Introduction
Easy Multiplayer Interactive Experiments in the Browser
Empirica is an open-source JavaScript framework for running multiplayer interactive experiments and games in the browser. It was created to make it easy to develop and iterate on sophisticated designs in a statistically sound manner, and offers a unique combination of power, flexibility, and speed. Empirica is a powerful framework that facilitates the management of your games and experiments, and is useful even for singleplayer research.
Empirica is built on a combination of Meteor for the backend (managing your games and data) and React.js for the frontend (what the players see and interact with). Empirica provides a helpful structure to how your Games, Players, Rounds, and Stages interact. Furthermore, Empirica provides you with an Admin Panel that makes organising and running your Games for data collection extremely easy and intuitive.
Empirica is the one method that provides enough flexibility to build any type of experiment whilst still being accessible and helpful to the researcher.
I want to use Empirica, where do I start?
Visit the Getting Started part of this documentation to get you started.
Follow our first experiment tutorial.
To learn more about the parts of an Empirica app (e.g., what are Games, Rounds, and Players?) visit the Concepts page.
What skills do I need to use Empirica?
Empirica helps you build online apps for online research. As with many online tools, basic notions of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript will be helpful. As Empirica is built with Meteor and React.js, knowing a bit about those can also be helpful, although you do not need to be an expert. There are many tutorials online that teach the basics of all the technologies mentioned here.
Why should I use Empirica instead of just Meteor and React.js together?
Whilst Meteor and React.js are powerful tools, and you could build sophisticated experiments with them, but Empirica makes the process of building and managing your experiments much easier.
Notably, Empirica provides an Admin Panel that allows you to manage the conditions of your experiments (Treatments and Factors) and which Games are running, collecting data, or waiting for players.
Empirica does the heavy lifting in terms of managing games, player connections, game life cycles, and more...
YouTube tutorial
Last updated