Games are not films, so they create emotions by different means. In films emotions can arise when the characters talked each other. While in game the player just skip the same dialogues quickly.
In game, emotions lie in data. Have more data, then have more emotions. For instance if you want the gamer interact with other NPCs, then create a attribute for measuring the relationship with NPC.
For instance, In RPG, STR DEX VIT INT MEN are too common to be unique.
Add more another attributes never used before to get unique emotions.
Completely and utterly false. Your notions of emotions are completely wrong on this. You are going about it from a numbers perspective, calculating it. As with actual intelligence, emotions are driven by symbolism and myths, not point systems.
You cannot just talk emotions into people. That is why sometimes forced conflicts in movies suck and don’t sit well with the audience. Because the intent, the meaning, the method, matter more than the content.
Please read the following books and get a better grasp of symbolism and emotions from Carl Jung:
Psychology of the Unconscious
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Man and his Symbols
If I told you a chinese folk tale about how a lowly peasant managed to usurp the ranks of the noble-driven city and raise not only above the nobles in terms of power, influence and money but even above that, to the heavens and beyond through sheer cunning, you’d probably feel at ease with the tale, regardless of who the hero is. Whether it is Sun Wu Kong, Harry Potter, Jesus himself, a Fox and a Bear, He-Born-of-Ashes (Askkeladd) or Nie Li. The point being that it never mattered to us Humans WHO it was but WHAT he did. And this is done through symbolism, mythology and emotions.
Literally, a painting can evoke the strongest and deepest emotions. That is a still image.
Books, can evoke emotions based on the sensibility implied and the symbolism involved.
Music, can evoke emotions. Heck even the “bling” from picking up coins or rings in mario or sonic evokes a sense of gradual achievement.
Movies evoke emotions through a narrative, a myth or sequence of symbols.
Video games are even greater as the player can become the agent of those symbols and myths, thus he is the agent responsible of driving the story through actions. Bioshock is an amazing example of this where the game IS the story and the emotions are driven not by points but by game play.
I recommend you go Tabula rasa on this and read and understand what Carl Jung meant.
It is not true that emotions cannot arise when characters talk to each other in games. If the user decides to potentially ruin their experience by skipping through dialogue, they have the choice to. Just as one has the choice to fast forward through parts of movies that are perceived as boring (unless you’re in a movie theater).
People get emotions from… some statistics? Perhaps “emotions” is the wrong term for what you are trying to describe. I don’t feel particularly happy, sad, mad, evious, etc because I see an NPC with heaps of stats and numbers tied to them.
Do you mean emotions are driven by game play?
If this is your meaning, then it is not useful for game design. Because similar game play games can have very different results on emotions. Game play is too general.
In my opinion data ( and its derivative) evoke the gamer’s emotions, not the story or the dialogue or the game play.
If the game can’t evoke emotions, then add some data into the game. If the game evoke wrong emotions, then modify the data.
For instance if you want the gamer has fluctuating emotions, just increase or decrease the important data which the gamer cares.
And the gamer won’t care the beggar NPC unless the beggar can increase one attribute which the gamer cares.
The symbols and myths work for data. The gamer will be in love with data with the help of symbols and myths.
from all statistics (especially their variations) and the rest data.
For instance visual novels have very less data. So they focus on hentai style to evoke instinct.
Yes, that is what I mean.
Why is it so fulfilling to play mario games? Because it addresses the age-old mythology of dragonslaying. In all myths, the princess represents adulthood while the dragon stands in the way of the hero trying to achieve it. Bowser is a dragon.
Why does Bioshock trigger a gut-wrenching feeling midway when you find out you are but a slave to the game all along? And the finale shows how your actions, whether good or evil, were rewarded in the little sisters helping you! We have all experienced this: betrayal and support. And it was evoked through the gameplay. Not by shooting splicers, but by progressing through the story and the actions you are forced to take to progress the story. In fact you are encouraged to slay/save the sisters in order to get stronger while providing the story with
Please provide several CONSISTENT examples of games that evoke emotions through data/numbers/derivatives. And not the dx/dy kind…
I am curious to see what you will come up with.
Games like final fantasy, dragon quest, paper mario, Dragon Age and golden sun weren’t great because of numbers or items and did not evoke any emotions past the “cool!” when you get a lucky crit or something. They were amazing because they evoked the Odyssey/Journey to the West myth and in each stage/chapter you had to resolve a conflict through various means, often symbolic, other than combat.
Then you will remain at the feet of the dead titans that built everything wondering how to get to the heavens and reinventing fire; while the rest of humanity pushes past the heavens by reading these old books. This is stuff over 50 years ago that you have not yet learned or mastered.
I am going to take a break from replying to you and give you a very constructive suggestion:
Pick any children’s folktale you like, one that evokes a positive emotion in you. Now, take that tale and make a game out of it. It can be about a character, about getting places, about anything you want as long as the main reference to the folktale is present.
I would like to see how you would apply numerology to this in a way to evoke emotions.
I think emergence games are good examples. For instance:
In Darkest dungeon, when leveling up, the NPC gets good trait not bad trait. Feel lucky.
In Rimworld, the prisoner has lower resistance.
In Diabolo, you get different weapons.
Nobody will play slot machine all day at home, because no money transferred in this process. While people do this thing with all intentions at Casinos, because money transferred in every play.
Make the data feel as important as money or similar things.
Sounds like cherry picking. I can’t see how you’d derive any emotions from knowing that your character has a hair length stat that determines how long his hair is. It seems like you’re describing feeling emotion due to good mechanics that use data; not feeling emotion due to just the data being there. For example, if prisoners have a statistic for resistance, that means nothing unless there is a mechanic in place that actually uses that stat (ie making them more likely to try to break free).
“People with experiences other than mine exist! Better call them a liar!”
That’s you right now.
Like everyone said, your fundamental understanding of emotions is so far off base that it ends up being completely gibberish. Data is meaningless, context is everything.
It’s useless in game design. Do I focus on all elements? Do I spend time on all elements? You can’t get priority by this statement.
While if data is so important, then you will put data design as a priority, and you will put more time on data design. My thoughts on game design focus on useness. Easily understand, and easily to follow.
