Jumping Part 2: Studies of Leaps and Bounds

Continued from Jumping Part 1. 

The following is a review of selected literature about jumping in digital games.

"Moon Patrol requires players to jump their buggy over craters and other hazards." (Begy, 2010)

Jason Begy. “The History and Significance of Jumping in Games.” GAME//PLAY//SOCIETY: Contributions to Contemporary Computer Game Studies. Proceedings of the 4th annual Vienna Games Conference. Kopaed: Munich, Germany, 2010.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140207165134/http://www.jasonbegy.info:80/Begy_Jumping.pdf

Begy uses Ian Bogost's Unit Operations (2006) text as his guide and analyzes linguistic metaphors ("GOOD IS UP") for the appeal of both jumping and climbing in digital games. He also shows a relation to tabletop games where climbing up levels (snakes and ladders) and jumping over obstacles (chess knight) and "leaping captures" (checkers/draughts, alquerque, hala-tafl) are primary game mechanics.

Begy asserts that Mario's static jump in Donkey Kong, while only a defensive means of avoiding an obstacle, should be considered as an "act of dominance: once leapt over they effectively become harmless" (pg. 15). This may be true of the barrels that continue rolling down the platforms of the first stage, but fireballs may change direction and chase Mario.

The paper includes short analyses of Pitfall, Moon Patrol, Manic Miner, and Super Mario Bros. Like Swink in Game Feel, Begy ignores the arcade game Mario Bros. (1983) and confusingly refers to SMB as "Mario Bros."

Begy concludes that humans have a positive orientation metaphor with height (GOOD IS UP) that may be an embodied metaphor, something more than cultural in origin. This metaphor gives meaning to the action of jumping and may be key to the mechanic's popularity in digital games.

"Mario Jump" (Butler, 2014)

Tom Butler. "The Rise of the Jump." Polygon. 2014.

https://www.polygon.com/features/2014/1/20/5227582/the-rise-of-the-jump

Butler's history starts with the Universal arcade game Space Panic (1980), probably the first "platformer" game, though the game has no jumping. There are quotes from researchers, such as Begy, and a guide to finding examples of different aspects of jumping in games (double-jump, jump attack, triple jump, partner-assisted jump, etc.).

"Players control a rolling ball. Their task is to collect three stars." (Dahl and Kraus, 2015)

Gustav Dahl and Martin Kraus. "Measuring How Game Feel is Influenced by the Player Avatar's Acceleration and Deceleration: Using a 2D Platformer to Describe Players' Perception of Controls in Videogames." AcademicMindTrek '15: Proceedings of the 19th International Academic Mindtrek Conference. September 2015. Pages 41–46.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2818187.2818275

Dahl and Kraus were directly influenced by Swink's Game Feel (hence, the title of their paper) when they designed their experiment in changing parameters of a platformer's "game feel" and measuring player experiences. As important as this notion is to the aesthetic pleasure of experiencing a digital game, we still don't have a robust vocabulary for critiquing or analyzing game feel.

The results were somewhat inconclusive. The vocabulary the participants used to describe game feel was varied ("heavy," "slow," "realistic," etc. (pg. 15)), as I would have expected. Some users were sensitive to small changes in game feel while others didn't notice and difference. The experimenters note that "game feel" is still an odd term for users, one they compare to "mouthfeel." Users did note an inability to find the right words to describe their experience, another sign that we are lacking in language to define these aesthetics.

"Subtle implementation details found while measuring the jumps." (Fasterholdt, Pichlmair, & Holmgard, 2016)

Martin Fasterholdt, Martin Pichlmair, & Christoffer Holmgård. "You Say Jump, I Say How High?" DiGRA/FDG '16 - Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG. Dundee, Scotland: Digital Games Research Association and Society for the Advancement of the Science of Digital Games, August, 2016, Number: 1. Volume: 13. ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666

http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/you-say-jump-i-say-how-high-operationalising-the-game-feel-of-jumping/

This thesis is a deep dive analysis of subtle details of jumps in different games. The analysis is focuses on Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Meat Boy, and Limbo, but also looks at some other games.

Fasterholdt designed his own tools for creating precise, simulated controls in a game for measurement and analysis. He used Unity to build his own replications of the games he analyzed, much like I've been doing with my own Traversing Virtual Dimensions project.

The study shows how differences in gravity, terminal velocity, friction, take off velocity, "jump release," and other parameters change how a game character feels while jumping. He also found helpful jump allowances that enable a player to jump even when the character is not on the ground. Some games use a "jump cache" (image a, above): when a player presses the jump button while in mid-air just before landing, the game will "cache" that jump command and jump as soon as the character lands. Similarly "edge jump" (what I call "coyote time") lets the player still jump after they've just stepped off the edge of a ledge.

