- Title
- Improving player spatial abilities for 3D challenges
- Creator
- Nesbitt, Keith V.; Sutton, Ken; Wilson, Joshua; Hookham, Geoff
- Relation
- 6th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment (IE'09). Proceedings of the 6th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment (Sydney 17-21 December, 2009)
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1746050.1746056
- Publisher
- ACM
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2009
- Description
- In this paper, we describe the development of tutorial levels for navigation challenges requiring a 3D mini-map. Navigation in 3D game worlds is a common challenge for players, and it often forms a significant part of the game play in RPG and Adventure games. Navigation of the game world is typically supported by a mini-map which provides a 2D, top-down view of the game world. This mini-map might also display the position of key landmarks along with the position of the player's avatar and any other relevant actors in the game. In contrast to these 2D min-maps we have been developing a 3D mini-map to support game play that requires navigation in a 3D world. However, even understanding connectivity and structure in a simple 3D mini-map requires the player possess some complex abilities in terms of mental rotation and translation between 3D and 2D. Acquiring these skills is fortunately well studied in psychology and we draw on outcomes from this field to develop progressive challenges that can act as tutorial levels for players. The intention is to allow players to gradually learn how to interpret the 3D mini-map before advancing to more difficult levels in the game. This work encompasses two important aspects. First it draws on findings from cognitive psychology to support the design of spatial challenges in computer games and secondly it considers how computer games can be used in an educational capacity to help improve spatial abilities.
- Subject
- spatial skills; 3D navigation; mini-maps; tutorial levels
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/919332
- Identifier
- uon:8834
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781450300100
- Language
- eng
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