Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I have a science fair in June and came up with this idea for a project. Earlier I had an idea about music but that one seemed uninteresting and so I came up with this idea. The if then statement would be "If on average, games produced by large scale (AAA) companies took less time for the player to return to place of defeat postmortem, then the size of the company does affect the length it takes to backtrack to the place of defeat?" I have a decent size of both indie and triple AAA games (large scale productions) but does anybody have an idea on how to test this?

Also, I have limited time to do experiments with around 1-2 hours at most on a school day.
Thank you in advance!

Hello,

This sounds like a fun project! I few considerations come to mind:

- Have you reviewed this If/Then statement with your teacher to ensure it is acceptable for your science fair? While this question will allow you to design and execute and experiment and is very interesting, it does not include any physical science concepts. This may or may not be a requirement for your science fair so it's best to check.

- Will you control for the genre of game? The length of time it takes to backtrack to the place of defeat may also vary between different genres of games in addition to the size of the studio. This is a variable that might need to be controlled.

- While this is a very interesting question and a fun project, it may be difficult to test, especially with your limited time to do experiments. Even within one game the length of time it takes to backtrack to the place of defeat varies a lot based on where you are in the game and other unique circumstances (e.g. do you lose your gear, are you fighting a boss or exploring the world, etc.). Because there are so many different variables this will make it hard to collect and analyze data.

Audrey