A use case driven approach to game modeling

With the increase in market needs, game development teams are facing a high demand of creating new games every year. Although several methodologies and tools were introduced to support the game development life cycle, there is still a lack of evidence that these techniques improve game requirements understandability among development teams. The use of models in requirements engineering is considered a promising approach to support requirements elicitation, negotiation, validation, and management. In the context of game development, game designers argue that models are hard to learn and would restrict their creativity. In this paper, we introduce a novel use case-based game modeling approach that extends the standard UML use case diagram. The proposed technique allows for better representation of game-related requirements and promotes a common understanding of game requirements among game development teams. Our approach is implemented in a tool, called game use case modeling, and its applicability is demonstrated using four well-known games, Super Mario Bros, Tetris, Just Dance, and The Walking Dead. Moreover, in order to assess the perceived understandability, learnability, and usefulness of the proposed approach, we have conducted a survey involving 29 participants from the game development community. Results indicate a very satisfactory agreement regarding the added value of the proposed approach and a willingness of adoption by the game development community.