Digital games incorporate systems that allow players to customise and develop their controllable in-game representative (avatar) over the course of a game. Avatar customisation systems represent a point at which the goals and values of players interface with the intentions of the game developer forming a dynamic and complex relationship between system and user. With the proliferation of customisable avatars through digital games and the ongoing monetisation of customisation options through digital content delivery platforms it is important to understand the relationship between player and avatar in order to provide a better user experience and to develop an understanding of the cultural impact of the avatar. Previous research on avatar customisation has focused on the users of virtual worlds and massively multiplayer games, leaving single-player avatar experiences. These past studies have also typically focused on one particular aspect of avatar customisation and those that have looked at all factors involved in avatar customisation have done so with a very small sample. This research has aimed to address this gap in the literature by focusing primarily on avatar customisation features in single-player games, aiming to investigate the relationship between player and customisation systems from the perspective of the players of digital games. To fulfill the research aims and objectives, the qualitative approach of interpretative phenomenological analysis was adopted. Thirty participants were recruited using snowball and purposive sampling (the criteria being that participants had played games featuring customisable avatars) and accounts of their experiences were gathered through semi-structured interviews. Through this research, strategies of avatar customisation were explored in order to demonstrate how people use such systems. The shortcomings in game mechanics and user interfaces were highlighted so that future games can improve the avatar customisation experience.

In this study, we will explore how a restricted user interface affects the player experience in survival horror games. To test this, we created a digital survival horror game. The restricted user interface in the prototype resides in the player controller who has access to five different user interface elements. These elements are health, revolver, flashlight, compass and a watch. The results showed that the restriction and making the user interface diegetic did affect the player experience. This was presented through dividing the participant's experiences with the prototype in four categories: Challenge, Analytical, Safety and Control. Participant’s enjoyed the added challenge from the restricted user interface which also helped promote the horror experience. As a drawback, a restricted user interface resulted in participants having a harder time learning the game and understanding certain game mechanics and elements. / I denna studie så kommer vi undersöka hur ett begränsat användargränssnitt påverkar spelupplevelsen i överlevnadsskräckspel. För att testa detta så skapade vi ett digitalt överlevnadsskräckspel. Det begränsade användargränssnittet i prototypen befinner sig på den spelbara karaktären som har tillgång till fem olika användargränssnitts element. Dessa element är hälsa, revolver, ficklampa, kompass och klocka. Resultaten visar att begränsningen och genom att göra användargränssnittet diegetisk påverkade spelupplevelsen. Detta var presenterat genom att dela upp deltagarens erfarenheter med prototypen i fyra olika kategorier: utmaning, analytisk, säkerhet och kontroll. Deltagare gillade ökningen i utmaning från det begränsade gränssnittet som även hjälpte stärkte skräckupplevelsen. En nackdel med ett begränsat gränssnitt var att deltagare hade det svårare att lära sig spelet samt förstå vissa spelmekaniker och spelement.

This thesis aims to find out the usage of colour in the game called Journey (2012). It is a case study which focuses on three different scenes in the game and how their colour scheme affects the game both emotionally and the storyline progress. The question that will be answered is: How does the choice of colour affect the players perception on an emotional level? This thesis talks about how different colours affect us in different ways and why this plays a major part in gameplay situations and how the drastic change of colour portraits different emotions. The colour choice is of great importance since it affects humans on an emotional level that enhances the experience felt by players during different scenes.

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.

This thesis work examines how the user experience of mobile games can be evaluated with the use of session recording tools. The thesis project was carried out at the mobile games development company MAG Interactive, and the aim was to produce a workflow for the company with guidelines for how to conduct user testing with session recording tools for mobile devices. In order to evaluate the tools and services, and to develop the workflow, several user tests have been conducted. When using mobile session recording tools, it is possible to record the screen of the device, the microphone input and in some tools also the front camera input while the user is playing the game. Recording the test session makes it easier to understand and evaluate the player experience of the game and also to identify usability issues. The thesis also covers other parts necessary when conducting user testing besides the actual session recording tool. These are test set up (instructions, tasks etc.), integration, distribution of the test and the application and also analysis of the recorded test session.

