Yufei Chen

Final project for the MIT class 4.550/4.570 Computation Design Lab
Development: February-May, 2022
Instructor: Prof. Takehiko Nagakura, Dr. Daniel Tsai & Prof. Guzden Varinlioglu

Gamified Method for Participatory Design in Urban Renewal

Illustration by Yufei Chen

Project Overview

This study examines how gamified assessment can be used as a tool for testing design effectiveness in participatory design for urban renewal.
Taking a specific historic district renovation design as a test case, the game takes the first-person operation as the perspective, and players walk around the design plan to play an "exploration game": discover planned and designed urban events in the free path, in order to obtain the best possible results. There may be more collectible items for the purpose of consuming physical energy to participate in and obtain collectible items; at the same time, different types of urban events will bring different benefits to the characters: entertainment events that consume gold coins to obtain props, public welfare events that consume gold coins to consume physical strength, and gain physical strength Leisure events that consume gold coins... The purpose is to obtain the player's tendency and preference data by simulating the activity consumption of residents in an urban landscape, and record the player's movement path data in the game, so as to judge the rationality of the design scheme and local issues design planning content.

Fig 1. Gamified Methods for evaluating Urban renewal

The test case: a renewal project under Manhattan Bridge - programs are relocated and new retail and entertain modules are induced.

Fig 2. Overall Gamified Process

Three stages: game background construction, gameplay lifecycle and getting data from game for analysis.

Fig 3. Game System: Events

The event system is the core gameplay, which has two types: consumption events to gain item and consume resources, the restoration events to restore resources and gain collection; after the first time of experiencing one events, new dialogue branch will be unlocked for further evaluation and text feedback.

Fig 4. Data Recorded

Three types of data will be extracted for analysis: trace record during gameplay, the selection record player make and the comments player put inside the game. After & before game questionnaire will also help to reduce the noise.

Limitations

It is difficult to extract a single linear evaluation criterion from the complex variables in urban design. Besides, the game experience itself has a certain inducement to the user's likes and dislikes.

Future Development

1) Reduce the proportion of quality evaluation content, and focus more on the acquisition and judgment of direct data.

2) Abstract and simplify the judgment model, accurately focus on the judgment method of a specific aspect, and set up a control group to reduce errors.