Question

1. What is your favorite classic game system and why? What aspects of the hardware and software interface elements in the game system that appeal to you? What are some of your favorite games that you enjoy playing and why?

2. How have interfaces evolved over the course of video game history? Think of a game you play and list and discuss the key features in the game's interface.

3. How can a game interface address accessibility issues? Choose a game you currently play and discuss how you would modify the game interface to address visual, audio and physical disabilities.

Answer 1

Question 1 Answer:

• My favorite classic game is super mario bros.3
• hardware interface used for this game are mobile screen,control buttons/keys.
• Edge browser is required for this game.

• My favourite video games are The Last Of Us and Skyrim. My favourite video game series is Resident Evil.The Last Of Us is honestly a masterpiece. The choice of being stealthy, working with your companion, or going in guns blazing is quite fun to experiment with after trying each difficulty.

Question 2 answer:

Interface evolution in video game history:

Video games have been refined by graphical enhancements, increased processor speed of video game systems and other technological advancements. As a result, their UIs have been evolving to adapt to the increasing complexity of video games.The world had seen the emergence of technologies such as 3D graphics and motion sensors which allow for new game genres and UI to come to be.

Building a Good UI

Now that we know how to identify a bad UI, how do you design a good one? In general, a good UI does two things:

• It does what the user thinks it will do; and
• It gives the user feedback so they know what it did.

If the game doesn’t do what the player thinks it will, that is a problem with the user model not matching the game model, as we’ve already discussed. But there is one other aspect to designing the UI: giving the player immediate feedback so that they know what they did is correct (and, in the unlikely event that they did something wrong, they will immediately see that it is wrong and understand why).

Here is another way of looking at what a good UI does:

• Make it easy to do things correctly; and
• Make it hard to do things the wrong way.

Here’s an example: suppose you have a board game with several kinds of tokens. Maybe you have one set of markers that keeps track of player score, using a scoring track around the edge of the board. Maybe the game board has a map divided into provinces, and players have military units that are placed in the provinces. Maybe there’s also a global market with goods for purchase and sale, and a separate track for each trade good that lists its current price.

It would be easy to get all these different game bits confused. But what if each token was a different size and shape, and each space on the board matched the shape of the token that was used there? All of a sudden, it becomes a lot easier to figure out that the small square tokens must go on the small squares of the scoring track, the star-shaped goods markers go on the star shapes of the trade good price tracks, and so on.

How will the players remember how to adjust the trade good values on each track? A rules summary printed on the board right next to the tracks makes it easy to remember. What about how combat is resolved? Unit strengths, stats and abilities can be printed on the military units themselves, and the remaining rules can either be summarized on the board or on a quick-reference card or other player aid given to each player at the start of the game.

As you go about designing the UI, here is a process you can follow:

• First, make a list of tasks that players need to accomplish in the game. Make it easy to do those tasks.
• Second, pay special attention to the most common tasks, the ones that players are doing over and over. Difficulty and complexity of a task should be in proportion to how rarely it is used.
• Iterate through playtesting.

Game Subway Surfers:

Concept

Subway Surfers had been developed by two teams. Sybo had created the concept and art while Kiloo had taken responsibility for the user interface, monetization and player retention.

The concept is clear: Subway Surfers is a 3D runner. The art style is animated and colorful, pretty much cartoonish, which attracts both children and women. The major motive of the setting is a protest (a free graffiti artist is trying to escape from a policeman), which to a certain extent reflects reality (there are still explosions of unrest throughout the USA and Europe).

Retention

The principal achievement of the developers of Subway Surfers is user retention. Kiloo had resorted to means that are well familiar to creators of MMOs.

To put it short, there are four types of players: achievers, explorers, socialisers, and killers. The purpose of the developers is to satisfy every representative of each type in the game.

Achievers pursue numbers: they want more and more points, levels and wealth. Explorers strive to discover every corner of the game world, reveal all secrets and see all possible features. For socialisers, communication is king. Finally, killers play to dominate everyone else and win the total respect of the community.

Question 3 answer:

There are a variety of ways to address accessibility in games. The major difference in approaches is whether they are hardware or software based.

Hardware based approaches involve the use of adaptive hardware to provide the ability to interact with the game. Devices such as the following could all be used with games:

• A head mouse – the functionality of a mouse, controlled by head movement.
• On screen keyboard – often coupled with a head mouse for typing.
• A data glove – uses a glove-like device to control a game.
• Biofeedback devices that measure muscle movement or brain waves to control a game.
• Sip and puff switches – uses your breathing to control a device.

Most of these devices require specialized software, in addition to the necessary hardware. Because they can be rather exotic, it may be difficult to get them to function with games.

On the software side, there are a variety of approaches:

• Screen reader software – these programs will take the screen information and read it back to the gamer. In some cases, the programs will also drive a Braille display.
• Screen magnifiers – enlarge sections of a display.
• Speech recognition – controlling the action via speech. Often requires training of the software.

Many of these approaches require additional support within a game in order to function correctly. For example, screen reader software often will only work with text displayed using a specific set of programming interfaces.

Examples of Accessible Games

The good news is that we are starting to see commercially available accessible games. In some cases accessibility was designed in from the beginning. In other cases, gamers were able to add accessibility after the game was released.

Here are some examples of games that are accessible:

Half Life 2: Half Life 2 was designed with accessibility in mind from the beginning. After Half Life was released, deaf gamers complained that the cut scenes were not closed captioned. Valve responded to the gamers by releasing the game dialog.

When it came time to start work on Half Life 2, closed captioning was designed into the product. Deaf gamers were consulted during the design phase and were part of the testing process. Reviews from sites like DeafGamers were very complimentary.

One of the nice things that Valve discovered was the addition of closed captioning really did not extend the project schedule. Because the necessary code is part of the game engine, other games using that engine could easily be closed captioned.

Doom3 [CC]: Another highly anticipated game in 2004 was Doom3. To the disappointment of the Deaf community, the game was not closed captioned. However, there was a way to modify the game using tools provided by id Software. A team to create a closed caption mod for Doom 3 was formed. (Doom3 [CC]).

id Software was extremely helpful, providing files of the dialog used in the game. In addition to providing closed captioning, the Doom3 [CC] team also provided translations of the dialog into four additional languages and added a heads up radar display that provided a way to identify the direction from which a sound originates.

The team developed the “Dynamic Closed Captioning system” as part of the project and is allowing the use of this software free of charge by others who are willing to follow the requirements stated on their website.

Terraformers: Terraformers is an adventure game that can be played by gamers who are blind. It provides the standard graphics seen in this type of game for sighted gamers, but can be played in a no-graphics mode for the blind.