What you see below is not a logo for my secret army of zombie droids, nor is it a magical hexagram that will unleash the hordes of demons from hell unto our little planet, no. This symbol is the result of BrainHex, a very interesting test that tries to blend science and statistics with gaming. It is not the kind of crap that is overabundant on Facebook, like "What game are you?" or "What game character would you be?". BrainHex asks questions about participant's favourite moments in games and based upon the answers assigns two psychological gamer profiles (primary and secondary) out of six basic player satisfaction models (hence BrainHex).
I did the test five times, alternating answers that where not entirely clear for me or that I couldn't decide upon. In all cases Socialiser class came out on top with Survivor and Seeker very close behind (think something along the lines of 18, 17, 17 points). Daredevil was somewhere in the middle, usually scoring between 8 and10 points. Mastermind and Conqueror were trailing behind with meager couple of points and Achiever was always the last with next to zero or even negative score. My result according to test was therefore either Socialiser-Seeker or Socializer-Survivor, but since the third feature was behind by just one or two points, I have decided to come up with my own triple class, Socialiser-Seeker-Survivor (the symbol of which you can witness above). I always was a bit of a jack of all trades, both in real life and virtual one, so I reckon it fits the profile.
Why the differences, however? Why did you take the test five times, Barts, and what did you change, I hear you ask. As I mentioned before, some of the questions were ambiguous for me. A good example can be the one that asked whether I like "completing a punishing challenge after failing many times". It is somewhat ambivalent: of course I like the feeling itself, but I absolutely hate punishing challenges. They make me feel like working - and I have quite enough of work in my boring corporate rat life. Punishing challenges as such are a good way to discourage me from completing or playing the game, as I usually don't have the patience to work hard on game challenges and spend hours figuring things out. I am doing that between 40 and 55 hours every week at work and I definitely loathe having to do that in private life (which is why I have completely given up on Linux at home, by the way) - for me it is time for relax and pleasure.
Similarly, the question about the preferred way of playing games is a tricky one - I totally love holding a LAN party and playing with my friends in the same room. The thing is, it happens very rarely. To coordinate a bunch of hard-working folks, some of whom are fathers, mothers and students (meaning that besides regular work, they are also studying!) and some of whom are in different cities - is bordering on impossible these days. If I manage to coordinate one four-people event per trimester, be it for video games or board games, it is already quite a feat. The last Starcraft match for eight players that I have organised took place years ago. So while I absolutely love social gaming, out of necessity I usually satisfy this need in online games.
If you are reading this blog for a longer time, you know that I have had some problems with cooperative online shooters: it took me almost year and a half to quit Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, I have sold my first copy of Left 4 Dead because it was consuming too much of my time (I bought it again recently, but that's another story, I play it in moderation now), and it is only thanks to EA / Dice help that I have overcome my Battlefield Heroes addiction. In all of these cases the drug part was socializing and cooperation components, and the better developed they were, the more I got drawn into the game and the harder it was for me to quit.
It is for that very reason that I have sworn not to try World of Warcraft (never, ever), because I know it will draw me in and sap the time of my life for futile grinding quests, time that I could otherwise use in a more creative fashion. WoW is a perfect escapist fantasy, a whole alternative world for me to live in and socialize with others - and because of the fact that it is a little too well tailored to my tastes, it would devour me. So there's no way in this life that I give it a try or even watch someone play for a longer while. But I digress.
Back on topic, you can see that there was some space in the test for tinkering with my answers, while all the time remaining faithful to what rocks my boat in the gaming world. Nevertheless, the results of my experiments with test were rather similar in four cases. The three main pillars of my gaming, according to BrainHex, are socialising, exploring and surviving.
Seeker likes finding strange and wonderful things, or finding familiar things. This class displays curiosity, sustained interest, and a love of stimulating senses - which covers many things, from the moments of awe in face of beautiful fantasy landscape to immersing into an interesting story. This describes me well - I just love stories, ambiance and many of my favourite games are both strongly based on a narrative and present an interesting world for exploration.
