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GFGDA: general framework for generating dungeons with atmosphere

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Abstract

The atmosphere is one of the game elements that can significantly influence player's emotions. However, creating an immersive atmosphere that effectively influences player emotions poses several challenges, necessitating the utilization of various elements, such as audio-visual coordination and gameplay design. This paper introduces a general framework for procedurally generating dungeons with joyful and horror atmospheres in games, providing an abstract perspective to address these challenges. The proposed framework introduces a categorization system for game elements based on their role within the game. Leveraging this categorization, the Comprehensive Arrangement of Game Elements (CAGE) pattern is introduced, which facilitates the appropriate placement of elements within the dungeon environment. Subsequently, the General Framework for Generating Dungeons with Atmosphere (GFGDA) is employed to procedurally create the dungeon using the Feasible–Infeasible Two-Population (FI-2Pop) algorithm. To enhance gameplay experience, similar elements in the dungeon environment that impact gameplay are grouped and their coordination is evaluated by creating a graph based on the CAGE pattern. The transition and coordination of audio-visual elements along the path between these impactful elements are assessed in order to generate an immersive atmosphere within the dungeon. To ensure diversity, examining the variety of dungeons generated over 100 runs demonstrates that our method consistently produces distinct results in each iteration. Moreover, two comparative studies were conducted, one with 51 volunteers and another with 10 volunteers. In the first study, the Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ) was utilized to assess the emotional impact of dungeons generated by our method. These were compared to dungeons created using a uniform random approach, alongside relevant research. The results suggest that our method significantly influences player emotions across the four components of the GEQ—sensory and imaginary immersion, flow, negative effects, and challenge—when compared to dungeons generated by the uniform random approach and another researched method. In another study, the emotional impact of two dungeons, one generated with joyful elements and the other with eerie elements, was evaluated using the GEQ. The findings indicate significant differences between the two components of the GEQ—tension and positive effects—when players interacted with the level containing joyful elements compared to the one with eerie elements.

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Data availability

The GEQ test details for each player during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of software engineering, Faculty of Computer Engineering, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

    Mohammad Reza Hojatoleslami, Kamran Zamanifar & Zahra Zojaji

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  1. Mohammad Reza Hojatoleslami
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  2. Kamran Zamanifar
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  3. Zahra Zojaji
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Correspondence to Mohammad Reza Hojatoleslami.

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Hojatoleslami, M.R., Zamanifar, K. & Zojaji, Z. GFGDA: general framework for generating dungeons with atmosphere. Multimed Tools Appl (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-024-18833-5

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