Can Cognitive Puzzle-Centric Game Play Captivate a First Person Shooter Audience?
By: Jonathan Hemingway
Supervisor: Atussa Simon
Master of Interactive Technology degree conferred March 24, 2007
Thesis / Project completed March 21, 2007

This thesis provides research data supporting the idea that cognitive puzzle game play can captivate the first person shooter audience.  It also provides data that helps distinguish what attributes of cognitive puzzles are enjoyed by the FPS audience and which are detrimental to their overall experience. 

To test whether or not cognitive puzzle game play can captivate the first person shooter audience I created a FPS level called Plugs.  Plugs is filled with cognitive puzzles instead of standard FPS game play.  I then had eighteen FPS players from The Guildhall at SMU play through Plugs and record their thoughts and impressions on a survey.  The testing was performed in three separate rounds.  Between each round Plugs was modified to reflect the new feedback. 

The collected survey data strongly suggests that the FPS players loved the cognitive puzzle game play in Plugs, with only one of the eighteen testers reporting disliking the level.  The puzzle that was reported to be the most fun contained both cognitive puzzle and skill-based puzzle game play, suggesting that the FPS audience prefers cognitive puzzles that also contain skill-based elements.  The data collected from the most difficult puzzle suggests that FPS players have a preference for cognitive puzzles that allow continual progress rather than ones that force the player to stop and rethink the puzzle multiple times. 

Further research could include studying FPS player’s reactions to cognitive puzzle game play in games not played from the first person perspective.  Does the perspective the game is played in affect the FPS audience’s reaction?  Or do FPS players enjoy all cognitive puzzle game play? 

The reverse of this project would also be interesting to study.  Do cognitive puzzle players enjoy FPS game play?  If not, then why?  Could certain elements of FPS games be changed to make them more appealing to the cognitive puzzle player audience?

Download entire thesis (.pdf)