Processing Speed
Fortress Flight Game
Also called: Space Fortress, Space Fortress game, complex video game task, video game skill learning task
Measure early learning of a complex video game: participants fly a ship, fire through a turning gap in a fortress's shield and deal with drones and stars.
9-11 minTimed: desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad
Free to start: 10 free participants per account, then $0.99 per participant for academic research, or any yearly plan. Try it here first, with no account.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 12
- Evidence grade
- D
- Registered clinical studies
- 0
What it measures
Measures how fast people learn a complex video game. Participants fly a ship with the arrow keys, fire through a turning gap in a fortress's shield and deal with drones and stars over short rounds. The main score is the rise in points from round to round.
Constructs
- Complex skill learning
- Visuomotor control
- Divided attention
Research uses
- Skill acquisition research
- Video game and expertise research
- Within-study group comparison
How the paradigm works
The Fortress Flight Game measures how fast people learn a complex video game, in the tradition of the games built to study skill learning, first of them Space Fortress (Mané and Donchin, 1989), with a game, a name, ships, rules and points of our own. The participant flies a ship with the arrow keys (left and right turn it, up pushes it forward, and it glides and slowly loses speed) and fires with the space bar. In the middle, a fortress sits inside a shield with one opening that turns. A shot through the opening that hits the core earns 10 points, and 5 hits on the core break the fortress for 50 more; a shot that hits the shield costs 5. Sparks leave through the opening, aimed at the ship when the opening faces it, and a spark that hits the ship costs 20 points. Red drones fly in from the walls toward the ship: shooting one earns 10 points, and one that reaches the ship costs 20. Green stars appear for 8 seconds: flying into one earns 10 points, and shooting one costs 10.
More about the paradigm
The standard session has a practice round of 45 seconds and 6 scored rounds of 60 seconds, about 9 to 11 minutes, so it measures early learning: the first rounds of a skill that studies of Space Fortress follow over hours of practice. Every round's sparks, drones and stars are placed from the session's seed before the session, the shield turns one way in a round and the other way in the next, and nothing a participant does changes a later round or the difficulty: there is no staircase and no training mode. The game is one canvas redrawn on every screen frame. Desktop and laptop only, with a keyboard.
The main score is the learning slope: the points gained per round, from a straight line fitted to each round's points. The mean, first and last round's points, the gain from the first two rounds to the last two, and what earned or cost points (hits on the core, broken fortresses, shots on the shield, drones, stars, sparks and wall touches) are also reported. Players with video game experience can start high and gain little, so read the slope with the first round's points. Scores support research and do not diagnose.
Scores
- Learning Slopepoints
- Points gained per round: the slope of a straight line fitted to each scored round's points over the round number.
- Higher means points rose faster from round to round
- Mean Round Pointspoints
- Mean points over the scored rounds.
- Higher is better
- First Round Pointspoints
- Points in the first scored round, after the practice.
- Informational
- Last Round Pointspoints
- Points in the last scored round.
- Higher is better
- Points Gainpoints
- Mean points of the last two rounds minus the mean of the first two.
- Above 0 means points rose over the session
- Core Hitscount
- Shots through the shield's opening that hit the core, 10 points each.
- Higher is better
- Fortresses Brokencount
- Times 5 hits on the core broke the fortress, 50 points each.
- Higher is better
- Shots on the Shieldcount
- Shots that hit the shield, 5 points lost each.
- Lower is better
- Shots Firedcount
- Shots fired, one at most every 300 ms.
- Informational
- Hit Rate%
- Shots that hit the core or a drone, over shots fired.
- Higher is better
- Drones Shotcount
- Red drones shot, 10 points each.
- Higher is better
- Drones That Reached the Shipcount
- Red drones that reached the ship, 20 points lost each.
- Lower is better
- Stars Collectedcount
- Green stars the ship flew into, 10 points each.
- Higher is better
- Stars Shotcount
- Green stars hit by a shot, 10 points lost each.
- Lower is better
- Spark Hitscount
- Sparks that hit the ship, 20 points lost each.
- Lower is better
- Wall Touchescount
- Times the ship came up against a wall.
- Informational
- Thrust Time%
- Time with the up arrow held, as a percent of the time played.
