Making players forget they're playing a game

(Back to TOC)

22 March 2008 (Revised 27 Mach 2008)

by Mike Rozak

Discuss on www.mXac.net/forums

As I stated in Nutritional game design, players play games because games provide something they want (or need). For example: A player may wish to play a game because he wishes to be Sir Lancelot.

However, there's a problem: While playing the game (of being Sir Lancelot), it is blatantly obvious to players that they are merely playing a game, and that they're not really Sir Lancelot. The reality is that they're sitting in front of a 19" monitor, pressing 'A', 'W', 'S', and 'D' to move, 'space' to attack, and '1' through '4' to speak different sentences to obviously artificial characters. Somehow, 'space' is supposed to mimic the thrill and excitement of a real sword swing, and '1' through '4' the attacks in a verbal battle of wits.

Just like readers of a novel, game players must willingly suspend their disbelief.

Unfortunately for the player:

The more that a game calls attention to its nature (by using a 'space' button to swing a sword, as opposed to a real sword with motion sensors), the less able the player is to fulfil his dream of being Sir Lancelot!

To flip this statement around:

Game designers know this, and employ a number of techniques to immerse players:

• Eye candy - The better the graphics and sound (and writing - in the case of text MUDs), the more immersive the game.
  
  
  • Monitor and speakers - The larger the player's monitor and better their speakers, the more immersive the game is. Three-D glasses with head tracking, and data gloves would be even better (so long as they didn't make the player motion sick).
    
    
• User-interface transparency - The less that the user interface (such as the heads up display and controller schema) gets in the way, the more immersive the game. The Myst series was an excellent example of this; unfortunately, eliminating all the visual clutter and input complexity also limited Myst's gameplay.
  
  
• World - A world that's interesting, self-consistent, and large encourages immersion; Or rather, a world that's boring, contradictory, and small discourages it. (Exploring such a world can also be seen as an activity.)
  
  
• Choice - Choice is immersive. Or rather, the lack of choice destroys immersion.
  
  
  • Agency - A choice between two doors that lead to the same place is not a choice. Therefore, choices must cause changes in the game, impacting the player, player's character, other players, other player-characters, non-player characters, and/or the world. Worlds with NO agency are less immersive.
    
    
• Constant action - Games that don't give players time to think are more immersive because they force the players to concentrate on the action, preventing them from noticing the flaws in the experience. First-person shooters, for example, never give the player an opportunity to rest. Early arcade games (with poor eye candy) relied heavily on constant action to keep players interested.
  
  
• Challenge (flow) - When players are challenged, but not so much that they feel frustrated, they get into a state of mental flow. This helps them forget that they're playing a game.
  
  
• Deep activities - For example: Combat can be a simple sub-game of clicking on a monster to wear down its hit points. Or, it can contain complexities of facing, balance, weapon specialization, etc. For a player that wants to be Sir Lancelot, a detailed and intricate game is more immersive. Unfortunately, such a game will scare away new players, especially those that don't want to be Sir Lancelot.
  
  
• Emotion - Emotion is immersive. However, most emotions can't be invoked by the author until the player is immersed! Which means:
  
  Happy/sad (crying) require full immersion on the part of the player (or movie goer). Which is why happy/sad "endings" are common, since viewers aren't immersed enough at the beginning for happy/sad to have any meaningful impact.
  
  Angry/afraid require some immersion. Even a horror film won't try to invoke fear until a part way through the film.
  
  Comedy and wonder don't seem to require any immersion. Perhaps that's why movies often begin with a joke (comedy) or stunning scene (wonder). One comment about wonder: It needs to be paced throughout the game (or movie). If an author shows the most wonderous setting first, all other settings will be a let-down. Comedy seems to work with the opposite, with a really funny scene required at the beginning.
  
  Other emotions - There are quite a few others that I won't go into.
  
  Emotions are handled by invoking those that require less immersion first. The emotion of wonder or comedy encourages more immersion, which then enables the immersion-requiring emotions like angry/afraid to be invoked. These eventually build up enough immersion to enable happy/sad.

Some hybrid techniques are also used:

• Other players - A world with other players is more immersive, so long as the other players don't go out of their way to break the immersion by spamming chat channels (which they often do). Immersion from other players is probably a combination of other immersion techniques: World (players adding depth to the world), agency (choice can affect other players and their characters), emotion (caused by other players), and constant action (other players are always doing stuff).
  
  
• Goals - Giving players goals, either extrinsically ("You should kill 10 rats."), or intrinsically (making the player want to kill rats), helps immersion: Because goals restrict a players' actions, goals allow the author to make a "smaller" world; if players only want to kill rats, then the author doesn't need to include a dancing sub-game or a dance club. Goals also limit a players' choice (saving work for the author) because players (sub)consciously forgoe choices that won't further their goals. And, goals provide "constant action"; World of Warcraft always has quests (aka: goals) lined up for players. Goals, when wrapped in quests, can provided limited emotional effect too.
  
  
• Cut scenes - This device provides lots of eye candy (which also includes good writing), UI transparency, action, and (most importantly) emotion. But at a cost! There's no choice, challenge, or (deep) activities.
  
  
  • Branching narratives (Choose Your Own Adventure) - Branching narratives are cut-scenes with occasional choice thrown in, at the expense of some UI transparency, action, and emotion.
    
    
   

If immersion is required for a game's activities to fulfil a players' needs (which is why they're playing the game), then some conclusions come to mind:

• Players with greater "nutritional" needs require less immersion; which implies that players who played adventure games and CRPGs in the 1980's, when eye candy was less, were more desperate for an escape (to role-play Sir Lancelot) than modern players. (Alternatively/additionally, such players might have considered eye candy less important.)
  
  Players with mass-market (every-day) nutritional needs have those needs catered to by eye-candy-rich (immersive, but expensive) mass-market games. Players still willing to accept less immersive games are those with intense non-mass-market needs, such as contemporary MUD role players.
  
  
• Fewer development resources can be applied to some immersion techniques if others are bolstered. Of particular interest to indie developers: Eye candy can be reduced if choice, agency, or activity depth are increased. (Sounds like a text MUD to me.)
  
  
• What I've described seems to the the opposite of monastic life. Monastaries are designed to un-immerse monks from the "real world" so they can concentrate on the afterworld. Monks are exposed to very little eye candy (except in the chapel). a small world, no choice, no action, no challenge (except in prayer), no deep activities (except prayer), and no emotion (except prayer).