Game Design Document Format For Video Games With Passive Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment

Authors

  • Pratama Wirya Atmaja
  • Daniel Oranova Siahaan
  • Imam Kuswardayan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26594/register.v2i2.551

Abstract

 

Permainan video adalah perangkat lunak hiburan, sehingga kepuasan pemainnya adalah tolok ukur utama kualitasnya. Satu elemen penting dari kepuasan pemain adalah tingkat kesulitan yang tepat, yang tidak terlalu mudah maupun sukar. Dewasa ini, cara termutakhir untuk menerapkan tingkat kesulitan yang tepat adalah Pengaturan Kesulitan Dinamis (PKD), yang dapat memodifikasi tingkat kesulitan permainan pada saat run-time. Tipe PKD yang paling populer pada saat ini adalah PKD pasif. Di sisi lain, Dokumen Desain Permainan (DDP) adalah artefak penting dalam pengembangan perangkat lunak permainan video, dan belum ditemukan format DDP yang mendukung perancangan mekanisme PKD pasif. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah menemukan format DDP baru yang mendukung perancangan tersebut. Kami memodifikasi sebuah format DDP yang bersifat umum dengan menambahkan bagian-bagian baru untuk perancangan mekanisme PKD pasif. Format hasil modifikasi tersebut diuji dalam proses pengujian yang melibatkan sejumlah pengembang dan sejumlah pemain. Para pengembang mengembangkan sejumlah permainan video menggunakan format DDP yang dimodifikasi dan format yang umum. Proses pengembangan yang mereka jalani diamati dan dinilai kelancarannya. Permainan-permainan video yang dihasilkan dengan kedua format DDP dimainkan oleh para pemain untuk menguji kualitas mekanisme PKD pasifnya. Hasil pengujian oleh para pengembang menyatakan bahwa format DDP yang dimodifikasi lebih baik dari format yang umum. Hasil pengujian oleh para pemain menunjukkan keunggulan permainan-permainan video yang dihasilkan dengan format DDP yang dimodifikasi, walau keunggulan itu tidak signifikan. Berdasarkan hasil tersebut, kami menyatakan bahwa format DDP yang dimodifikasi berhasil mencapai tujuannya.

Kata kunci: permainan video, rekayasa kebutuhan, Pengaturan Kesulitan Dinamis, dokumen desain permainan, pengembangan perangkat lunak.

 

 

Video game is a type of entertainment software, and therefore the satisfaction of its players is the primary mean to measure its quality. One important element of player’s satisfaction is a proper difficulty level, which is neither too easy nor too hard. The current state-of-the-art way to implement it is with Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA), which allows the difficulty level of a video game to be adjusted at run-time. Currently, the most popular type of DDA is the passive one. Meanwhile, Game Design Document (GDD) is an important artefact in the development process of a video game software, and there is still no GDD format that supports the design of passive DDA mechanism. The aim of this research was to find a new GDD format that supports the mechanism. We modified a general purpose GDD format by adding new parts for designing passive DDA mechanism. We tested the usefulness of the modified format in a testing process involving developers and players. The developers developed video games using the modified GDD format and the general purpose one. Their development processes were observed and evaluated to know if there were any difficulties. The resulting video games were played by the players to find which are better in terms of passive DDA mechanism. The result of developer testing showed that the modified format is better than the general purpose one. The result of player testing showed that the video games made with the modified format are better than their counterparts, albeit by an insignificant margin. Based on the results, we declare that the modified GDD format is successful.

Keywords: Video game, requirement engineering, game design document, dynamic difficulty adjustment, software development.

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Published

2016-07-01

How to Cite

[1]
P. W. Atmaja, D. O. Siahaan, and I. Kuswardayan, “Game Design Document Format For Video Games With Passive Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment”, Register: Jurnal Ilmiah Teknologi Sistem Informasi, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 86–97, Jul. 2016.

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Article