Intro
The game we played this week was So Cute!
World of Goo is a physics-based and extremely JUICy game about helping a gang of Goos get safely to the pipe, while avoiding obstacles along the way.
The paper was very informative and well-suited to bring out the core fun of the game. Juicy Game Feedback explored how games such as World of Goo use feedback mechanisms to keep players engaged and fulfilled. Their research explored both different forms of “juicy feedback” as well as what effects they each had at a comparative level against each other, and how they measured up in predicting certain game outcomes as opposed to other game mechanics (for example, a point system).
First, I want to specifically talk about the two most interesting parts of the paper. Then I will connect those findings to my personal experiences and especially my experience playing this week’s game, World of Goo.
Going to my most incredible takeaways,
1. The importance of Curiosity as a driving force for players
According to the paper’s findings, “Curiosity was the strongest predictor of enjoyment by far and the only construct significantly correlated with voluntary engagement” when they were testing their RPG in an experimental setting. Put differently, “players played more when they were curious in the game” moreso than as a function of enjoying the game. (1) This translates to when they still had worlds left to explore, moves and strategies left to try or discover, etc.
The authors cited Murayama’s “reinforcement learning model of curiosity” to put forward their theory on this topic, highlighting that is it in essence a ‘wanting’ state which manifests in the feeling of curiosity. This “wanting state” of curiosity, as they called it, ostensibly energizes behavior. In contrast, satisfying this want generates enjoyment or ‘liking’ experiences which lack the energizing power inherent in wanting. So, if a player wins a game, they are satisfied and less likely to go back than if they win a part of the game but are curious about exploring different ways to win the game.
2. Feedback as more effective than point system in motivating players
The paper also did some research into comparing effects of instant feedback mechanisms built into the game in the form of “juicy” effects (such as swinging, squishing, bubbles bursting, sound effects, etc) versus feedback in the form of points gained. Research indicated that “juicy” mechanisms appeal to a player’s intrinsic drive for affective motion, and thus is more significant and long-term driver of motivation than a point system which is an inherently extrinsic motivator. Extrinsically motivational systems have been proven to be an ineffective method of keeping a player motivated as it is not that “deep” per se and also harms intrinsic effects by crowding them out.
How I see World of Goo fitting into it:
World of Goo builds curiosity in having unpredictable effects of constructing a new Goo formation. In forming the Goos you not only place them in relation to each other, but the formation as a whole is affected by the laws of physics since the weight is distributed differently which leads to a spatial disbalance. So at every step, you both feel accomplished by the metrics telling you how much closer you are to the end (“X miles from..” notifications), but you are also curious to see how the physics of it all will play out, which becomes an additional intrinsic motivator.
Paper Cited:
- Dominic Kao, Nick Ballou, Kathrin Gerling, Heiko Breitsohl, and Sebastian Deterding. 2024. How does Juicy Game Feedback Motivate? Testing Curiosity, Competence, and Effectance. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 365, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642656
