I spent my last week at Rockhead writing an article on our research of track connection and the evolution of the algorithm. For now, we are calling it the “Racing Track Connection Problem.” Because I spent the first two to three weeks understanding all aspects of the problem from different perspectives, there was no lack of information to work with; it was just a matter of selecting the most relevant research.

However, I did have trouble citing other games that have similar track building mechanisms. Although I was able to find games that are similar in nature and provide a similar experience for players, there weren’t many publications (close to none) on the games. There are forums on and publicity for the games that make them easy for search engines to find. However, when researching on academic sites involving journals and official publications, video games seem to disappear.

When I asked one of my colleagues about where and how to search for scientific articles on video games, I was surprised to find that there are few options. The principle source of information would be the GDC (Game Developer’s Conference) Vault online. It has videos and reports of presentations from the GDC conference that takes place in San Francisco every year. However, I discovered that even this doesn’t have relevant information on a very popular game I was researching. It turns out that publications and scientific reports are quite uncommon in the gaming industry.

Talking more on the subject, a colleague pointed out that most of the game designers simply don’t have the time (and don’t take the time) to write articles on their work. Unlike most academic research, which is driven by outside funding, the gaming industry is self-sufficient; the game development companies generate money from the games they release. This seems positive in that they don’t have to rely on other organizations, but ends up limiting the industry (in my opinion) because they are driven to release entertainment rather than share information.

In my case, this meant that there was little scientific material published related to track building and domain-specific pathfinding even though games like ours have been around since the early 2000s.  I find this somewhat discouraging, knowing that other people may have already solved the problem I have been working on – they just didn’t take the time to document their work. It seems like this would lead to a general trend of repetition and wasted time.

Despite this, I managed to finish a good portion of the article. It will remain unfinished until the game is released because the tests on the current algorithm/game would give an inaccurate picture of the final product. I left my colleagues with a document enumerating exactly what was still to be done on the project, and how to integrate it into the game effectively.

Saying “goodbye” to everyone from work and Casa do Campus made the end of the week difficult. My coworkers organized a small going-away party and expressed (half-jokingly) that they wanted me to stay and continue to work with them. At Casa, it was a mix of goodbye and hello as many people were leaving, but also arriving. It was certainly hard to step out of the family I had lived and grown with for these two months.