Analyzing player behavior in Hotel Dusk

by JC Fletcher { Jul 25th 2007 at 6:20PM }

We seriously need more game reviews like this one. Krystian Majewski looked at the design of Hotel Dusk in terms of the behavior it caused in a player. By videotaping his girlfriend playing through the first chapter, he was able to calculate the percentage of the game involving interacting with people, interacting with items and the environment, or changing locations. He then mapped her spoken responses to the game to the kind of gameplay in which it occurred, to see where the player was most engaged.

It turns out that it isn't the characters that generate the biggest emotional response, but rather the interactions with the environment-- the puzzles. Majewski speculates that "When interacting with objects, the player is acting on his own so the feeling of responsibility is much greater." For this game, at least, it would seem that the story doesn't drive immersion as much as the gameplay, which is a pretty interesting hypothesis. We'd like to see the same kind of experiment done for a Final Fantasy game.

Tags: behavioranalysis, hoteldusk, review

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Nushio @ Jul 25th 2007 6:33PM

I played through HD, and found the characters really involving. Its much like reading a book or novel.

The added puzzles are very interesting, and since the game is made by the same team that brought us Trace Memory, I expected no less.

Obiter @ Jul 25th 2007 11:36PM

"An interesting hypothesis"???

Come on. How many times in the last 10 years have you seen someone post to a board "its all about the gameplay"???

Any designer worth their salt knows that no amount of graphics, story, or other fatuous rococo accouterment is anything other than window dressing when compared to gameplay.

Steve Paradis @ Jul 26th 2007 12:23AM

Chapter One? Of course it's the gameplay--you're trying to psych out the system of the game and the mechanics of interaction with the environment. You also don't meet (rather than encounter) many people. It's in the following chapters that you are drawn into the individual stories of the characters and the plotting of the mystery. I found the characterizations to be as well done as any PC adventure game and superior to nearly all I've played. It's your approach to each character that gets you through the game, not merely guessing some numbers to unlock a keypad.

Shannon @ Jul 26th 2007 8:00AM

Not only do I think the hypothesis isn't terribly interesting (as previous commenters have said, is this news?) but I think this so-called "study" is bogus--based on one person (his girlfriend) playing through one chapter? I'm sorry but that cannot even be considered a legitimate qualitative study.

Kade Storm @ Jul 26th 2007 8:45AM

Okay, I am going to laugh my entrails out over the fact that you guys are actually assigning terms to like hypothesis to a so-called study that involved a net sample of-wait for it--ONE INDIVIDUAL; the guy's spouse!

I too would like to disagree with this hypothesis, and would gladly emulate the same experiment with my friend and predict a contrary outcome in my introduction. "Wii iz deh prfessnal researcherz!"

ssuk @ Jul 26th 2007 11:21AM

Nushio: yes, CiNG are awesome. Did prefer the EUR ver of 'Trace Memory', as Another Code was a straight translation of the Japanese game without the localisation... Which was bloody awful in Trace Memory. (I own both Jap and Eur vers of Another Code, but have played Trace Memory through once)

OhJustSomeRandomGuy @ Jul 26th 2007 6:18PM

I think the reason they only mapped one chapter is because after that, the game asked her to recall everything she'd just done, and then she shut it off and never touched it again.

In addition, how is he "mapping" her emotions? I mean, obviously there's going to be a change of emotion when you make the transition from, "Why is the dialogue for this game so horrid?" to "this is one of the dumbest 'puzzle' I've ever had to 'solve'".

Game bashing aside, this is entirely worthless as a "study". This is better as a thought exercise. If you're going to spend time on videotaping something like this, there should be the potential for hilarious results, like those guys who filmed themselves playing Forza and getting progressively more drunk.