Difference Between Expert's and Novice's Gaze Point in Playing Competitive Puzzle Game

In competitive computer games, players need to acquire various skills to become strong. If the game designer can control the task difficulty faced by the player, a learning support system for skills necessary to achieve the task in the game is available. However, such support is difficult because the level of difficulty in competitive games is mainly determined by the skill difference with other players. Therefore, although the expert players can expect to further improve their skills by playing, the novice players may continue to defeat unilaterally when they compete with the experts, and may not achieve skill acquisition. In this research, we investigated the difference between the gaze point of the experts and that of the novices during play the game. We especially focused on the puzzle game named as “PuyoPuyo”, one of the most famous puzzle games. An experimental result showed that the expert gazed at a wider range than the novice did.