Context. Procedural content generation (PCG) refers to algorithmical creation of game content (e.g. levels, maps, characters). Since PCG generators are able to produce huge amounts of game content, it becomes impractical for humans to evaluate them manually. Thus it is desirable to automate the process of evaluation. Objectives. This work presents an automatic method for evaluation of procedural level generators for 2D platform games. The method was used for comparative evaluation of four procedural level generators developed within the research community. Methods. The evaluation method relies on simulation of the human player's behaviour in a 2D platform game environment. It is made up of three components: (1) a 2D platform game Infinite Mario Bros with levels generated by the compared generators, (2) a human-like bot and (3) quantitative models of player experience. The bot plays the levels and collects the data which are input to the models. The generators are evaluated based on the values output by the models. A method based on the simple moving average (SMA) is suggested for testing if the number of performed simulations is sufficient. Results. The bot played all 6000 evaluated levels in less than ten minutes. The method based on the SMA showed that the number of simulations was sufficiently large. Conclusions. It has been shown that the automatic method is much more efficient than the traditional evaluation made by humans while being consistent with human assessments.

This master's thesis describes the use of microtransactions in video games and their influence over the game design, player experience, and virtual goods presentation. The goal was to compare the titles that use different monetization methods (paid and free to play games) and different types of microtransactions (functional and cosmetic), and to identify which parts of those games could be influenced by microtransactions and how. The research focuses on five titles - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Anthem, Warframe a Path of Exile. The first part of the thesis summarises the historical evolution of monetization models used in video games and defines the terms microtransaction, micropayment, virtual goods, or loot box. It also contains a typology of microtransactions, describes their implementation methods, and possible consequences tied to their use. The second part focuses on the analysis of the chosen five games. The research used the following methods - analysis of my own gameplay and mutual comparison of each game. Each game was examined over the course of ten hours, in sessions about 45-60 minutes long - the gameplay was accompanied by video recordings of the gameplay, screenshots, and a journal that contained detailed information about each gaming session. The research...

In this study, a video game prototype was developed to research the impacts of diegetic and non-diegetic interfaces on two facets of player experience in the context of video games, game difficulty and immersion. A total of 10 participants took part in a play session where they played the prototype, which was followed by semi-structured interviews where the participants discussed their perceived player experience. The transcribed interviews were then analyzed using a thematic analysis approach to find recurring patterns in relation to perceived difficulty and immersion. The findings of this study showed that diegetic interfaces were perceived as more difficult but more immersive in general, while the opposite was true for non-diegetic interfaces. / I den här studien utvecklades en spelprototyp för att undersöka effekterna av diegetiska och icke-diegetiska gränssnitt på två aspekter av spelupplevelse i samband med videospel, spelsvårighetsgrad och fördjupning. Totalt deltog 10 deltagare i en spelsession där prototypen spelades, vilket följdes av semistrukturerade intervjuer där deltagarna diskuterade sin spelupplevelse. De transkriberade intervjuerna analyserades sedan med en tematisk analysmetod för att hitta återkommande mönster i relation till deltagarnas upplevd svårighetsgrad och fördjupning. Resultaten av denna studie visade att diegetiska gränssnitt upplevdes som svårare men mer fördjupande i allmänhet, medan motsatsen gällde för icke-diegetiska gränssnitt.

This paper deals with the differing vocabulary between academic and player discussions when it comes to discussing gaming experiences. The main terminology that is explored is ludonarrative dissonance and ludonarrative harmony along with its usage. Ludonarrative design is connected to a handful of other terminologies such as environmental storytelling and agency, which in my research I take a look at how this affects the player and their experience. The research method is the creation and usage of a taxonomy of vocabulary to attempt to bridge the discussions between players, designers and academics.

Denna studie undersöker hur spelupplevelsen i ett "management"-spel förändras om virtuella karaktärer agerar verklighetstroget i sina handlingar och val samt hur en spelutvecklare kan hålla nere påverkan på spelets prestanda och samtidigt bibehålla trovärdigheten hos spelets virtuella karaktärer. Resultat från tidigare forskning om AI-LOD har använts som grund i utvecklingen av en prototyp av ett "management"-spel som sedan testats av åtta deltagare följt av individuella intervjuer gällande deras upplevelser av och reflektioner kring spelet. Studien presenterar förslag på tillvägagångssätt för att använda AI-LOD effektivt samt hur användarnas upplevelser har påverkats positivt och negativt av de designval som gjorts. / This study investigates how the player experience is affected in "management" games when the virtual characters' behaviors are pivoted towards realism. The study also investigates the usage of AI-LOD as a method to reduce the impact on performance by these virtual characters without sacrificing authenticity of their behavior. Results and findings from previous research in this particular field are used as a foundation in the development of a prototype of a "management" game. This prototype has been tested by eight participants followed by individual interviews on their experiences and thoughts on the game. The study presents suggestions on how to use AI-LOD effectively and how player experience has been affected both positively and negatively by design choices made during the development of this prototype.