Juicy Text: Onomatopoeia and Semantic Text Effects for Juicy Player Experiences
Émilie Fabre, Katie Seaborn, Adrien Alexandre Verhulst, Yuta Itoh, Jun Rekimoto
TL;DR
The paper investigates text-based juiciness in games, comparing onomatopoeic and semantic text against traditional particle effects to understand impacts on player experience and performance. Through a two-phase, within-subjects study in a minimal FPS game, it finds that juicy text enhances PX mainly when combined with particles, while pure text alone does not outperform particles. Semantic text provides informative feedback in performance contexts, and gibberish text generally does not offer advantages, though text-content can influence material perception. Overall, juicy text is a valuable supplement to particle effects, guiding practical design choices for multimodal VFX in interactive media.
Abstract
Juiciness is visual pizzazz used to improve player experience and engagement in games. Most research has focused on juicy particle effects. However, text effects are also commonly used in games, albeit not always juiced up. One type is onomatopoeia, a well-defined element of human language that has been translated to visual media, such as comic books and games. Another is semantic text, often used to provide performance feedback in games. In this work, we explored the relationship between juiciness and text effects, aiming to replicate juicy user experiences with text-based juice and combining particle and text juice. We show in a multi-phase within-subjects experiment that users rate juicy text effects similarly to particles effects, with comparable performance, and more reliable feedback. We also hint at potential improvement in user experience when both are combined, and how text stimuli may be perceived differently than other visual ones. We contribute empirical findings on the juicy-text connection in the context of visual effects for interactive media.