- Informational
- Rounds Without a Keycount
- Scored rounds in which no game key was pressed.
- Lower supports interpretation
- Pausescount
- Times a round paused because the window lost focus, the tab was hidden or the window changed size.
- Lower supports interpretation
- Long Frames%
- Share of screen frames that took longer than 50 ms.
- Above 0.05 is flagged for review
- Completed Roundscount
- Rounds played in the scored run.
- Fewer than planned is informational
- Planned Roundscount
- Rounds the run set out to play.
- Informational
Use and evidence
12 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, about the same as from 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 445 of 495 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 3 |
| 2024 | 3 |
| 2023 | 1 |
| 2022 | 3 |
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2020 | 4 |
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2018 | 3 |
| 2017 | 1 |
| 2016 | 2 |
| 2015 | 3 |
| 2014 | 3 |
| 2013 | 4 |
| 2012 | 3 |
| 2011 | 5 |
| 2010 | 4 |
| 2009 | 0 |
| 2008 | 2 |
| 2007 | 1 |
| 2006 | 0 |
| 2005 | 1 |
| 2004 | 2 |
| 2003 | 0 |
| 2002 | 1 |
| 2001 | 0 |
| 2000 | 1 |
Use grade E
Fewer than 30 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade D
Little published measurement evidence found.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 0
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 6
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 0
How the grades work
Use: A is 1,000 or more papers from 2021 to 2025, B 300 to 999, C 100 to 299, D 30 to 99 and E fewer than 30. Evidence: A means at least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome; B, at least 8 test-retest papers, and either 5 registered clinical studies or 150 reliability or validity papers; C, at least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies; D, little published measurement evidence found. The counts measure use. They include every paper that names the task in its title or abstract. Grades describe the published research on this task, not ConductCognition's version of it.
Source: ConductCognition test census 0.22.0, counted 2 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Controls
- The left and right arrows turn the ship at 220 degrees a second, the up arrow pushes it forward, and the space bar fires one shot at most every 300 ms. The ship glides, keeps 40% of its speed after a second, flies no faster than 0.8 of the arena's half width a second and stops at the walls.
- Fortress
- A core inside a shield with one 72-degree opening that turns at 40 degrees a second, one way in a round and the other way in the next. A shot through the opening that hits the core earns 10 points, and 5 hits break the fortress for 50 more; a new one stands 2.5 seconds later. A shot on the shield costs 5 points.
- Sparks
- They leave through the opening every 2 to 3 seconds while the fortress stands, toward the ship when the opening faces it. A spark that hits the ship costs 20 points, and the ship cannot be hit again for 1 second.
- Drones and stars
- 4 red drones a minute come in from the walls toward the ship and leave after 12 seconds: 10 points for shooting one, 20 lost if one reaches the ship. 3 green stars a minute wait for 8 seconds: 10 points for flying into one, 10 lost for shooting one.
- Rounds
- 6 rounds (standard; 4 to 10) of 60 seconds (standard; 60 to 180), with a rest between them, after a practice round of 45 seconds. Points are hypothetical by default; a setting changes the instruction line to say the study pays.
- Fixed plan
- Every spark time, drone and star is placed from the session's seed before the session, and nothing a participant does changes a later round or the difficulty: there is no staircase and no training mode.
- Score
- The learning slope: points gained per round, from a straight line fitted to each round's points.
The game, its name, its ships, its rules and its points are ConductScience's own; nothing of Space Fortress's software, name, manuals or scoring is used, so published Space Fortress scores do not carry over. A session of about 10 minutes measures early learning. Play depends on the keyboard, the screen's frame rate and earlier video game experience, so compare groups tested on similar equipment and ask about gaming.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: the scored run's rounds. A round has no correct answer, so accuracy is not judged against chance. A round in which no key was pressed counts as a missed response: missing more than max(3, 25%) of the rounds invalidates, and any is flagged. A session with no round invalidates, and frames over 50 ms on more than 5% of frames or three or more pauses are flagged.
