Framework for Designing and Evaluating Game Achievements

TLDR

An achievement is a challenge comprising a signifying element, rewards, and completion logic defined by events in other systems, and from a single game perspective it is an optional meta‑game challenge independent of a single session. The paper aims to present a framework for evaluating and designing game achievements. The framework analyzes and designs achievements as game design patterns. Empirical studies of popular achievement systems underpin the framework, which yields two definitions of game achievements.

Abstract

This paper presents a framework for evaluating and designing game design patterns commonly called as “achievements”. The results are based on empirical studies of a variety of popular achievement systems. The results, along with the framework for analyzing and designing achievements, present two definitions of game achievements. From the perspective of the achievement system, an achievement appears as a challenge consisting of a signifying element, rewards and completion logics whose fulfilment conditions are defined through events in other systems (usually games). From the perspective of a single game, an achievement appears as an optional challenge provided by a meta-game that is independent of a single game session and yields possible