This thesis compares the different concepts of game narrative and traditional narrative, and aims to explore and analyze the relationship between visual elements and game narrative in video games. Game narrative is an emerging narrative based on digital media. It can not only include stories from traditional narratives, but also convey narratives through the virtual environment and mechanisms of games. This thesis discusses the concepts of traditional narrative and game narrative from the basic concepts of narrative, and lists different visual narrative elements and video games of different narrative types on this basis. In addition, this thesis designs a study that includes different dimensions of immersion to investigate the impact of narratives conveyed through visual elements on player immersion.

This thesis project aims to explore the relationship between the players and the fictional worlds of alternate reality games (ARGs), concentrating on the aspects of immersion, player involvement and narrative. It investigates the connection between immersion and narrative, as well as to what extent the applying of narrative to physical environments contribute to the overall immersive experience of the players. The theoretical frame incorporates different aspects of game interaction, concerning game boundaries, game mastering and player experience, and includes an analytical presentation of a number of ARGs, challenging the traditional norms of game design. The theoretical framework is accompanied by a design process exploring game mechanics and player involvement through game testing. The assumptions drawn from the research, in combination with the outcome of the design process, suggest that because narrative utilized within ARGs is interactive it differs massively from traditional narration and the fact that it intersects the physical environment gives it properties that urges its users to dynamically collaborate to unfold its discourse.

Les jeux vidéo occupent une place importante dans notre société. Cependant, leur conception ne prend aujourd'hui que peu en compte les spécificités de l'interaction joueur-jeu vidéo, qui sont déterminantes pour une expérience de jeu optimale. L'objectif de cette thèse était de comprendre l'influence de différents choix de conception des interfaces visuelles des jeux vidéo sur la performance et le comportement du regard des joueurs. Ces interfaces, généralement dynamiques et complexes, sont composées de trois sources d'information : les objets avec lesquels le joueur interagit et l'arrière-plan, qui composent la scène d'action principale, ainsi que les informations contextuelles superposées à la scène principale. Sept expériences ont été réalisées pour comprendre le partage attentionnel entre ces sources dans le cadre d'une activité de jeu vidéo. Les caractéristiques de l'arrière-plan, des informations contextuelles et de la tâche ont été manipulées. La performance et les mouvements du regard des joueurs ont été enregistrés. Les résultats ont montré que le partage attentionnel entre deux sources d'information (e.g., scène d'action et informations contextuelles) est facilité lorsqu'elles ne se chevauchent pas. Lorsque qu'elles se chevauchent nécessairement (e.g., objets et arrière-plan), les caractéristiques de mouvement et de complexité de l'arrière-plan et la difficulté de la tâche modulent très largement la dégradation de la performance. Un modèle théorique de partage attentionnel entre deux sources visuelles d'information superposées est proposé. Des recommandations sont établies pour la conception des jeux vidéo, mais aussi des environnements virtuels en général. / Video games take an increasingly important place in our society. Nowadays, however, their design doesn't take enough into account the specificity of player-game interaction, which is essential for an optimal play experience. The thesis' goal was to understand the impact of different design choices for video games visual interfaces on players' performance and gaze behavior. These dynamic and complex interfaces include three information sources: the objects that the player interacts with and the background, which make up together the main action scene, and the contextual information superimposed on the main scene. Seven experiments were made to understand how attention is shared between these sources during video game activity. The characteristics of the background, of the contextual information and of the game task were manipulated. The performance was measured while participants' eye movements were recorded. The results showed that attention sharing between two sources (e.g., the action scene and contextual information) is optimal when the two sources do not overlap at all. When they necessarily overlap (e.g., objects superimposed on a background), the nature of background movement, the background visual complexity and the difficulty of the task can strongly modulate the performance decrease. A theoretical model of attention sharing between two superimposed sources of visual information is proposed. Practical recommendations are drawn up for video game design, but also for virtual environments design.

To investigate the topic of intuitive interaction using a 3D-device, a toy car was used as a controller with the Stylaero Board to complete one lap in a car racing game. 20 participants completed the task in 2 conditions, one using the 3D-device as a controller, and one using a standard computer keyboard. The interaction was evaluated using task completion time as a measure of learnability of the device, as well as through subjective reactions from users gathered from a tailored questionnaire with 7 statements rated on a Likert scale of 1-5, and 3 open-ended questions. The performance and attitude towards the 3D-device as a controller was compared to the performance and attitude towards using a standard keyboard. The mean task completion time was significantly lower when using the keyboard. A subscale of the enjoyability of using the device was compared between conditions indicating a significant difference where the 3D-device was rated higher than the keyboard. Furthermore, a significant correlation was found between attitude towards the control device and task completion time in the keyboard, while no significant correlation was found between the corresponding variables for the 3D-device. These results indicate a difference between what aspects are important to users when evaluating a new interface compared to a familiar one. The subjective reactions gathered from the open-ended questions were categorized and sorted into themes using thematic analysis to illustrate the various aspects that were highlighted by users for each interface. The problems faced by participants when using the 3D-device were observed and analyzed in relation to current theories of intuitive interaction to find the driving factors of interaction with a new device.

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