Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

ArkaNet: Investigating Emergent Gameplay

This paper introduces ArkaNet, a browser-based game built in JavaScript that explores the relationship between two seemingly opposed senses of emergence: emergent gameplay, in which interacting mechanics generate new, partly unintended possibilities for players, and emergence as a restrictive self-organizing process, such as…

• The paper argues that the constraining nature of emergence (self-organizing processes like bird flocking or NPC behavior) does not oppose emergent gameplay but actively supports it.
• The authors present ArkaNet, a browser-based JavaScript game adapting Arkanoid by adding a locally interconnected block network through which energetic signals propagate when the ball strikes a block.
• ArkaNet's recurrent network architecture lets signals recur locally, so the visible pattern of destroyed blocks reflects emergent energetic dynamics that are unlimited in variety yet bounded by the network's structure.