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7. Games
There are many ways to make language games. Some of the can be considered "Games With a Purpose". As one example, we take inspiration from the game of Losswords. Another successful instance is Phrase Detectives, which has useful implications for linguistic research. For more about language games as Games With a Purpose, see Lingo Boingo and NIEUW.
Games of resonance
Resonance explained
Game mode
From game play to analytics
Competitions
Game Development
By creating games of resonance, the Rezonator project seeks insight into resonance itself. We build on the human perception of, and curiosity about, the structure and meaning of resonance in dialogue, as we seek to create:
- tools for visualizing resonance and engagement in dialogue
- a new way of understanding involvement in human interaction
- a platform for creating a new kind of word game: games of resonance
In Rezonator, games and analytical tools are linked by design. The objective of this writing is to show what Rezonator can offer as a game development platform, so we focus here on the principles that underlie Rezonator games.
As a game platform, Rezonator offers:
- intuitive visualization of resonance and other aspects of dialogue
- appealing and insightful game play
- tapping into the powerful human response to resonance
A key principle of Rezonator games concerns the power of resonance in interaction. For example, the foundation for a game may come from a set of two or more utterances (a "stack"). In Rezonator terminology, a "stack" is a series of utterances in a dialogue, selected for their coherence; for example, because they contain resonating words within parallel structures. In general, the lines in a stack are taken from authentic excerpts from naturally occurring dialogues. (Of course, sometimes they may be edited for clarity, or to preserve anonymity). The excerpts typically focus on the moment when one participant selectively reproduces the words and structures of their conversational partner. The result is a resonance between utterances: a mapping of the affinities (that is, the similarities and differences) between pairs of words, which create links between the two parallel sentences. Rezonator visualizes this by showing a line that connects the word pairs across two utterances. As the linking lines accumulate, little by little a picture emerges of a larger pattern of resonance. Once the resonance builds beyond a certain threshold, something new comes into play: The resonance starts to feed back on itself, reshaping the meanings of the words in context. When resonance passes this threshold of density and complexity, the resulting pattern can be called a "diagraph".
Taken together, the diagraph, as an intertwined complex of resonating elements, can become the basis for a challenge: a linguistic puzzle. When a player is shown half of a resonating exchange, can they find the other half? In Rezonator games, the game play often hinges on the fact that in some kinds of dialogue, you can almost hear the implied resonance. Encountering one utterance alone, even without its matching pair, you can still feel what must have been there, for the resonance to make sense. Reconstructing the original resonance becomes a mental puzzle; if the game is well designed, the puzzle becomes challenging, intuitive, and fun.
Sometimes the sequence of resonating utterances matters, so that only one order will "sound right". (This amounts to a test of pragmatic coherence.) The effect is noticeable, for example, in resonating sentences that contain the words too or either. In such cases, a parallelism in structure is make a certain organization of the structural resonance more or less obligatory. Examples of resonating utterance pairs in dialogue include:
A: I like that.
B: I like it too.
A: I miss you.
B: I miss you too.
A: I don't like those.
B: I don't either.
A: It's erasable.
B: I don't care if it's erasable.
In each case, only one sequence of sentences (A before B) is likely to occur in natural dialogue. Reversing the order of utterances (saying I miss you too before I miss you) creates an awkward conversational sequence, to say the least. But in other cases, it may be possible to have more than one ordering:
A: I think it's nice.
B: It is nice.
B: It is nice.
A: I think it's nice.
In some such dialogues, the difference between a natural-sounding exchange and one that sounds strange will often hinge on the use of intonation.
For linguists, paired utterances like the above can provide insight into the linguistic behavior of, for example, "additive particles" (such as too). For example, when one turn in a dialogue ends with the word too, only one ordering of the turns may be allowed. Thus, one can test whether the presence of particle like too can "coerce" a presupposition, or not. By building such dialogues into Rezonator games, linguists can test their hypotheses, based on the accumulated evidence of how players respond to the puzzles posed.
In game mode, the user plays a game (whether solo, multi-player, or online). Depending on what game has been selected to be played, one or more of the following options will be made available to the player, at the right moment in the sequence of game play.
| Move | Description |
|---|---|
| draw | Player selects a word (which may be masked or encrypted) to see and own. |
| move | Player takes their turn and makes a move or play. |
| dump | Player discards an unwanted card, word, or unit. |
| ship | Player submits a box (diagraph) to be evaluated and scored. |
| guess | Player guesses/predicts the value of a hidden word. |
| peek | Player looks at the value of a hidden word. |
| show | Player shows another player the value of a hidden word. |
| pass | Player chooses to not take a turn. |
| dice | Player rolls the virtual dice, to generate a random value |
| score | A score is calculated and applied to a player's move or hand. |
| win | The current round or game is won by a player |
Gaming. Gamers who have achieved a given level may earn access to certain "powers" that let them deploy automatic packing strategies.
In a typical Rezonator game, the game play hinges on getting players to:
- find which words resonate with which
- choose which ordering of two sentences in a dialogue makes more sense
- evaluate the coherence of the discourse
- not necessarily in this order!
All of this happens in real time, consciously or unconsciously, and usually quite fast. Meanwhile, the game is capturing detailed, play-by-play information about player actions, including the timing of every click (most of which represent perceptions and/or decisions about resonance and language).
The above example gives some idea of how resonance can provide a foundation for Rezonator game play. At the same time, capturing game play offers insight about players' decisions about what resonates and what does not. The combination opens up research possibilities which are limitless.
In other cases, resonance may be tied to emotion, sentiment, or laughter. The geography of emotion is reflected in Rezonator's "heat map" of cues to engagement, revealing the participants fluctuating levels of involvement in dialogic interaction. The inherent appeal of resonance in everyday conversation is the same appeal that drives the excitement of game play in that motivates people to play Rezonator games. Along the way, what Rezonator reveals can reward those who seek new insights about the role of resonance, emotion, and empathy in driving human engagement.
What makes Rezonator work, whether as a game or as a research tool, is its attention to how resonance shapes the meaning of choices people make. In Rezonator games, players are always presented with an array of choices. How they make their decisions reveals a lot about where and when they perceive resonance, and what means for emotion and meaning in interaction.
Rezonator is designed to scale up to crowd-sourcing levels of data collection, providing a large and rich array of information about player actions, decisions, and perceptions. The result is new kind of data and a new form of analytics: resonance analytics, which can provide invaluable information about the dynamics of human engagement.
For games in the Rezonator suite, we will invite competition, posting a leaderboard where players can track their highest scores, and see how they stack up against other players.
- Leaderboards: High scorers
- Teams
- Tournaments
This table provides a list of selected game features/functions to be developed.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Games | Where's Elmo, etc. |
| Web | Develop a web-based framework for Rezonator games, central storage of game data, etc. Publish a web-based version of Rezonator, games, etc. |
| Teams | Build structure to support teams working together with Rezonator |
| Tournaments | Manage multi-player online games, central tournament management, prizes, etc. |