Why these rules
There is no correct option to compare with chance, so accuracy is not judged against chance. The points are only meaningful when the participant played, so a round without a key press is a missed response under the platform's rule for missed responses. Many long frames mean the game did not move smoothly on that computer, and several pauses mean it was not played in one sitting.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Rounds | 6 | 4 to 10 |
| Round length (seconds) | 60 | 60 to 180 |
| Payment line | Hypothetical points (standard) | Hypothetical points (standard), The study pays for points |
Yearly plans can change settings within these limits. Free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Need a setting this test does not have?
Devices and languages
- Timed test: participants need a desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad. Participant devices
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- No percentile. Scores and quality flags only. How norms work
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite and describe
Participants completed the Fortress Flight Game in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Mané and Donchin, 1989), with the standard settings (rounds: 6; round length (seconds): 60; payment line: Hypothetical points). The main score was learning slope (points gained per round: the slope of a straight line fitted to each scored round's points over the round number).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Mané, A., & Donchin, E. (1989). The Space Fortress game. Acta Psychologica, 71(1-3), 17-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-6918(89)90003-6The original game, designed to study how people learn a complex skill.
- Erickson, K. I., Boot, W. R., Basak, C., Neider, M. B., Prakash, R. S., Voss, M. W., Graybiel, A. M., Simons, D. J., Fabiani, M., Gratton, G., & Kramer, A. F. (2010). Striatal volume predicts level of video game skill acquisition. Cerebral Cortex, 20(11), 2522-2530. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhp293Space Fortress over 20 hours of training in 3-minute games: scores rose throughout, and gains in the total score did not depend on the starting score.
- Blumen, H. M., Gopher, D., Steinerman, J. R., & Stern, Y. (2010). Training cognitive control in older adults with the Space Fortress game: The role of training instructions and basic motor ability. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 2, 145. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2010.00145Older adults played Space Fortress for 12 weeks; their total scores rose from far below those of young adults.
- Anderson, J. R., Betts, S., Bothell, D., Hope, R., & Lebiere, C. (2019). Learning rapid and precise skills. Psychological Review, 126(5), 727-760. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000152A model of how instruction and practice make people fluent in fast games derived from Space Fortress, tested against human learning of such games.
- Gianferrara, P. G., Betts, S., & Anderson, J. R. (2021). Cognitive & motor skill transfer across speeds: A video game study. PLOS ONE, 16(10), e0258242. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258242A simpler keyboard game derived from Space Fortress, played in fifteen 3-minute games: points rose fast at first and then leveled off, as mistimed shots became fewer.
Source papers
- Mané A, Donchin E (1989). The Space Fortress game. Acta Psychologica, 71(1-3):17-22.Paradigm source, Adults
- Erickson KI, Boot WR, Basak C, Neider MB, Prakash RS, Voss MW, Graybiel AM, Simons DJ, Fabiani M, Gratton G, Kramer AF (2010). Striatal volume predicts level of video game skill acquisition. Cerebral Cortex, 20(11):2522-2530.Paradigm source, Young adults
Questions
How long does the Fortress Flight Game take?
About 9 to 11 minutes, as listed in the test library.
What device does a participant need?
Timed test: participants need a desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
Learning Slope, Mean Round Points, First Round Points, Last Round Points, Points Gain, Core Hits, Fortresses Broken, Shots on the Shield, Shots Fired, Hit Rate, Drones Shot, Drones That Reached the Ship, Stars Collected, Stars Shot, Spark Hits, Wall Touches, Thrust Time, Rounds Without a Key, Pauses, Long Frames, Completed Rounds and Planned Rounds. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Fortress Flight Game used in research?
12 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, about the same as from 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 445 of 495 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade E). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.22.0, counted 2 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Fortress Flight Game have?
In the published research, 0 papers report its test-retest reliability and 0 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade D in the ConductCognition test census).
Does it report a percentile?
No. Scores and quality flags only.
Which settings can a researcher change?
Rounds (4 to 10), round length (seconds) (60 to 180) and payment line (Hypothetical points (standard), The study pays for points). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Which languages can participants use?
Participants can take this test in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese. English is on every plan, and the other languages come with yearly plans. Have a native speaker read the machine-translated text before launch.
Is this a clinical test?
No. ConductCognition is for research use only. It runs, scores and exports the test; clinical interpretation is outside the platform.
Every test: the full test list.
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