State-of-the-Art: Design of the Semantics Acquisition Games - Semantic Acquisition Games: Harnessing Manpower for Creating Semantics - page 95

meet in relationship to the given aspect. The lenses test various aspects of the design:
the game rules, the relationship with the player, the design process and the designer
himself. Practically, this is done by a set of questions that accompany each lens.
If a game designer answers these questions sufficiently, his game will probably be
a good game.
To effectively use the lenses, Schell suggests a strictly iterative, prototype-based
approach of the game design and development process, which is inspired by soft-
ware design and in particular, the agile software design methods. The main iteration
scheme is then composed of two parts: first, the designer creates a game prototype
and second, he tests the prototype using relevant lenses. Schell stresses that the iter-
ations must be as small as possible and may also run in parallel manner. He also
reminds us that iterating includes all of the work on the game design (e.g. artistic
work, player analysis), not only the software implementation of the game.
The iterative approach that Schell suggests is a working one—many game design-
ers use its modifications. For us, it is an inspiration. The use of various design dimen-
sions to test the SAG design may be the way to formalize the SAG design process. At
least partially. Therefore we focus our research on the identification of SAG design
aspects and certain characteristics that SAGs usually share.
7.2 Aspects of SAG Design
Reviewing the design characteristics of existing SAG solutions (including our own)
we have identified several design aspects of the semantics acquisition games (note
that we consider this list open for the future: we do not claim it is complete):
1. Validation of player output (semantics and metadata artifacts). How do SAGs
validate if players are creating value when playing? How are the players scored?
2. Problem decomposition and task difficulty. Is the problem that SAG solves
decomposable into smaller ones? Are all the tasks equally difficult or not? What
does it mean for SAG design?
3. Task distribution and player competences. Are the competences of all players
equal? If not, how does the game distribute the tasks to the players according to
their skills?
4. Player challenges. This aspect covers the ways the SAG challenges it's players
into play. What are the types of game aesthetics that motivate SAG players to
play?
5. Purpose encapsulation. Is the purpose of the game visible/known to player?
How does this influences the player motivation to play?
6. Cheating vulnerability. How does the SAG deal with possible security threats
and dishonest player behavior?
These aspects serve as a backbone of our classification of SAGs. We introduce them
in detail and review the existing SAGs according to them. Each aspect represents
one or more requirements a well-functioning SAG must meet. It also represents