Fasterholdt also gave a talk about his paper at Nordic Game 16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK6MNPhwndM

"Demonstration of some neat tricks to make platforming games feel better." (Strachan, 2020)

David Strachan. "Analysis of Platformers." Dave Made a Game (blog). 2020.
http://www.davetech.co.uk/gamedevplatformer

Strachan created a platformer game template in Game Maker that exemplifies some of the "subtle implementation details" that Fasterholdt identifies in his thesis. This sample template is playable on his blog page and the project is freely available on his Git Hub repository.

In addition, Strachan analyzes the jump arcs of a number of 2-D platformers, complete with time in the air, the number of frames of animation, and other information about jump parameters.

Jumping Part 1: A Tale of Two Jumps

Jump button from a Donkey Kong (Nintendo 1981) arcade game cabinet 

Jumping is such a quotidian action in digital games that it seems like its been a part of gaming from the start. However, it wasn't until 1981 when Nintendo released Donkey Kong in the arcades, the first game to feature jumping (and the jump button pictured above). Sega's Jump Bug (1981) was released a few months later, the first game to feature both jumping and a smooth-scrolling screen frame. Jumping became the defining action of the platfomer genre, even though that genre predates jumping (platformers saw their debut back in 1980 with arcade titles Space Panic and Crazy Climber).

Jumping in Donkey Kong vs. jumping in Super Mario Bros. (images by Steve Swink, 2007. source: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/game-feel-the-secret-ingredient)

Mario's first Donkey Kong jump (and that of Donkey Kong Jr. (1982)) is very simple, mechanically speaking. Mario will always jump the same distance and to the same height every time, no matter how long the jump button is held down or how hard it is pressed. It follows a "specific, predetermined arc" (Swink, Game Feel (2009) pg. 201). Once jumping in a particular direction, there is no way to move the joystick in opposite direction to cancel the jump. This is what I refer to as a static jump, what Joshua Bycer calls a "commited jump" in his book, Game Design Deep Dive: Platformers. Additionally, Mario always runs at the same speed and stopes instantly, with no acceleration or deceleration. Similar static jumps are featured in jumping games that followed, like Irem's arcade hit Moon Patrol (1982) and Activision's Pitfall (1982) for the Atari VCS and Namco's Pac-Land (1984).

The static jump began as a purely defensive or navigational action to avoid threats, clear obstacles. or leap to a higher platform. Touching an enemy character typically meant instant death, so there was no concept for jumping onto enemies to defeat them.

By the time Shigeru Miyamoto and his team worked on Mario Bros. (1983), they started experimenting with Mario's (and brother Luigi's) movement. Gunpei Yokoi convinced Miyamoto that Mario should be able to jump with superhuman strength and fall great distances without fear of injury. Donkey Kong's short jumps and deadly falls feel cruel and punishing in comparison to Mario Bros.' tremendous leaps. Mario and Luigi also accelerate quickly from stopped to walking speed to running speed as they move horizontally (Swink 2009, pg. 202). Mario and Luigi also made a little slide as they decelerated to change directions. These jumps were still static, but the player characters were more controllable in their movement.

Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. (1985) offered an unprecedented level of control to the player during jumps with what I dub a dynamic jump. The longer the jump button is held down, the higher the character jumps. Depressing the "run" button lets the player accelerate their character from a walking speed to a fast running speed (walking max. speed is about 3/5 of running max. speed). The player is also able to accelerate horizontally, or "steer" their character in mid-air, during a jump. This opens up player control and gives the game a "highly fluid motion" (Swink 2007).

Note: Steve Swink's Game Feel (2009) is a book that I've referenced before and will likely return to many times. It still stands as the default text on the subject, but  hope that Swink gets the opportunity to create a 2nd edition for the book (something he's been hoping to do in order to update some information "where the thinking has evolved" (2010)). I bought the book new back in 2009 while I was working on fine-tuning controls for a console FPS game and thought it was a great leap forward in thinking and creating a language to think, plan, and talk about my design. His works define games around three principles of real-time control, spatial simulation, and polish. However, his work is different in examining the static/dynamic jump I analyze above.

The dynamic jump did not immediately change the world of platformers; many games created soon after SMB still featured the static jump (and some still do to this day). I see this additional control in jumping as a major evolution in the platformer genre, adding expressiveness and agency to the game action. Some of the most influential platformer series of the 1980s feature their own variations on the dynamic jump, like Mega Man/Rockman (full horizontal control during jump) and Sonic the Hedgehog (momentum-based movement, "vertical jumps" at same angle of slope character is standing on).

Continued in Part 2...

Game or Watch: The Effect of Interactivity on Arousal and Engagement in Video Game Media

A recent paper in the IEEE Transactions on Games featured research on player engagement that may have some good techniques for measuring player engagement in my own research.