Socialiser, on the other hand, enjoys hanging around with people they trust as well as helping people (duh). This also applies to me - I really like giving the helping hand in games, be it as a doctor, support or sniper. In Enemy Territory I mostly played as Medic or Engineer, while in Left 4 Dead my first achievements were awarded for sharing medkits, pills and assisting the wounded in getting up.
Survivor likes escaping from hideous and scary threats, and riding on the edge of their fear, loves to be terrified and then feel safe again. Now, this here is one of the doubtful fragments, similarly to the question about completing a punishing challenge after failing many times that I have mentioned before. Indeed, the moment when I find myself in the safety of some shelter having barely escaped from the fangs of some monster is very rewarding. However, I really don't like feeling fear and threat - and some games are a bit too good in creating these emotions with me. It might be due to the fact that I had my share of extremely unpleasant moments in life (how many of you have been assaulted by a raging pack of stray dogs on an otherwise empty beach or by a crowd of football hooligans on the street?) or it might be because I am a cowardly geek, but I certainly am prone to experiencing fear in some games and I don't really enjoy the emotion as such. I didn't complete Call of Chtulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, because it scared me to the point where my stomach was hurting, same happened with F.E.A.R. later on (you can read the detailed story here). I had to get used to Left 4 Dead and Blood before I could complete them - and I still get twitchy during Blood Harvest campaign finale. This is why I initially replied rather negatively to questions that fit the survivor profile - but the abundance of games in my collection that rely on fear in order to create memorable gameplay experiences had me rethink them a little.
As for other three profiles, Daredevil placed somewhere in the middle, mainly because of some racing games I like. It is true that a game with well designed flow and vertigo may draw me in, although it is not the dominant source of pleasure I derive from gaming. I should probably feel a little ashamed that I scored so few points for Mastermind, but truth be told, I don't like working too hard in games (as stated previously) and most puzzles get on my nerves eventually. I did play strategy games quite a bit when I was a student and I will for sure buy Starcraft II when it comes out, but the puzzles in Silent Hill almost prevented me from finishing it and the last complicated strategy that I completed was Advance Wars on Gameboy Advance. Strangely enough, Conqueror rated low with me. I like winning, of course, who doesn't, but I don't like crushing other players and forcing others to accept my supremacy. I much prefer cooperation in games, even though I enjoy playing Survival mode in L4D and occasional beat'em up game.
While on this subject, there was an interesting observation that came from the blog Femina Ludens, which shares female perspective on gaming (unfortunately only in Polish): Tetelo pointed out that in the male population the most dominant model is Conqueror. While it is not unexpected, what with men being driven by testosterone and all, I haven't noticed it at the first glance and I find the actual finding somewhat unsettling. It goes to show that the primal mechanisms of our carnivore body are so deeply rooted in our brains that they warp our minds to the point where it affects our behaviour even in the virtual environments of imaginary game worlds. Obviously, I am not manly enough - my Conqueror results were very low.
BrainHex website suggests games that should go well with gamer's profile, but I personally find the selection small and somewhat disappointing, in a sense that they don't fit specific profiles that well. Seeing how I have chosen to make my own fusion profile (science-fiction triple feature!), I also have prepared my own custom list of my favourite games together with distinguishing features and BrainHex profiles they would correspond to.
Not surprisingly, you can see the overabundance of games that would appeal to Seeker, be it because of exploration component or unique and pretty audiovisuals or both. What's more interesting is that there is a strong representation of Mastermind titles, even more than Survivor and almost on par with Socialiser. The explanation to this is that these are mostly older titles that I played when I was a student, having more time and energy to channel into problem solving than I do recently. Similarly, games with strong socialising component are my more recent gaming habit, mainly because with Poland being somewhat behind the rest of the world with internet access kept me off online gaming for quite a while. The exception to this are the offline games that focused on teamwork, such as X-Com or Final Fantasy.
