Davey wrote:I'm also curious, how are shmups and operations research interrelated? I thought operations research was related to workflow, logistics, simulation, etc.
Actually, I found it difficult to relate operations research alone to shmups. But I can relate a few principles that I've learned in the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) undergraduate program to shmups. Let me give you two examples for now. (I have no idea how to relate shmups to IEOR, however.)
Human Factors. A stimulus (say, a bullet) has three properties that can affect a player's reaction time: its speed, size, and location of origination. One strategy to improving the player's experience with a shmup is to find a range of reaction times such that the player is neither bored nor frustrated. Should I make the bullets fast in order to push the player's reaction skills? Should I make them large so that players are less tempted blame the game for running into a bullet? Should I make the enemies fire them from the very edges of the screen to surprise the player?
Engineering Statistics. Suppose I want to change the speed, size, and location of origination of the bullets in DoDonPachi in order to improve the player's enjoyment with the game. I can make eight versions of the game in which a version has zero, one, two, or all three types of changes made to it, have a player rate their enjoyment of the version on some numerical scale, and use an ANOVA test to check which changes made the game more fun.
Bernard A. DORIA (retired)
