How do people play games? (Updated!)

Updated: January 16, 2012. Based on your player traces, we obtained a lot of interesting data. As a result, we have made some further improvements to the data collection process for the game. Can you help us once more by playing a few games of Scrabble?

We are researchers at North Carolina State University. Help participate in research by spending a few minutes or more playing a variation of a popular online game, Scrabble. Playing our game will help us improve the design of games in many areas, including usability, interaction, and artificial intelligence.

The game is completely free to play, and no personally identifiable information will be collected. In addition, with the exception of Capabilities, no events or actions that occur outside of the Flash game environment will be recorded.

This game will collect information about your in-game actions anonymously. Consequently, you must be 18 or older and be willing to allow us to gather data on your in-game actions to play this game. If you agree to the conditions, you may begin playing the game right away!

Even if you don't have a lot of time to play, simply clicking the Like button and sharing the page on Facebook with others will allow us to more quickly collect the critical data that we need.

If you have any questions about the study, please feel free to contact the principal investigators, Titus Barik, or Brent Harrison. Titus can also be reached using Google Talk at the same address.