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A use case driven approach to game modeling

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Abstract

With the increase in market needs, game development teams are facing a high demand of creating new games every year. Although several methodologies and tools were introduced to support the game development life cycle, there is still a lack of evidence that these techniques improve game requirements understandability among development teams. The use of models in requirements engineering is considered a promising approach to support requirements elicitation, negotiation, validation, and management. In the context of game development, game designers argue that models are hard to learn and would restrict their creativity. In this paper, we introduce a novel use case-based game modeling approach that extends the standard UML use case diagram. The proposed technique allows for better representation of game-related requirements and promotes a common understanding of game requirements among game development teams. Our approach is implemented in a tool, called game use case modeling, and its applicability is demonstrated using four well-known games, Super Mario Bros, Tetris, Just Dance, and The Walking Dead. Moreover, in order to assess the perceived understandability, learnability, and usefulness of the proposed approach, we have conducted a survey involving 29 participants from the game development community. Results indicate a very satisfactory agreement regarding the added value of the proposed approach and a willingness of adoption by the game development community.

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Notes

  1. Djaouti et al. [12] defined game play as a central element within a video game defining its quality in the mind of the players.

  2. Publicly available via https://mraghyad.github.io/GUCM/.

  3. https://indieboost.com/blog/how-to-effectively-use-social-media-as-an-indie-game-developer/.

  4. https://www.gamemarketinggenie.com/blog/social-media-platforms-for-gamers.

  5. https://ritetag.com/best-hashtags-for/gamedev.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided by the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals for funding this work through Project No. SB191011.

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  1. Department of Information and Computer Science, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, 31261, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Aghyad Albaghajati & Jameleddine Hassine

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  1. Aghyad Albaghajati
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Appendix

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See Table 8.

Table 8 Summary of the perceived understandability/learnability/usefulness responses
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Albaghajati, A., Hassine, J. A use case driven approach to game modeling. Requirements Eng 27, 83–116 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-021-00362-4

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