Analyzing Playability in Multi-platform Games: A Case Study of the Fruit Ninja Game

摘要

Video games offer new perspectives for discussions and studies on user experience, which results in a change of the relevant terms in the context of gaming; replacing 'usability' with 'playability' and 'user experience' (UX) with 'player experience' (PX). PX can be inspected in various gaming platforms, which present diverse interaction methods through different peripherals, consequently uncovering the complex nature of video games. Therefore, it is critical to understand the nature of PX through user research. However, limited number of studies investigated PX and playability in detail in order to create an analysis framework for entertainment systems by referring to former UX and usability methodologies. Majority of those studies presented a set of playability heuristics on theoretical basis, which still required to be tested through empirical research in various gaming platforms. In this context, this study focuses on the qualitative analysis of multi-platform PX through a proposed playability heuristics framework derived from relevant literature. This study aims to test the proposed framework in a multi-platform game setting and thus seek ways to contribute to the establishment of a new comprehensive analysis framework to understand multiplatform PX. For this purpose, a qualitative multi-method study based on game platform diversity is designed to measure player experience with 8 users in two different gaming platforms which is based on mobile and full body gesture based interaction. Besides revealing the effect of "On-Screen" elements on PX such as game interface, mechanics and gameplay, the study also presents promising findings for the effect of "Off-Screen" aspects such as the environmental and social factors.