Abstract
Video game development is one of the fastest growing businesses, and appealing to a large audience is one of the key factors to a successful game. Recent research in the field of video game design proposes adapting games to the player's profile, which has the potential to broaden a game's target audience. Companion NPCs are an element of games that, when present, have a large potential influence on the player's experience. This work, takes the Media Equation finding that the law of similarity-attraction applies to relationships between media and people, and applies it to video game NPCs. We propose adapting companion NPC to the player's profile, by aligning the NPCs' assertiveness level to the player's own. We also present a methodology for Media Equation findings to be tested in the context of video games. We developed a testbed game, a 2D puzzle platformer with a companion NPC. We also developed two versions of the NPC's behavior, one for each end of the assertiveness scale. We conducted a 2x2, between-subjects experiment (n=48), in which Assertive and Non-Assertive subjects were randomly matched with one of the NPCs. Subjects recognized the NPC's personality type, giving a significantly higher assertiveness score to the NPC endowed with assertive characteristics. Non-Assertive players reported significantly higher Tension scores when interacting with the Assertive NPC than when interacting with the Non-Assertive NPC. However, based on assertiveness level alignment, there was neither a significant difference in the enjoyment of the experience nor in the player's affinity for the NPC.