Welcome to this survey! Please read the following information carefully!

Studying Believability Assessment in Racing Games Information Sheet

Cristiana Pacheco

Queen Mary University of London

Saturday 4th of May 2024

 

INTRODUCTION

I would like to invite you to volunteer for my research project. In this study, I will explore the believability of characters in games.

Please note that you have no obligation to participate and you may decide to withdraw from the study at any point without giving a reason. This also includes the withdrawal of your own data. The researcher also holds the right to terminate your participation at any time. Below you will encounter a description of the game and project; and also, the consent to participate. Please read this information carefully. If you agree to participate, sign the space provided to do so.

 

PROCEDURE

You've been given a link to access this questionnaire. You'll be asked to watch a few short videos (all below 40 seconds) of a car in a race in a third person perspective, to then answer a couple of questions based on them. Do not worry if you believe you do not have enough practice with video games in general; please always answer to the best of your knowledge. The main research target is to understand how human-like behaviour can be achieved in Non Player Characters by creating a reliable method to assess it first. This data will be recorded and analysed for the development of future studies in the same field.

Please do not share your experience/results with others after you start the experiment and even after you finish it.

If, for any reason, something is not behaving as it should during the study (videos not showing, etc) please contact me immediately through the options provided below.

 

THE GAMES

-          Speed Dreams

This a free and open source 3D car racing game developed by Gaitan Andre et al. It is a fork of the simulator TORCS with more features, cars, tracks and AI opponents. Its development started in 2008 and continued with several releases up until April 2016.

-          Forza Motorsport 6: Apex

This is yet another racing video game developed by Turn 10 Studios and published by Microsoft. The Apex version is the free version published for Windows 10. This version was released in 2016 which features many cars, tracks and other features.

 

QUESTIONS

If you have any questions about the procedure or the games you can ask them through my email address. You should refrain from contacting others about your own experiment while doing the study and after. My email address is: c.pacheco@qmul.ac.uk 

 

DATA AND CONFIDENTIALITY

All data gathered will be kept confidential; with only me and my supervisors - Dr Diego Perez, Dr Laurissa Tokarchuk and Dr Richard Bartle - being able to view it. This will be in the form of spreadsheets which do not identify you individually from this data. This data will be used as part of a study and may also be used for part of a future publication. Please note that if this is the case, you still won't be identifiable in any way. 

YOUR AUTHORITY TO PARTICIPATE

Please confirm below your acceptance by ticking the box. On my behalf, I thank you for your contribution.

By ticking this box, you confirm that you have read and understood the information provided; you were given the opportunity to ask questions about the study, you agree to participate voluntarily, you can withdraw at any time without giving a reason and with no penalty attached, you understand how the data will be used and its confidentiality rules.