ELIMINATION from Design to Analysis
This work addresses level generation and player analysis for a specific word puzzle game, representing an incremental application of existing methods to new data.
The authors tackled the problem of automatically generating levels for a word puzzle game called Elimination using a constrained evolutionary algorithm, and analyzed playtraces from nearly a thousand users to verify that the generator creates an intended sawtooth-shaped difficulty curve and provide insights into player behavior.
Elimination is a word puzzle game for browsers and mobile devices, where all levels are generated by a constrained evolutionary algorithm with no human intervention. This paper describes the design of the game and its level generation methods, and analysis of playtraces from almost a thousand users who played the game since its release. The analysis corroborates that the level generator creates a sawtooth-shaped difficulty curve, as intended. The analysis also offers insights into player behavior in this game.