid overpopulating cells with conflated behaviors, MESB slides the boundaries of cells based on the distribution of evolved individuals. Experiments in this paper demonstrate the performance of MESB in Hearthstone. Results suggest MESB finds diverse ways of playing the game well along the selected behavioral dimensions. Further analysis of the evolved strategies reveals common patterns that recur across behavioral dimensions and explores how MESB can help rebalance the game.
... Note that while the aim of the game is to collect pills, the desired eye movements are achieved by navigating in the maze. We have modelled the game mechanics of each mode using the Machinations diagrams [27] presented in Fig. 1. The developed game is easy to play and implements the principles of effective human-computer interaction outlined in [28]: strive for consistency (a familiar graphics and game mechanics from well-known Pac-Man game is used), informative feedback (score is counted to reflect game actions), and support internal locus of control (the player initiates the action). ...
Extensive use of computer and mobile devices places large burden on our eyes. To tackle the symptoms of digital eye strain and improve eyesight, the use of eye exercises are suggested. However, few people do eye exercising as it is considered boring. In this paper we apply a serious game approach to eye exercising. We developed a PacMan style game to promote horizontal and vertical eye movements. Eye and game performance characteristics are collected during the game and used to evaluate the onset of eye fatigue during the game. The damped oscillation model is applied to observe the learning and fatigue effects. Analysis of data collected during game sessions from 14 subjects is presented.
... However, Hom and Marks [22] explore automated approaches to balancing through changing game rules until agents are able to play against each other with relatively equal winrates and few draws. Through his Machinations framework, Dormans [17] helps designers make small rule changes early on to ensure balance throughout the design process. Alternatively, Jaffe et al. [25] present 2 https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33767/yavalath ...
Quality diversity (QD) algorithms such as MAP-Elites have emerged as a powerful alternative to traditional single-objective optimization methods. They were initially applied to evolutionary robotics problems such as locomotion and maze navigation, but have yet to see widespread application. We argue that these algorithms are perfectly suited to the rich domain of video games, which contains many relevant problems with a multitude of successful strategies and often also multiple dimensions along which solutions can vary. This paper introduces a novel modification of the MAP-Elites algorithm called MAP-Elites with Sliding Boundaries (MESB) and applies it to the design and rebalancing of Hearthstone, a popular collectible card game chosen for its number of multidimensional behavior features relevant to particular styles of play. To avoid overpopulating cells with conflated behaviors, MESB slides the boundaries of cells based on the distribution of evolved individuals. Experiments in this paper demonstrate the performance of MESB in Hearthstone. Results suggest MESB finds diverse ways of playing the game well along the selected behavioral dimensions. Further analysis of the evolved strategies reveals common patterns that recur across behavioral dimensions and explores how MESB can help rebalance the game.
... These features are automatically measured and tracked on a educational card game. Dormans evaluates the economy of a game and its impact on strategy (Dormans 2011). With the use of a framework designed to track the flow of resources enabling simulation and balance of games before they are built. ...
The process of playtesting a game is subjective, expensive and incomplete. In this paper, we present a playtesting approach that explores the game space with automated agents and collects data to answer questions posed by the designers. Rather than have agents interacting with an actual game client, this approach recreates the bare bone mechanics of the game as a separate system. Our agent is able to play in minutes what would take testers days of organic gameplay. The analysis of thousands of game simulations exposed imbalances in game actions, identified inconsequential rewards and evaluated the effectiveness of optional strategic choices. Our test case game, The Sims Mobile, was recently released and the findings shown here influenced design changes that resulted in improved player experience.
... By having the possibility for emergence, the player is given greater freedom over how they play the game [8]. However, as emergent behaviour arises unexpectedly, designing for it is challenging [4]. Breath of the Wild" [7], players have a tool to levitate metal objects. ...
Emergent behaviour occurs when simple systems result in complex behaviour. In games, this allows for more meth- ods of interaction, and lets the player explore in a way they want. It is challenging to design for emergence, as it typ- ically arises unexpectedly . With "Plusminus", we devel- oped a method of augmenting physics to promote emergent gameplay using magnetism. Initial playtests demonstrated that players came up with surprising ways to play, such as using magnets to launch themselves over walls and outside the designed play area. We demonstrate that by giving the player control over magnetism, we can design for emergent gameplay.
... By having multiple agents play the game Ticket to Ride, the authors can extract data that could help designers make informed decisions about game tuning. A rather different approach is that of Dormans [6] who presents a framework to balance games through diagramming the flow of resources in a game. ...
