MEDUSA - A View-Tracking Pong Game
Nikolai Lukas Reinke, Tobias Wursthorn, Jan Jessen · 2023
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to develop a prototype game mechanic that limits the player’s sense of sight and to investigate how quickly players adapt to this mechanic as well as the effects of the mechanic on player competitiveness. We seek to incentivise players to track the current game-state as a mental image rather than getting visual input consistently. This could lead to them experiencing the game more intensely. In this study, a group of participants played a modified version of the classic game ’Pong’ on a touchscreen device while the game visually tracked the openness of their eyes. While this paper only represents a preliminary proof-of-concept and no full-scale study, initial results show meaningful differences in player action - acclimatisation and strategic adaption are clearly visible, even in very small datasets.