2017 · Conference paper
Mechanics Automatically Recognized via Interactive Observation: Jumping
Infers platform-game jump mechanics by running controlled experiments in a modified FCEUX NES emulator. A person first plays each game to a safe state; the system then repeatedly holds the jump button for 1 to 120 frames, waits 120 frames and resets, recording every sprite from the PPU sprite table. Sprites that usually touch one another are merged into characters and tracked. A hand-designed four-state jump automaton (ground, rising with and without the button, falling) is then fitted with linear support vector regression, giving per-state velocity and gravity parameters plus minimum and maximum button-hold durations. Across 48 games (about 30% of NES platformers) and 52 characters, the authors cluster the learned jumps into three styles.
Scope and limitations
Models only vertical jumps from a standing position; horizontal movement, running jumps, double jumps and interactions with enemies or terrain are ignored, and no game code, assets or complete mechanics are recovered. The fixed automaton is assumed rather than learned, so non-physical jumps such as Castlevania's fit with systematic errors. Stair-step arcs, delayed jump starts, unusual landings and animation jitter are acknowledged problems. Each game needs human play to reach a safe state, prior knowledge that it has jumping, and a known jump button. The 48 games are not an exhaustive sample, and results are descriptive comparisons and clusters rather than tests against developer-specified parameters.
Why it fits this collection
Adds emulator-instrumented, black-box recovery of a game mechanic's parameters from controlled play, complementing the collection's code- and visuals-based game reconstruction research.
Publication and review details
- Venue
- FDG 2017
- Status
- Conference paper
- Publication / posting date
- August 14, 2017
- Date source
- ACM-deposited Crossref metadata gives 14 August 2017 for both online and print publication, which is also the first day of FDG 2017; the date comes from the deposit, not from the conference schedule.
- First arXiv submission
- July 12, 2017
- arXiv
- 1707.03865
- Reviewed arXiv version
- v1
- DOI
- 10.1145/3102071.3102104
Crossref establishes the four-author order, FDG ’17 proceedings and page range 1–10; it deposits the title in sentence case with subtitle “jumping”, while this entry keeps the paper's printed capitalization. Crossref lists the second author as Joe Osborn; the paper and arXiv print Joseph C. Osborn, the form used here. arXiv has only v1 of 2017-07-12, with comment “10 pages, 12 figures. Accepted at Foundations of Digital Games 2017” and the same DOI. Its PDF is the 10-page ACM-formatted paper with the FDG ’17 reference block. Neither the paper nor arXiv links code, the modified emulator or the experiment data, and no author release was found. Sources were read only; no emulator, game or experiment was run.
Sources reviewed
Source review only; experiments were not rerun for this collection. Cite the original authors using the linked paper or BibTeX.