You can also note the absence of social gaming on my PSP, the reasons behind it being not having many friends with both PSPs and same games, playing while traveling (planes, trains etc.), lack of online component in most games. On a similar note, the average profile of my PSP game is rather different from my average PC game - I wonder whether this might be the reason of the decline of my PSP gaming. Also, I am curious as to how does the above list translate to my Indie / Flash gaming profile - I assume that it would be mostly fitting Seeker profile.
So there you have it, definitely too much writing on an otherwise simple subject. It probably goes to show that I indeed have a rather analytical mind and am somewhat too self-centered. Now I would be really glad to hear back from you, dear readers - what are your BrainHex results? Do you find it adequate with respect to how you perceive your gaming profile? What kind of folks reads Barts News - fellow Seekers, smart Masterminds or friendly Socialisers? Share that via comments, together with any other thoughts and reflections you might have on the subject!
I did the test five times, alternating answers that where not entirely clear for me or that I couldn't decide upon. In all cases Socialiser class came out on top with Survivor and Seeker very close behind (think something along the lines of 18, 17, 17 points). Daredevil was somewhere in the middle, usually scoring between 8 and10 points. Mastermind and Conqueror were trailing behind with meager couple of points and Achiever was always the last with next to zero or even negative score. My result according to test was therefore either Socialiser-Seeker or Socializer-Survivor, but since the third feature was behind by just one or two points, I have decided to come up with my own triple class, Socialiser-Seeker-Survivor (the symbol of which you can witness above). I always was a bit of a jack of all trades, both in real life and virtual one, so I reckon it fits the profile.
Why the differences, however? Why did you take the test five times, Barts, and what did you change, I hear you ask. As I mentioned before, some of the questions were ambiguous for me. A good example can be the one that asked whether I like "completing a punishing challenge after failing many times". It is somewhat ambivalent: of course I like the feeling itself, but I absolutely hate punishing challenges. They make me feel like working - and I have quite enough of work in my boring corporate rat life. Punishing challenges as such are a good way to discourage me from completing or playing the game, as I usually don't have the patience to work hard on game challenges and spend hours figuring things out. I am doing that between 40 and 55 hours every week at work and I definitely loathe having to do that in private life (which is why I have completely given up on Linux at home, by the way) - for me it is time for relax and pleasure.
Similarly, the question about the preferred way of playing games is a tricky one - I totally love holding a LAN party and playing with my friends in the same room. The thing is, it happens very rarely. To coordinate a bunch of hard-working folks, some of whom are fathers, mothers and students (meaning that besides regular work, they are also studying!) and some of whom are in different cities - is bordering on impossible these days. If I manage to coordinate one four-people event per trimester, be it for video games or board games, it is already quite a feat. The last Starcraft match for eight players that I have organised took place years ago. So while I absolutely love social gaming, out of necessity I usually satisfy this need in online games.
If you are reading this blog for a longer time, you know that I have had some problems with cooperative online shooters: it took me almost year and a half to quit Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, I have sold my first copy of Left 4 Dead because it was consuming too much of my time (I bought it again recently, but that's another story, I play it in moderation now), and it is only thanks to EA / Dice help that I have overcome my Battlefield Heroes addiction. In all of these cases the drug part was socializing and cooperation components, and the better developed they were, the more I got drawn into the game and the harder it was for me to quit.
It is for that very reason that I have sworn not to try World of Warcraft (never, ever), because I know it will draw me in and sap the time of my life for futile grinding quests, time that I could otherwise use in a more creative fashion. WoW is a perfect escapist fantasy, a whole alternative world for me to live in and socialize with others - and because of the fact that it is a little too well tailored to my tastes, it would devour me. So there's no way in this life that I give it a try or even watch someone play for a longer while. But I digress.
Back on topic, you can see that there was some space in the test for tinkering with my answers, while all the time remaining faithful to what rocks my boat in the gaming world. Nevertheless, the results of my experiments with test were rather similar in four cases. The three main pillars of my gaming, according to BrainHex, are socialising, exploring and surviving.
