deeper gameplay than MOVE’s modules and increased difficulty at higher level for dedicated players. Thus, the game can be enjoyed either for a short period of time or for longer periods if one seeks to master the game.
This game was designed to offer players an interesting experience of tension between collaborating to fill the grid with color while at the same time struggling to maintain enough individual space to move around and avoid getting hit by the particle.
[ 3] Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
May + June 2009
[ 4] Parts of the Flying
Machine section
were translated and
adapted from “Hybrid
Playground: Integración
De Herramientas Y
Estrategias De Juego
Audiovisual Interactivo
En Los Parques
Infantiles,” by Clara Boj
and Diego Diaz.
the contrary, in Virtual Ground I decided to explore the opposite setup, offering participants a game environment in which they could never lose, where the game would regulate itself by increasing in difficulty based on player interaction, similar to the negative-feedback effect of a virtual ground. As more fields get colored, getting hit by a particle becomes more likely, and if hit, then the fields are set back to black, letting players try again.
In his famous theory of flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes a state where users are engaged in an activity where they are in complete control—a state in between boredom and anxiety [ 3]. Such a state has often been described as the holy grail for game designers; it is the closest association with the elusive concept of fun. A game is fun if a player achieves a state of flow between boredom and anxiety. In MOVE, this balance was achieved for only a limited time;
players were overwhelmingly subjected to too much difficulty before losing.
To achieve a state of flow for casual players, one approach has been implementing what is called dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA)—a system behavior controlling the difficulty of the game and adjusting it based on player performance. One successful example is Wii Tennis, where a single player can face increasingly stronger opponents as they progress, and their results are monitored with a score system. If players start to lose too frequently, the system decreases the difficulty level by offering them weaker opponents. Players are less discouraged to continue and can improve their gameplay without feeling defeated.
In Virtual Ground, players who attempt to fill the grid with color have two main challenges to overcome: First, to position the line at such an angle to be able to charge two opposite lines to create a filled row; second, to avoid having their circle hit by the particle while standing above a charged area. The only possible penalty is having a row of color turn back to black if they get hit. That would simply force them to start over again to try to fill that row with color. This mechanic is not adjusting the difficulty of the game but is providing a self-regulating difficulty where players try to achieve a goal without ever losing. They are attempting to reach a goal, filling all the rows with color, and if they make a mistake, they simply fall slightly behind.
This approach should allow for an easier point of entry for casual players, while still offering
Flying Machine is a game currently in development designed exclusively for the Hybrid Playground platform [ 4]. Hybrid Playground is an interactive installation project initiated by Clara Boj and Diego Diaz of Valencia, Spain, under their collective name Lalalab, and developed in collaboration with media artist and programmer Martin Nadal of Madrid. The concept behind the project is to combine mobile gaming and physical gaming within a playground to encourage interaction between children.
The installation consists of various sensors attached to playground devices such as swings, slides, merry-go-rounds, and spring riders that wirelessly send information about the children’s movements to a server that in turn communicates with a PDA on which a digital game is unfolding using the physical interfaces of the playground as input devices.
This setup transforms a playground into a physical-digital interactive system in which a group of children play a videog-ame using physical actions and
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