Abstract
This paper presents the design of a puzzle game for the Android platform also shows a study on puzzle solving strategies across different interaction modalities and showcases a player performance analysis in each identified strategy. Solving puzzles is among the oldest challenges and entertainment activities available to us. However, despite major technological advances, the design of such games has never provided individuals with challenges beyond visual puzzles. We capitalized on this opportunity to tackle the design of puzzles which go beyond visual cues, utilizing sound and vibration feedback as well to offer a fresh challenge to players. Along with the design of this game, our research focused on analyzing puzzle solving strategies applied by users. In particular, this paper details a study in which we analyzed if players apply the same strategy to solve a visual and a audio puzzle. Complementing the strategies analysis on the audio mode, we also present a comparative analysis regarding performance metrics such as completion time, number of moves for completion and the attained score. Results point that players often opt to solve prominent areas first, leaving more abstract zones to the end, independently from the interaction modality involved. Performance analysis tells us that there are suitable strategies to maximize different performance metrics.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Battocchi, A., Pianesi, F., Tomasini, D., Zancanaro, M., Esposito, G., Venuti, P., Ben Sasson, A., Gal, E., Weiss, P.L.: Collaborative puzzle game: a tabletop interactive game for fostering collaboration in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In: Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, ITS 2009, pp. 197–204. ACM (2009)
Diakopoulos, N., Luther, K., Essa, I.: Audio puzzler: piecing together time-stamped speech transcripts with a puzzle game. In: Proceedings of the 16th ACM International Conference on Multimedia, MM 2008. ACM (2008)
Duh, H.B.-L., Chen, V.H.H., Tan, C.B.: Playing different games on different phones: an empirical study on mobile gaming. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, MobileHCI 2008. ACM (2008)
Ginat, D.: Elaborating heuristic reasoning and rigor with mathematical games, pp. 32–36. ACM (December 2007)
Hill, J.M.D., Ray, C.K., Blair, J.R.S., Carver Jr., C.A.: Puzzles and games: addressing different learning styles in teaching operating systems concepts. In: Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2003, pp. 182–186. ACM, New York (2003)
Hoggan, E., Brewster, S.A.: Crosstrainer: testing the use of multimodal interfaces in situ. In: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2010, pp. 333–342. ACM, New York (2010)
Korhonen, H., Koivisto, E.M.I.: Playability heuristics for mobile multiplayer games. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts, DIMEA 2007, pp. 28–35. ACM, New York (2007)
Lee, S., Zhai, S.: The performance of touch screen soft buttons. In: Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2009, pp. 309–318. ACM, New York (2009)
Levitin, A.: Analyze that: puzzles and analysis of algorithms. In: Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2005, pp. 171–175. ACM (2005)
Levitin, A., Papalaskari, M.-A.: Using puzzles in teaching algorithms. In: Proceedings of the 33rd SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2002, pp. 292–296. ACM, New York (2002)
Bell, M., Brown, B., Hall, M., Sherwood Matthew Chalmers, S., Barkhuus, L., Tennent, P.: Gaming on the edge: Using seams in pervasive games. In: PerGames 2005 Proceedings, Munich, Germany, pp. 11–18 (2005)
Paelke, V., Reimann, C.: Vision-based interaction - a first glance at plazing MR games in the real-world around us. In: PerGames 2005 Proceedings, Munich, Germany, pp. 92–97 (2005)
Poupyrev, I., Maruyama, S.: Tactile interfaces for small touch screens. In: Proceedings of the 16th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, UIST 2003, pp. 217–220. ACM (2003)
Reufer, T., Panknin, M., Geiger, C.: Sensodroid: multimodal interaction controlled mobile gaming. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Humans and Computers, HC 2010, Fukushima-ken, Japan, pp. 32–36 (2010)
Ross, J.M.: Guiding students through programming puzzles: value and examples of java game assignments, vol. 34, pp. 94–98. ACM (December 2002)
Sedano, C.I., Laine, T.H., Vinni, M., Sutinen, E.: Where is the answer?: the importance of curiosity in pervasive mobile games. In: Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on Future Play, Future Play 2007, New York, NY, USA, pp. 46–53 (2007)
Holleis, A.W.P., Kranz, M., Schmidt, A.: Playing with the real world. In: PerGames 2005 Proceedings, Munich, Germany, pp. 43–50 (2005)
del Blanco, A., Torrente, J., Marchiori, E.J., Martiınez-Ortiz, I., Moreno-Ger, P., Fernandez-Manjon, B.: Easing assessment of game-based learning with <e-adventure> and LAMS. In: Proceedings of the Second ACM International Workshop on Multimedia Technologies for Distance Learning, MTDL 2010, pp. 25–30. ACM, New York (2010)
Carvalho, J., Duarte, L., Carriço, L.: Puzzle Games: Players Strategies Across Different Interaction Modalities. In: Proceedings of Fun & Games 2012 (2012)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Carvalho, J., Duarte, L., Carriço, L. (2012). An Analysis of Player Strategies and Performance in Audio Puzzles. In: Herrlich, M., Malaka, R., Masuch, M. (eds) Entertainment Computing - ICEC 2012. ICEC 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7522. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33542-6_31
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33542-6_31
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33541-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33542-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)