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Examples of visual UI to indicate NPC location. From top left : Hitman-Radar; Splinter Cell-Tagging; Dishonored-See through walls; Sly Cooper-Proximity icon
Source publication
A significant factor in the aesthetics of video games is the need to compensate for a lack of, or poor fidelity of, sensory information that would be present in the physical world. Although dialogue, sound and music do play a ludic role, by providing information to compensate for this, in general there remains an over reliance on visual UI (User In...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... of the games in the sample set have some kind of visual UI for alerting the player to the location of NPCs. 82% indicate their actual location 6 , and 18% use a visual icon to indicate that an NPC is within a given proximity to the player. (See Fig. 1) Once a player is discovered and attacked 64% have an additional visual indicator to inform the player about the direction from which the attack is coming (see Fig. 2). Such state and direction indicators (SADIs) are so commonplace in 1 st and 3 rd person shooters (the more iconic one from Mark of the Ninja (see Fig. 2) being the ...
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... of the player's visibility. Since the amount of light falling on a player is a continuous variable that could be analogous to visibility this could be used, again within a parallel music form, to indicate a player's visibility. The amount of light falling on the player, 'L', can be scaled appropriately to control the volume of stem 02 (see Fig. 10), communicating the ludically useful information about the player's visibility whilst again narrativizing the events through an increase in musical tension. ...
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... player's visibility in a more continuous way, and would also allow a more narratively convincing solution to the rather incredulity stretching, 'seen' mechanic without impacting on visual attention. When the player falls within the line of sight of an NPC and has the potential to be spotted, the volume of Stem 01 begins to gradually increase (see Fig. 11) as the likelihood of being spotted increases over the time that the player remains visible. By using parallel stems for visibility, we can provide the player with richer continuous information, whilst avoiding visual overload and attention problems. This also avoids the threshold problem that has led to an artificial 'seen' phase ...
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... compensate for these issues, 73% of games in the sample have some kind of visual UI to indicate AI state. In addition to UI overlays such as text (see Fig. 13) or icons (see Fig. 14) 36% of the games use emoticons, a rather blunt instrument in terms of expressing emotion that utilise icons placed above the NPCs head (see Fig. 15). This paper was presented at the 56th Conference of the Audio Engineering Society, as paper number 3-2. The full published version can be found at ...
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... compensate for these issues, 73% of games in the sample have some kind of visual UI to indicate AI state. In addition to UI overlays such as text (see Fig. 13) or icons (see Fig. 14) 36% of the games use emoticons, a rather blunt instrument in terms of expressing emotion that utilise icons placed above the NPCs head (see Fig. 15). This paper was presented at the 56th Conference of the Audio Engineering Society, as paper number 3-2. The full published version can be found at ...
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... compensate for these issues, 73% of games in the sample have some kind of visual UI to indicate AI state. In addition to UI overlays such as text (see Fig. 13) or icons (see Fig. 14) 36% of the games use emoticons, a rather blunt instrument in terms of expressing emotion that utilise icons placed above the NPCs head (see Fig. 15). This paper was presented at the 56th Conference of the Audio Engineering Society, as paper number 3-2. The full published version can be found at ...
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... contrast to the previous examples (See Fig. 16), where it is perhaps underutilised, music is used ubiquitously, with only one exception (Thief). ...
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... point (typically the next bar or measure), therefore providing an opportunity for the player's successful evasion to be greeted with a more satisfying musical reward, instead of a musical fade-out (a technique whose musical effect is described by Clint Bajakian, senior music manager at Sony, as 'disappointing' [62]). The top diagram (1) in Fig. 19 below illustrates the current 'reactive' approach (as found in C, D and G) where the intense music for the AI active pursuit state fades in on AI alert, and crossfades back to the ambient music state at a given time later when the AI stand down (indicated by the ¡ symbol). (The vertical lines illustrate the position of musical barlines ...
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Citations
... Yet even more is now asked of the audio department, and with good reason. The authors in [4] suggest new ways for music to relay some of the aforementioned scenarios, as current methods have become dated and are prone to disrupting the player's immersion. ...
This thesis documents the design and play-testing of a videogame that incorporates electroencephalography (EEG) technology to augment traditional controls. A survival horror game was created using the Unity game engine. The player navigates the game using conventional keyboard and mouse movement, however, they also wear an Emotiv EPOC headset which transmits their level of calm to the game via OSC. In order to complete the game, the player must remain as calm as possible.
An adaptive audio engine was developed to act as an auditory display for the player’s level of calm, in lieu of a distracting visual indicator. Every element of the audio was designed to adapt to the constantly fluctuating value. Procedural audio modules were created in Max, where player EEG data was simultaneously mapped to a myriad of modulators. FMOD Studio was used for non-procedural elements due to its facilitation of real-time control parameters, as well as its integration with Unity. Audio from Max and FMOD combined to create one unified soundscape.
Six perpetual sound modules were used, plus a music event which features in the final level. The procedural modules created in Max include: heartbeat, binaural beats, electricity, ambience, and bells. The sixth module simulates the player character’s breathing and was implemented in FMOD. The music event was also implemented in FMOD.
Five test subjects trialled the game after 5+ hours of practice with the EPOC headset each. Results show that EEG incorporation was a subjective success, enhancing the immersive experience beyond traditional game settings. Results also show that certain sound modules were more beneficial than others at conveying the level of calm. Overall, the adaptive audio engine performed well as an auditory display.
