In 2024 we got the HED project moving again, and after some work refining the framework referenced in the last post we’ve been able to publish the framework as a technical report on the Department of Cognitive Science technical reports repository.
Here’s the abstract:
The Island Game has been created as a research tool for studying and modelling goal-driven resource use. If goal sharing is viewed as a key element of exploitation, The Island Game can also be used to study exploitation dynamics. The provided non-technical, human-readable description of The Island Game includes a general game framework that can be used to create specific versions of the game, a demonstration version of the game that shows how the framework can be used, and information on how to create artificial (digital) players that conform to the game specifications and rules. The description of the game is technology agnostic and can be implemented in a manner of the researchers’ choosing (e.g., as a table top game or as a computer simulation).