Promoting Emotions with Angry Birds-like Gameplay on Rube Goldberg Machine Levels

Abstract

This paper proposes a method for generating Angry Birds-like game levels, and their gameplays, that promote spectator's emotions. Each of such levels features a domino effect generated based on Rube Goldberg Machine (RGM) mechanisms, allowing it to be completed by one perfect shot of a bird. We evaluate the effects on spectator's emotions by comparing two sets of gameplay videos; one with only perfect shots and the other with only imperfact shots (i.e., gameplays that were not successfully completed by one shot). We conducted an online survey using Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) to evaluate the spectator's emotions before and after watching a video of interest. Our results show that perfect-shot videos lead to higher positive affect and lower negative affect of the spectator in the same series of generated RGM levels. In addition, the perfect-shot video has a stronger evidence in decreasing the negative affect of the spectator than the imperfect one.