An Appraisal Transition System for Event-driven Emotions in Agent-based Player Experience Testing

TL;DR

This paper introduces an automated framework for evaluating player experience in video games by modeling emotions through an event-based transition system, enabling early-stage testing without human players.

Contribution

It proposes a formal emotion model based on OCC theory integrated into an agent system for automated PX testing in games, with a prototype implementation.

Findings

Effective emotion visualization via heat maps.

Automated PX testing without human participants.

Prototype successfully integrated with a game agent.

Abstract

Player experience (PX) evaluation has become a field of interest in the game industry. Several manual PX techniques have been introduced to assist developers to understand and evaluate the experience of players in computer games. However, automated testing of player experience still needs to be addressed. An automated player experience testing framework would allow designers to evaluate the PX requirements in the early development stages without the necessity of participating human players. In this paper, we propose an automated player experience testing approach by suggesting a formal model of event-based emotions. In particular, we discuss an event-based transition system to formalize relevant emotions using Ortony, Clore, & Collins (OCC) theory of emotions. A working prototype of the model is integrated on top of Aplib, a tactical agent programming library, to create intelligent PX test agents, capable of appraising emotions in a 3D game case study. The results are graphically shown e.g. as heat maps. Emotion visualization of the test agent would ultimately help game designers in creating content that evokes a certain experience in players.