Change in pupil size from baseline during the online shark encounter for the interactive and spectator conditions. (Juvrud, Ansgariusson, Selleby, and Johansson 2022)

J. Juvrud, G. Ansgariusson, P. Selleby and M. Johansson, "Game or Watch: The Effect of Interactivity on Arousal and Engagement in Video Game Media," in IEEE Transactions on Games, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 308-317, June 2022, doi: 10.1109/TG.2021.3073084.

The researchers measured the levels of arousal of game players ("on-line" viewers) and game spectators ("off-line" viewers) as they either played games directly or watched recordings of gameplay (like over Twitch or a "Let's Play" video). The researchers used equipment to measure the participants' heart rate, eye movement, and pupil dilation. Additionally, the participants were asked questions so they could report on their own feelings of engagement. The researchers mentioned that there are other biofeedback measures for arousal, such as galvanic skin response, that they did not use.

Both sets of participants showed elevated levels of engagement and arousal when interfaced with the digital gameplay. Unsurprisingly, the active game players were more engaged than the other group. One novel contribution the experiment shows is that both groups showed fairly equal levels of engagement during non-interactive cutscenes (which tell me that you don't feel that you are "playing" during a game's cutscenes... a logical conclusion but it is good to see the data for this).

This research shows that the methods used are effective tools for measuring a player's sense of engagement with a game. Pairing this with research on measuring presence in games could lead to an overall holistic sense of engagement and embodiment with a digital game.

Presence in Digital Games

An overview of some of the works of measuring a player's sense of spatial presence in digital games.

"Self Assessment Manikin" used to measure subjective telepresence (David Weibel, 2008)

When and How to Assess Subjective Overall Judgments of Presence

Bartholomäus Wissmath, David Weibel, Daniel Stricker (2008)

Abstract:

This study investigates differences between subjective on- line- and post-immersion measures, verbally and pictorially anchored scales, and the effects of content on those different measures. These factors were investigated by means of a 2x2x2 within-subjects-design. Participants (N = 162) evaluated two video clips. Against our expectations the findings suggest on- line- and post-immersion measures to be interchangeable. In line with findings from other fields than presence, pictorially anchored items seem to have major advantages when overall judgments are to be assessed. The advantages of pictorially anchored items apply in particular for language-containing environments.

Conclusions:

This piece of research suggests the adoption of post-rating scales as participants seem to be able to provide ex post highly accurate overall estimation of the presence experienced. However, when temporal variations of presence are of particular interest, our study suggests that overall on-line ratings do not interfere the sense of presence.

This study contributes to findings suggesting advantages of visually anchored measures in terms of efficacy and validity. The presence community could try to establish and investigate more specific (i.e. addressing sub-dimensions of presence) non- verbal subjective rating tools.

When assessing an overall estimation of presence, the advantages of visually anchored measures seem to pay off especially with language-based environments. Researchers should keep that in mind when setting up an investigation focusing on such environments.

A Cognitive-Heuristics Approach to Understanding Presence in Virtual Environments

S. Shyam Sundar, Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, Amulya Garga (2008)

Abstract:

A strange paradox surrounds the role played by technology in inducing presence. The more sophisticated the technology, the greater the presence, which means greater invisibility of the technology. While we know that advancements in media technology, from larger screens to more interactivity, can enhance the sense of presence, the theoretical mechanisms by which this occurs are yet to be specified. We address this shortcoming by proposing that user interpretation of technology critically mediates the relationship between technological factors and a sense of presence. In particular, we adapt the MAIN model [1] to propose that technological affordances transmit cues that trigger cognitive heuristics leading to perceptions of presence. This paper identifies and describes a sample of heuristics triggered by modality, agency, interactivity, and navigability. Applications to 3D environments exemplify this approach by identifying specific cues and demonstrating the operation of the proposed heuristics en route to generating presence.

Immersion in Computer Games: The Role of Spatial Presence and Flow

D. Weibel, Bartholomaus Wissmath (2011)

Conclusion:

We attempted to examine the relation between presence and flow. The results of exploratory as well as confirmatory factor provides empirical evidence that flow and presence are distinct constructs, the first referring to the sensation of being involved in the gaming action, the latter referring to the sensation of being there. Furthermore, we could show within three different computer games that immersive tendency and the (pre)motivation contribute to presence and flow. Flow in turn influences enjoyment and performance. In addition, flow mediates the relationship between presence and enjoyment. In two of the three studies, flow also mediates between presence and performance. Our study shows that flow is a central construct and may explain the popularity of computer games. Computer Games seem to be ideal to induce flow experiences. This might be because the difficulty level of a computer game is usually varying. As a consequence, it is likely that the balance between challenge and skills is rather given compared to other applications. However, this a mere speculation which should be tested in future studies.