Design and Implementation of Player Growth Systems. Exemplified through a Third-Person Action Game

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Design (Industry, Graphics, Fashion), grade: 1.3, University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, course: Animation & Game, language: English, abstract: Growth is an intrinsic element of human nature. Humans age and develop with the passage of time. Video games use elements of such desires for growth to power their gameplay. Player growth systems analyze the changes that a player and their player character experience during gameplay. This includes the visual changes, ability upgrades, as well as the emotional development that takes place during the story. Thus, a framework is presented to investigate how games with player growth systems are structured and how player characters evolve inside these games.

This framework is then applied to a game project during its development to show how these tools can be used in an actual project. This process of implementation serves to visualize concrete examples of player growth systems. Specifically, the focus of the project was on the idea of plant growth in a third-person action game.

The game developed during the project is tested in user tests to study the impact of player growth systems on engagement and gameplay structure. For this, a survey is used. It was found that players enjoyed learning new abilities and growing visually. Finally, the limitations of player growth systems are presented. This includes growth stagnation (lack of new end-game content).