Effectively Communicating Critical Status Information in First-Person Shooter Games

Abstract

First-person shooter video games are wildly popular, with developers recently trying to make their games more "immersive" by communicating feedback within the game rather than on the heads-up display (HUD). This makes this genre of games an interesting platform for research into the effectiveness of different methods of communicating critical game information.

This thesis presents four user studies. Each experiment compares multiple methods of communicating one piece of critical game information of remaining ammunition, health, current weapon, and navigational aid. These studies looked at in game and HUD display methods for all pieces of information. Participant performance and preference was compared. Overall, this thesis advises developers of best choices for communicating each piece of critical game information depending on the needs of their game.