Games' underlying interactions obscured by surface.
'Task'
..comprised of actions.
..logical divisions of interaction work.
..organized around a goal.
..embedded in the game world.
Def. built on Systemic Activity Theory [1] and TaskCube [6].
a task..
..represents logical divisions of work in an activity.
..is comprised of one or more actions or subtasks.
..is organized around a goal (task goal) that directs players.
..describes work as its reflected in the output-modality (by how the task embeds within the
game world).
Task Framework
*Built upon Refai et al.[5]: External Assistance Techniques That Target Core Game Tasks for Balancing Game Difficulty, Frontiers in Computer Science.
Identification:
Abstraction dimension adapted from TaskCube [6].
Sequencing:
Composition:
Task hierarchy adapted from Systemic Activity Theory[1].
Examination:
Following Wensveen's couplings[8]: Interaction frogger: A design framework to couple action and function through feedback and feedforward.
Design Applications
Conceptual models of gameplay.
Design Landscapes
Design Properties
Provoking the Design Process:
What do Counter-strike and Tetris have in common?
What if racing games didn't use steering?
When does aiming become pointing?
Summary
Games go beyond their surface.
Tasks = interaction work.
An organization tool.
A design tool.
For rigourous analysis.
Compliments other tools.
References
Bedny, G. Z., & Harris, S. R. (2005). The Systemic-Structural Theory of Activity: Applications to the Study of Human Work. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 12(2), 128–147.
Cardona-Rivera, M. S. D., José P. Zagal, Rogelio E. (2020). A Typology of Imperative Game Goals. Game Studies, 20(3), 1.
Debus, M. S. (2019). Unifying Game Ontology: A Faceted Classification of Game Elements. IT-Universitetet i København.
Funk, M., Müller, F., Fendrich, M., Shene, M., Kolvenbach, M., Dobbertin, N., Günther, S., & Mühlhäuser, M. (2019). Assessing the Accuracy of Point & Teleport Locomotion with Orientation Indication for Virtual Reality using Curved Trajectories. Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–12.
Refai, J. J., Bateman, S., & Fleming, M. W. (2020). External Assistance Techniques That Target Core Game Tasks for Balancing Game Difficulty. Frontiers in Computer Science, 2.
Rind, A., Aigner, W., Wagner, M., Miksch, S., & Lammarsch, T. (2016). Task Cube: A three-dimensional conceptual space of user tasks in visualization design and evaluation. Information Visualization, 15(4), 288–300.
Sicart, M. (2008). Defining Game Mechanics. Game Studies, 8(2).
Wensveen, S. A. G., Djajadiningrat, J. P., & Overbeeke, C. J. (2004). Interaction frogger: A design framework to couple action and function through feedback and feedforward. Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Designing Interactive Systems: Processes, Practices, Methods, and Techniques, 177–184.
Games
Nicolas Adenis-Lamarre. 2005. X-Moto. Game [macOS, Windows, Linux]. https://xmoto.tuxfamily.org/
The Speed Dreams Team. 2010. Speed Dreams. Game [Windows, Linux]. https://www.speed-dreams.net/
Pablo Ruiz Ciudad. 2020. Rope Skipper. Game [Windows]. https://serbjy.itch.io/rope-skipper