Metrics to facilitate playtesting in small independent teams of game developers

由独立(独立)开发人员组成的小团队正在开发的成功游戏的数量很低 预算--而不是AAA级制片厂预算相当的大型团队--正在上升。尽管更改了 开发和发布技术使独立团队能够制作和发布成功的游戏， 迭代开发期间的播放测试仍然昂贵且耗时。游戏用户研究(GUR) 学术界和AAA制片厂的团队都在创新游戏测试方法；然而，很少有 已经完成了开发工具和技术，以帮助独立开发人员的小团队快速和 低成本地测试开发中的游戏，然后解释并迭代地应用 游戏测试课程，以提高他们的游戏水平。该项目的目标是创建自动生成的 原型演练中的指标标记游戏中对体验有负面影响的点，以便 开发者可以知道在哪里投入他们的资源来修复游戏。我们将开发算法，开发一种 可视化工具，并进行受控实验，为玩家体验理论做出贡献。 这有明显的好处。加拿大电脑游戏产业每年为加拿大GDP贡献23亿美元， 世界第三大游戏公司，53%的游戏公司在2014年自认为独立。由以下人员管理 紧迫的开发时间表和发货日期，工业GUR团队没有时间进行方法论 创新；然而，GUR学者的研究必须立足于行业实践。一起， 产学研合作可以创造新的游戏测试流程、游戏评估指标和游戏 将使这一重要且不断增长的行业受益的工程方法。在社会效益方面，游戏 已经超越了娱乐，进入了健康、健康、学习和商业领域。这个 游戏的激励拉动已经被用来促进健康的行为，联系人们，并进行众包 工作。这些严肃比赛的社会效益可以改善加拿大人的健康和福祉。

The number of successful games being developed by small teams of independent (indie) developers on low budgets - rather than large teams with matching budgets at triple-A studios - is on the rise. Although changes in development and publishing technologies have allowed indie teams to make and publish successful games, playtesting during iterative development remains expensive and time-consuming. Games User Research (GUR) teams in both academia and at triple-A studios have been innovating playtesting methods; however, very little has been done to develop tools and techniques that help small teams of indie developers quickly and inexpensively playtest games under development, and then interpret and iteratively apply the results of the playtesting sessions to improve their games. The goal of this project is to create automatically-generated metrics from prototype walkthroughs that flag points in a game that negatively affect experience so that developers can know where to invest their resources in fixing the game. We will develop algorithms, develop a visualization tool, and conduct controlled experiments to contribute to the theory of player experience. There are clear benefits. The Canadian computer game industry contributes $2.3 billion/yr to Canada's GDP, is the third largest in the world, and 53% of game companies self-identified as independent in 2014. Governed by tight development timelines and ship dates, industrial GUR teams do not have time for methodological innovation; however, GUR academics must ground their research in the context of industry practices. Together, industry-academic partnerships can create new playtesting processes, game evaluation metrics, and game engineering approaches that will benefit this important and growing industry. In terms of social benefits, games have moved beyond entertainment into the spheres of health, wellness, learning, and business. The motivational pull of games has been used to promote healthy behaviours, connect people, and crowdsource work. The social benefits of these serious games can improve the health and well-being of Canadians.