Seeker likes finding strange and wonderful things, or finding familiar things. This class displays curiosity, sustained interest, and a love of stimulating senses - which covers many things, from the moments of awe in face of beautiful fantasy landscape to immersing into an interesting story. This describes me well - I just love stories, ambiance and many of my favourite games are both strongly based on a narrative and present an interesting world for exploration.
Socialiser, on the other hand, enjoys hanging around with people they trust as well as helping people (duh). This also applies to me - I really like giving the helping hand in games, be it as a doctor, support or sniper. In Enemy Territory I mostly played as Medic or Engineer, while in Left 4 Dead my first achievements were awarded for sharing medkits, pills and assisting the wounded in getting up.
Survivor likes escaping from hideous and scary threats, and riding on the edge of their fear, loves to be terrified and then feel safe again. Now, this here is one of the doubtful fragments, similarly to the question about completing a punishing challenge after failing many times that I have mentioned before. Indeed, the moment when I find myself in the safety of some shelter having barely escaped from the fangs of some monster is very rewarding. However, I really don't like feeling fear and threat - and some games are a bit too good in creating these emotions with me. It might be due to the fact that I had my share of extremely unpleasant moments in life (how many of you have been assaulted by a raging pack of stray dogs on an otherwise empty beach or by a crowd of football hooligans on the street?) or it might be because I am a cowardly geek, but I certainly am prone to experiencing fear in some games and I don't really enjoy the emotion as such. I didn't complete Call of Chtulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, because it scared me to the point where my stomach was hurting, same happened with F.E.A.R. later on (you can read the detailed story here). I had to get used to Left 4 Dead and Blood before I could complete them - and I still get twitchy during Blood Harvest campaign finale. This is why I initially replied rather negatively to questions that fit the survivor profile - but the abundance of games in my collection that rely on fear in order to create memorable gameplay experiences had me rethink them a little.
As for other three profiles, Daredevil placed somewhere in the middle, mainly because of some racing games I like. It is true that a game with well designed flow and vertigo may draw me in, although it is not the dominant source of pleasure I derive from gaming. I should probably feel a little ashamed that I scored so few points for Mastermind, but truth be told, I don't like working too hard in games (as stated previously) and most puzzles get on my nerves eventually. I did play strategy games quite a bit when I was a student and I will for sure buy Starcraft II when it comes out, but the puzzles in Silent Hill almost prevented me from finishing it and the last complicated strategy that I completed was Advance Wars on Gameboy Advance. Strangely enough, Conqueror rated low with me. I like winning, of course, who doesn't, but I don't like crushing other players and forcing others to accept my supremacy. I much prefer cooperation in games, even though I enjoy playing Survival mode in L4D and occasional beat'em up game.
While on this subject, there was an interesting observation that came from the blog Femina Ludens, which shares female perspective on gaming (unfortunately only in Polish): Tetelo pointed out that in the male population the most dominant model is Conqueror. While it is not unexpected, what with men being driven by testosterone and all, I haven't noticed it at the first glance and I find the actual finding somewhat unsettling. It goes to show that the primal mechanisms of our carnivore body are so deeply rooted in our brains that they warp our minds to the point where it affects our behaviour even in the virtual environments of imaginary game worlds. Obviously, I am not manly enough - my Conqueror results were very low.
BrainHex website suggests games that should go well with gamer's profile, but I personally find the selection small and somewhat disappointing, in a sense that they don't fit specific profiles that well. Seeing how I have chosen to make my own fusion profile (science-fiction triple feature!), I also have prepared my own custom list of my favourite games together with distinguishing features and BrainHex profiles they would correspond to.
