Space Oddity: A Demonstration of the Self-Efficacy Game Elements Framework

Self-efficacy describes an individual’s perceived capability to accomplish a given task. Self-efficacy theory has long been applied in games for increasing player motivation, performance, and game enjoyment— however, it’s not immediately clear how to design or develop a game that promotes self-efficacy. To explore the effects of self-efficacy in the games research domain, we developed Space Oddity, an arcade shooter game. The primary contribution of this work is a framework for designing self-efficacy supporting game elements in the context of shoot ’em up games that stand to support three of self-efficacy theory’s antecedents (i.e., mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, and social persuasion). Specifically, we identify progress bars, counters, dynamic difficulty adjustment, juicy visuals and sound effects, usernames, tutorials, gameplay teasers, leaderboards, narrative, ghost replays, encouragement from NPCs, verbal praise, and achievement acknowledgements as likely self-efficacy supporting elements. We also offer insights on our preliminary data analysis, but caution against over-interpretation of these results.