What kind of gamer are you? What gives you the biggest thrill and biggest emotional high in a game? This nifty little BrainHex survey tries to answer that question.
BrainHex is far from a new concept – personality quizzes on the Internet? You can’t swing a dead e-cat around on an e-stick without hitting at least six of them. Nor are personality quizzes for gamers new, the most famous being the Bartle Test… but that’s specifically aimed at people who play MMOGs (or previously, who play MUDs). No, BrainHex is aimed at people who play all sorts of games, from Super Smash Bros. and Pokemon to Halo and World of Warcraft.
Apparently, there are genuine psychological and physiological foundations for the seven Classes of gamers – Seeker, Survivor, Daredevil, Mastermind, Conqueror, Socializer, and Achiever – that BrainHex identifies:
This new player model depicts gameplay behaviour in terms of seven key elements in the human nervous systems – the hippocampus and sensory cortices, the amygdala, epinephrine, norepinephrine, the orbito-frontal cortex, the hypothalamus, and the nucleus accumbens.
The model is the successor to the DGD1 (Demographic Game Design-1) and is based upon the DGD2 research surveys, as well as the latest neurobiological research papers, such as Biederman and Vessel’s work tying interest to endomorphins.
For instance, I took the test, and was rated as a Conqueror-Seeker. I am apparently a cross between a shark and a cat (sea kitten?) whose major brain regions are the nucleus accumbens and the hippocampus, and whose favorite games include Grim Fandango, Shadow of the Colossus, Zelda, StarCraft, Call of Duty, and Super Smash Bros. Well, okay, I can’t really disagree with that last part.
Whether this test is genuinely supported by the always-infallible grip of SCIENCE! or not, it’s a fairly interesting look at what motivates us and feels the most rewarding when we play games. At the very least, it’s something to do and link to your friends.
So? What kind of gamer are you?