PC games:
- Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII - story, exploration, teamwork - Seeker, Socialiser
- Manhunt - survival, scary, story, atmosphere - Seeker, Survivor
- Left 4 Dead - survival, scary, some story, exploration - Survivor, Socialiser, Seeker
- X-Com - strategy, atmosphere, exploration, story, teamwork - Mastermind, Seeker, Socialiser, Conqueror
- Alpha Centauri - strategy, atmosphere, exploration, story - Mastermind, Conqueror, Seeker, Socialiser
- Warcraft - strategy, atmosphere, exploration - Mastermind, Conqueror, Seeker
- Starcraft - strategy, atmosphere, exploration, story, teamwork - Mastermind, Conqueror, Seeker, Socialiser
- Targhan, Colorado, Starblade - some story, exploration, atmosphere, puzzles - Seeker, Mastermind
- Silent Hill 1,2,3 - scary, survival, story, exploration, puzzles - Seeker, Survivor
- Lost Vikings - basic story, exploration, survival, puzzles - Seeker, Mastermind, Socialiser
- Prince of Persia - story, atmosphere, exploration, music - Seeker, Daredevil
- Diablo - story, atmosphere, exploration - Seeker, Survivor
- Need for Speed series (III, Underground) - vertigo, music - Daredevil, Seeker
- Gabriel Knight - story, atmosphere, exploration- Seeker, Mastermind
- Portal - story, atmosphere, puzzles, exploration - Seeker, Mastermind
- Gears of War - survival, some story, exploration, some puzzles - Conqueror, Survivor, Seeker
- Battlefield Heroes - teamwork, survival, exploration - Socialiser, Seeker, Conqueror
- Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory - teamwork, survival, exploration - Socialiser, Conqueror
- Unreal Tournament series - teamwork, survival, exploration - Conqueror, Socialiser, Seeker
- Planescape Torment - story, exploration, story, atmosphere, story, puzzles - Seeker, Mastermind, Socialiser
- Duke Nukem 3D - survival, exploration - Conqueror, Survivor, Seeker, Socialiser
- Doom - survival, exploration, atmosphere, scary - Conqueror, Survivor, Seeker
- Blood - survival, exploration, atmosphere, scary - Survivor, Seeker, Conqueror
PSP games:
- God of War - survival, exploration, atmosphere, story - Conqueror, Survivor, Seeker
- Stardust Portable - vertigo, elements of survival - Daredevil, Seeker
- Lumines - puzzles, atmosphere, audiovisuals - Daredevil, Seeker
- Crush - puzzles, atmosphere, some story - Mastermind, Seeker
- Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony - exploration, story, atmosphere - Seeker, Conqueror
- Burnout Legends - vertigo, music, crushing other cars! - Daredevil, Seeker, Conqueror
- Wipeout Pure - vertigo, atmosphere, music - Daredevil, Seeker
Not surprisingly, you can see the overabundance of games that would appeal to Seeker, be it because of exploration component or unique and pretty audiovisuals or both. What's more interesting is that there is a strong representation of Mastermind titles, even more than Survivor and almost on par with Socialiser. The explanation to this is that these are mostly older titles that I played when I was a student, having more time and energy to channel into problem solving than I do recently. Similarly, games with strong socialising component are my more recent gaming habit, mainly because with Poland being somewhat behind the rest of the world with internet access kept me off online gaming for quite a while. The exception to this are the offline games that focused on teamwork, such as X-Com or Final Fantasy.
You can also note the absence of social gaming on my PSP, the reasons behind it being not having many friends with both PSPs and same games, playing while traveling (planes, trains etc.), lack of online component in most games. On a similar note, the average profile of my PSP game is rather different from my average PC game - I wonder whether this might be the reason of the decline of my PSP gaming. Also, I am curious as to how does the above list translate to my Indie / Flash gaming profile - I assume that it would be mostly fitting Seeker profile.
So there you have it, definitely too much writing on an otherwise simple subject. It probably goes to show that I indeed have a rather analytical mind and am somewhat too self-centered. Now I would be really glad to hear back from you, dear readers - what are your BrainHex results? Do you find it adequate with respect to how you perceive your gaming profile? What kind of folks reads Barts News - fellow Seekers, smart Masterminds or friendly Socialisers? Share that via comments, together with any other thoughts and reflections you might have on the subject!
