Affective Videogames and Modes of Affective Gaming: Assist Me, Challenge Me, Emote Me

Gilleade K.M, Dix A, Allanson J ,June 2005, University of Vancouver,
Affective Videogames and Modes of Affective Gaming: Assist Me, Challenge Me, Emote Me
1st edition pp 1-7
Date accessed: 10/10/07
http://www.digra.org/dl/db/06278.55257.pdf



This article from the University of Vancouver deals with Biological and Affective feedback in games. It discusses the evolution of this idea with games, citing such examples as Atari’s Mind Link, to Affective gameplay in Resident Evil. It gives us the example that Biofeedback is a term in which the player can see their physiological data on screen and change the game themselves through this e.g. by becoming more excited through a higher heart beat rate. Affective feedback however still monitors these physiological responses but changes the game without the player knowing.

It is Affective gaming that this group wishes to develop with an aim of creating a more rewarding experience. They go on to explain how they have created a toolset called I.G.S (Intelligent Gaming System) to facilitate the creation of Affective gaming. They made thier version of the popular Missile Command(Atari 1980) but this time the player was hooked up to the game so that it could read thier physiological responses. The aim of the game from the user’s perspective was to obviously beat the game. The computer's job was to make sure his heartbeat stayed within a certain range so that the user was still immersed in the game without getting too excited or disinterested.

It was from here the team developed a system to help generate emotional responses in games by three steps; Assist me, Challenge me and Emote me. The title of these steps are self explanatory. What is important is how the computer reacts to physiological changes to immerse the player. It gives the example “we propose that a videogame can measure frustration using a player’s physiology. Combining this with knowledge of the game context allows problematic situations to be identified and aspects of the game adjusted accordingly (i.e. relieve stress), Assist me game play.”

I found this article to have some good points in relation to our group work and certainly gave me some good points to work with. Although the article mainly deals with developing Affective gameplay, the discussion about emotion and the history of evoking emotion in gameplay seemed very useful.