Evaluating Mixed-Initiative Procedural Level Design Tools using a Triple-Blind Mixed-Method User Study
This addresses the challenge of supporting human designers in game development with procedural content generation, though it is incremental as it builds on existing mixed-initiative approaches.
The study tackled the problem of evaluating mixed-initiative tools for procedural game level design by conducting a triple-blind mixed-method user study, finding that designers using the tool showed increased engagement and reported it was effective in inspiring new ideas.
Results from a triple-blind mixed-method user study into the effectiveness of mixed-initiative tools for the procedural generation of game levels are presented. A tool which generates levels using interactive evolutionary optimisation was designed for this study which (a) is focused on supporting the designer to explore the design space and (b) only requires the designer to interact with it by designing levels. The tool identifies level design patterns in an initial hand-designed map and uses that information to drive an interactive optimisation algorithm. A rigorous user study was designed which compared the experiences of designers using the mixed-initiative tool to designers who were given a tool which provided completely random level suggestions. The designers using the mixed-initiative tool showed an increased engagement in the level design task, reporting that it was effective in inspiring new ideas and design directions. This provides significant evidence that procedural content generation can be used as a powerful tool to support the human design process.