This blog post has been written based on the presentation "AI That Makes Fun Games" by Sentience CEO Hyeyon Kwon at Gamescom Asia 2023 and the first session of our webinar "The Challenge: Why Game Companies Struggle (Link)" uploaded on the TentuPlay YouTube.
Importance of Fun in Game DevelopmentDevelopers always strive to create "Fun Games." These games keep players engaged, leading to the organic formation of communities and a more loyal fan base. However, the path to achieving this goal is different for every game, and it is quite challenging to discover. The smart approach TentuPlay is revealing is to use AI to analyze user data and improve games. By thoroughly understanding your game, you can discover the most effective ways to enhance the fun factor. We have been developing AI solution TentuPlay since 2015 and our own game, South Pole Bebop, since last year. With our collective experience and expertise, we hope our innovative approach can help you achieve success in developing your own fun game.
What is Fun in Games: Heroic
Fun games should make players feel as though they are on a journey of self-discovery and transformation, much like the Hero's Journey theory by Joseph Campbell, a mythologist. This narrative pattern involves a hero embarking on an adventure, facing challenges, learning a valuable lesson, winning a victory, and ultimately returning home transformed. It has greatly influenced today's culture, art, and psychology.
It's possible that you believe your game's story includes adventure and challenges, similar to the hero's journey. However, whether players can actually feel like they are going through the hero's journey in the game is a matter of debate. As the criteria can differ between developers and players, it's crucial to create a player-centered hero's journey in the game.
While developers may have experienced the hero's journey by facing and overcoming challenges in their own games, some players may not be able to overcome the challenges in the game, making them feel like victims instead of heroes. On the other hand, some players may find the game too easy and not challenging enough, thus not feeling like they have truly become a hero.
Heroic Journey on Game Based on Player Data
To create a player-centered hero's journey in your game, it's crucial to accurately understand and analyze your game based on data. While intuition can be helpful, relying solely on it can lead to incorrect assessments. When players fail to experience the hero's journey and become disengaged, developers often point to subjective factors like "lack of appealing characters or items" or "poor UX/UI". However, players will continue to disengage if the root cause is the game's balancing, so it's important to accumulate and utilize game user data for analysis to reduce errors significantly. We will discuss more details on game data analysis in a future post.
AI’s Role in Accurate Analysis and Improvement of Games
Game analysis and decision-making processes often require time and expertise for the collection, organization, and analysis of large amounts of data. AI technology can significantly improve the efficiency of these processes. With the help of AI, user data can be automatically segmented and analyzed, enabling game developers to quickly pinpoint areas that require improvement. Additionally, AI can assist in addressing issues such as balancing, which can be disrupted by differences in perceived difficulty among players. Sentience's TeuntuPlay utilizes its own AI technology to accumulate and analyze user behavioral data, significantly reducing the time spent on making necessary adjustments. Seize the opportunity to harness the power of AI and revive your game within the golden hour.
AI Can Do Better
You might have heard about the impact of AI on the gaming industry. AI technology has been used for generative purposes such as drawing game assets, creating background music, and adding dubbed voices. Some of you may already be considering implementing AI in your games, or may have already started using it in certain areas. However, one question remains: is AI only effective in quickly producing game assets or can it offer more benefits to the gaming industry? I want you to remember that AI can do much more than that to enhance the gaming experience of your players. In our next post, we will explore the role of AI in the context of "South Pole Bebop," a game currently under development by our game team, Sentience Game Studios.
