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The case for dynamic difficulty adjustment in games

Published: 15 June 2005 Publication History

Abstract

Conventional wisdom suggests that while players enjoy unpredictability or novelty during gameplay experiences, they will feel "cheated" if games are adjusted during or across play sessions. In order for adjustment to be effective, it must be performed without disrupting or degrading the core player experience. This paper examines basic design requirements for effective dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) given this constraint, presents an interactive DDA system (Hamlet), and offers preliminary evaluation results which challenge common assumptions about player enjoyment and adjustment dynamics.

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cover image ACM Other conferences
ACE '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology
June 2005
511 pages
ISBN:1595931104
DOI:10.1145/1178477
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 15 June 2005

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Author Tags

  1. AI
  2. computer entertainment
  3. dynamic difficulty adjustment
  4. video games

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  • (2024)Real-Time Digitized Visual Feedback in Exercise Therapy for Lower Extremity Functional Deficits: Qualitative Study of Usability Factors During Prototype TestingJMIR Serious Games10.2196/5177112(e51771)Online publication date: 10-Dec-2024
  • (2024)Beyond Aesthetics: Players, Player-Characters and Interactivity-as-Demand in Cozy GamesReplay. The Polish Journal of Game Studies10.18778/2391-8551.12.0412:1(7-22)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Difficulty Modelling in Mobile Puzzle GamesInternational Journal of Computer Games Technology10.1155/2024/55923732024Online publication date: 1-Jan-2024
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  • (2024)Solution Path Heuristics for Predicting Difficulty and Enjoyment Ratings of Roguelike Level SegmentsProceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3649921.3659846(1-8)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
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