Designing an Adaptive, Player-Centric Game on Animation Principles

Abstract

The animation industry continues to grow in relevance due to the ubiquitous use of animation principles in multiple fields; with this growth resulting in many people taking an interest in the field. There are a multitude of entry points into the animation industry, from formal courses offered by respected institutions to free tutorials found in YouTube. Despite this, the researchers found that there is only a limited amount of media that teaches animation interactively, like video games. The researchers developed a modified 2D action adventure video game named In-Between Frames: An Animation Adventure that introduces its players to common principles used in animation. This paper aims on principles used in animation. This paper aims to present the Animation System, which is the core gameplay feature of the aforementioned video game. This Animation System, that allows the player to create and modify the animations of the player character whether it be the animations that allow for traversal or the attack animations used in combat, is used in the video game as a means to introducing certain animation principles found in the book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. This paper also describes what more can be added to the video game to make the experience more player-centric and adaptive. Concepts considered include dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA), slow-motion and live feedback, and adaptive suggestions based on performance.