A significant issue in game balancing is understanding the game itself. For simple games end-to-end optimization approaches can help explore the game's design space, but for more complex games it is necessary to isolate and explore its parts. Hearthstone, Blizzard's popular two-player turn-taking adversarial card game, has two distinct game-playing challenges: choosing when and how to play cards, and selecting which cards a player can access during the game (deckbuilding). Focusing on deckbuilding, four experiments are conducted to computationally explore the design of Hearthstone. They address the difficulty of constructing good decks, the specificity and generality of decks, and the transitivity of decks. Results suggest it is possible to find decks with an Evolution Strategy (ES) that convincingly beat other decks available in the game, but that they also exhibit some generality (i.e. they perform well against unknown decks). Interestingly, a second ES experiment is performed where decks are evolved against opponents playing the originally evolved decks. Since the originally evolved decks beat the starter decks, and the twice evolved decks beat the originally evolved decks, some degree of transitivity of the deck space is shown. While only a preliminary study with restrictive conditions, this paper paves the way for future work computationally identifying properties of cards important for different gameplay strategies and helping players build decks to fit their personal playstyles without the need for in-depth domain knowledge.
... A final example of visualiza on in game analy cs that takes an approach different from the examples described above is the Machina ons system developed chiefly by researcher Joris Dormans [4,3]. The Machina ons system is event-driven in the same manner as the analy cs pla orms described above, but also encompasses an abstracted simula on of the game system being analyzed. ...
This deliverable describes the initial visualization strategies developed for the ENVISAGE project and their implementation. Building from an overview of the state of the art in general Analytics and Game Analytics, it moves on to identify requirements and goals for learning analytics visualization, building from previous deliverables in the project. A number of visualization strategies are presented and their technical implementation is described.
... In it the authors use metrics to weight the impact of multiple features in balancing the game. Dormans explores the economy of a game through the ow of its resources [12]. With it the author is capable of comparing multiple strategies in the early stages of the design. ...
Ticket to Ride is a popular contemporary board game for two to four players, featuring a number of expansions with additional maps and tweaks to the core game mechanics. In this paper, four different game-playing agents that embody different playing styles are defined and used to analyze Ticket to Ride. Different playing styles are shown to be effective depending on the map and rule variation, and also depending on how many players play the game. The performance profiles of the different agents can be used to characterize maps and identify the most similar maps in the space of playstyles. Further analysis of the automatically played games reveal which cities on the map are most desirable, and that the relative attractiveness of cities is remarkably consistent across numbers of players. Finally, the automated analysis also reveals two classes of failures states, where the agents find states which are not covered by the game rules; this is akin to finding bugs in the rules. We see the analysis performed here as a possible template for AI-based playtesting of contemporary board games.
... This idea is in essence restricted-play. Machinations (Dormans 2011) is a diagramming tool for describing ingame resource dependencies. It is intended to help designers reason about resources through examination, and through simulation. ...
Game balancing is the fine-tuning phase in which a function-ing game is adjusted to be deep, fair, and interesting. Balanc-ing is difficult and time-consuming, as designers must repeat-edly tweak parameters, and run lengthy playtests to evaluate the effects of these changes. If designers could receive im-mediate feedback on their designs, they could explore a vast space of variations, and select only the most promising games for playtesting. Such automated design feedback has been dif-ficult to achieve, as there is no mathematical formulation of game balance that unifies many of its forms. We argue for a formulation in which carefully restricted agents are played against standard agents. We develop this restricted-play bal-ance framework, and evaluate its utility by building a tool capable of calculating measures of balance for a large family of games. By applying this tool to an educational card game, we demonstrate how the framework and tool allow designers to rapidly evaluate and iterate on the balance of their games.
Designing and developing computer games can be a complex activity that may involve professionals from a variety of disciplines. In this article, we examine the use of game theory for supporting the design of gameplay within the different sections of a computer game and demonstrate its application in practice via adapted high-level decision trees for modeling the flow in gameplay and payoff matrices for modeling skill or challenge levels.
Rules are at the core of many games. So how about generating them? This chapter discusses various ways to encode and generate game rules, and occasionally game entities that are strongly tied to rules. The first part discusses ways of generating rules for board games, including Ludi, perhaps the most successful example of automatically generated game rules. The second part discusses some more tentative attempts to generate rules for video games, in particular 2D games with graphical logic. Most approaches to generating game rules have used search-based methods such as evolution, but there are also some solver-based approaches.
In this paper we present the MDA framework (standing for Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics), developed and taught as part of the Game Design and Tuning Workshop at the Game Developers Conference, San Jose 2001-2004. MDA is a formal approach to understanding games – one which attempts to bridge the gap between game design and development, game criticism, and technical game research. We believe this methodology will clarify and strengthen the iterative processes of developers, scholars and researchers alike, making it easier for all parties to decompose, study and design a broad class of game designs and game artifacts.