Video games invert the expected relationship with failure - rather than avoiding it, players actively pursue games where failure is frequent. Generally, prior work has focused on players encountering hard-coded fail-states as defined by the game (e.g., losing a life). However, scholars have pointed out that game communities often set their own goals (e.g., speedrunners), changing what it means for the player to fail. Further, a more recently explored perspective concerns how developers themselves conceptualize and design fail states. Yet, no known work has explored developers’ perspectives on player experiences of failure within a specific genre. This study contributes to this through semi-structured interviews with 20 puzzle game developers, identifying commonalities in their design philosophies, approaches to designing challenge, conceptualizations of failure, and criteria for puzzle quality. Through inductive thematic analysis, we show that puzzle developers reframe failure away from performance-based definitions. Rather than centering on incorrect attempts, they conceptualize failure primarily as complete player disengagement, viewing it as a failure of the design. Further, puzzle developers regard what some might consider failure as an intentional learning mechanism that encourages experimentation and nudges players toward solutions. Through this paper, we show how developers set player expectations and goals to create a unique relationship with “failure”.

Game designers often utilize tutorials to explicitly introduce players to game mechanics. Another design approach is to begin by throwing players into the “shallow end”, introducing them to mechanics through active engagement in easier levels. To compare these different approaches, we created two modified versions of the first 7 levels of the puzzle game Baba Is You: a tutorialized version, and an increased impasse version. Seventy-five players spent up to 20 minutes playing one of the modified versions or the original game and were asked to fill out a survey on their engagement level, perceived difficulty, and understanding of the core game mechanics. Analyses show that players of the tutorialized version made fewer mistakes and rated their version at a lower difficulty than players of the original and increased impasse versions, while all groups scored highly on content knowledge and engagement. This suggests that direct instruction at the start of a game allows players to come to an understanding equal to a learn-by-doing approach more quickly, with fewer mistakes, and without sacrificing engagement. This study does not, however, show that tutorial players are more prepared to take on more challenging content without explicit guidance, a direction proposed for subsequent work.

Managing attention, progressing towards goals, and monitoring behaviors are elements of self-regulation (SR). SR applications based on contemplative practices such as breath counting have demonstrated gains in field studies but have failed to engage youth without coercion. Prior research generated behavioral and neurological changes, but was disliked by youth. This three-part study includes a participatory design workshop, application redesign, and subsequent field deployment to understand how wearable devices can support self-regulation. Twenty-seven youth designed activities that revealed interest in and models of self-regulation that became part of a smartwatch app. Researchers revisited and redesign the application based on youth feedback, and then released the redesigned application (some of whom participated in workshops, some of whom did not). Redesigning the application to be responsive to youth needs resulted in higher levels of satisfaction than previously observed. Youth also used this application more often and reported higher use. Three design tensions persisted: (1) Breath counting applications as attention grabbing vs. attention cultivating and (2) breath counting activities as a relaxation activity vs. a mental workout, and (3) exposing youth to meditation and breath counting as a strategy for developing healthy minds vs. an institutionalized or compulsory required action. Activity occupied positions along these continua, which creates associated challenges for researchers. A fruitful design space exists for researchers to integrate attention focusing into activities that youth value, which can include stress reduction or mindfulness training, but also could be simply to improve their academic work.

While play theorists agree that failure is an integral part of a play experience, there is little research on what players consider failure in video games, or how they respond when failure is encountered. This study uses behaviorally-coded gameplay videos and data-driven retrospective interviews to investigate how players think about and respond to failure in Cuphead, a notoriously challenging “run ’n gun” platformer video game. Emergent patterns show a link between how psychologists measure reactions to failure, known as "mastery orientation" and in-game behaviors, predicting both higher or lower mastery orientation scores. Player interview responses also show a range of ways that players experience failure beyond hard-coded failure (losing health or dying), including poor performance in a section already completed, lack of progress, or giving up. This research deepens our understanding of the role failure plays in one of our most pervasive media, developing our understanding of how players experience failure and the behaviors they take in response.

Some video games create challenging environments that presume that players will often fail as part of developing the skills and knowledge they need to progress through the game. Psychology has a rich history of studying the ways that individuals react towards failure, including mastery orientation. Mastery oriented individuals are characterized by positive reactions to failure, such as renewed effort, heightened affect, and positive, affirming language. However, the challenging environments of which these video games are comprised have not yet been investigated fully in their potential impact on how players react to failure. In an initial exploration, we surveyed 928 undergraduates at a major university in the Pacific United States on their gameplay experience and attitudes towards challenge and failure. Analyses partially replicate previous findings and show that players who are more attracted to challenge in video games report higher mastery orientation. While this suggests that challenge in video games has some association with positive reactions to failure, further analyses are warranted to understand how challenge in video games influence player reactions and the impact this may have beyond of the game.

Hiding and seeking are cognitive abilities frequently demonstrated by humans in both real life and video games. To determine to which extent these abilities can be replicated with AI, we introduce a specialized version of the Turing test for hiding and seeking. We then develop a computer agent that passes the test by appearing indistinguishable from human behavior to a panel of human judges. We analyze the AI techniques that enable the agent to imitate human hide-and-seek behavior and their relative contribution to the agent's performance.