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NES Games and Statistical Analysis

Posted by Zonk on from the serious-science dept.

szadig writes "The New Gamer has published an article which tackles the topic of averaging gameplay. The accompanying video features 15 different players simultaneously shooting their way through the first stage in the NES game Gradius. From the article: 'The average time taken to kill the end level boss was 20.055 seconds, with the fastest player finishing him off in a mere 10.01 seconds. Six people finished the boss off at nearly identical moments. It would seem that the boss, bored with the player, actually self-destructs after 27 seconds. Beyond the almost perfectly synchronized explosions, further proof of this self-destruction can be found in the videos: no 10,000 point bonus (given to players when the boss is defeated) was awarded to these six players and, in a few of the runs, the boss detonated when there wasn't a single bullet near it.' Can we apply other statistical methods to gameplay?"

12 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. You know.. by Headcase88 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Getting 15 people together to do a statistical analysis to find out whether a boss self-desructs isn't quite as efficient as just having one person avoiding the boss for a while and just seeing whether it blows up or not.

    A lot of the other stuff in the article was interesting though... looks like he put a lot of effort into it.

    --
    "When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
    1. Re:You know.. by Retroneous · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think the point was probably to get listed on Slashdot. I can't see any reason for applying statistical analysis to gameplay. Especially not to a game that is as old as that one. What purpose will it serve?

      --
      My Mind Is Rewired. Is Yours?
    2. Re:You know.. by denmarkw00t · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Its actually pretty interesting. Alot of today's gamers aren't as familiar with the 2D environments and simple gameplay - fly and shoot. It presents quite a change of pace for the average gamer and, if someone really takes the time, those statistics could be valuable. Maybe there is some way to compare them to similar gaming tasks in today's realm of quality graphics, crisp sound and interactive gameplay. I think it's a good starting point for learning alot about how the mind of the gamer works - including how well patterns are processed and stored, how gamers approach games differently based on appearance.

      There are plenty of good reasons to have this kind of data recorded, not just for a plug on /..

  2. Mirror by SillySnake · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'd make a torrent, but I'm running Gentoo on an 800Mhz Athlon and it's gonna take me a couple of hours to compile Bit Torrent :-/ If the site dies.. I'll give my bandwidth a go: http://www.wartsworld.com/AveragingGradius.mov

    1. Re:Mirror by Psycosys · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why would you have to compile BitTorrent? It's written in Python thus interpreted.

  3. Stastical Analysis by queenb**ch · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It would seem to me that you'd need a sample size bigger than 15 in order to be considered "stastically significant". I would recommend conducting such tests with a far larger group of testers, or at least with the same people more than once so that you gather enough results to be somewhat conclusive.

    2 cents,

    Queen B

    --
    HDGary secures my bank :/
  4. Torrent by Yonatanz · · Score: 2, Informative

    The full 26Meg file, in a decentralized azureus torrent:

    dht://1ACB2F69B008DAA48210AE53C3B96A8DE88C7B55.dht /announce

    Have fun!

  5. Another interesting "average" by Jerf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Another interesting "average", though technically harder to pull off, would be to get 15 players simultaneously watching the same game in real-time, "averaging" in some reasonably manner the 15 inputs coming in, and feeding that to the game. It would be interesting to see if it sucks, or manages to play better than the individuals, or what.

    1. Re:Another interesting "average" by grumbel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Depends, if the players try to do the same thing the average would probally be a almost perfect play of doing whatever the players were doing. If however one player decides dodge a rock by flying over it and another by flying under it, well, the average rams them directly into the block, not so good.

  6. Disassemble by Dan+East · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why not disassemble the game and take a look at what the program is designed to do?

    Dan East

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  7. Re:Life Force by T23M · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, Life Force was NOT the sequel, but a new series entirely (known as Salamander in Japan). Gradius II was a Japan-only Famicom release in late 1988; the next Gradius game to come Stateside was Gradius III for the SNES.

  8. Re:Are you kidding me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    'Anyone who played these games KNOWS its not a matter of "figuring out how to outsmart or out-maneuver the end-level boss..."

    It's always been just a matter of memorizing the pattern. Like, no shit.'

    From TFA:
    "What first caught my eye when compiling the video, which came as a complete shock, was that the end boss wasn't set on a absolute path! Instead, it responds and reacts to the player's actions. Now perhaps this isn't a surprise to all those Gradius pros out there, but I was pretty impressed to see that sort of action from such an old game. In one of the tracks, the boss actually sits at the bottom of the screen, waiting to respond to the player's next move."