Researchers at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark are exploring the effects of games that adapt to players, reports New Scientist. They believe that adaptive games that recognize a player’s skill level or game play style, then adjust accordingly, will enhance the experience. To prove their point, the researchers jerry-rigged Super Mario Brothers to vary difficulty such as enemy frequency and length between gap jumps. They then tested two versions of the game to find user frustration levels with the harder version.
The test as described by New Scientist seems simple, and the results obvious. The adaptive game concept might be interesting to any game marketer or executive who has argued for better difficulty balancing and some degree of handholding to help sell a game to mainstream players. This might also sound familiar to said marketer/executive. As a professor from Georgia Institute of Technology tells New Scientist, there will be resistance to the concept from the artists.
Read more at New Scientist.
