Game Design Thoughts: Building emotional engagement

Decided to drop by again, since i’ve been a little out of touch with watchhogging as of late, and voice a few pontifications surrounding an area of game design that i’ve been thinking about for a while now..

Since the I watched my first movie I realised something. As a human being it’s pretty easy to enjoy and be immersed in some form of media when it engages you emotionally. From reading a love story novel, to watching a hollywood flick it’s clear that the “human element” of being able to connect with the individuals who make up the centre of the plot really help to draw the reader/user in and (for the most enthusiastic) provoke thought and sometimes even emotional responses surrounding the experience, decisions and actions the fictional characters face.
So it seemed pretty strange to me that the vast majority of video games over the years seem to fail, all to well in fact, to captivate its audience in the same way with very human, believable experiences that enable that user connection..

The reasons for why this is the case are probably vast and varied and for themost part seem to stem from the developer’s motivations towards the theme and plot of the game or to a rather grave misconception that hardware limitations prevent in-game characters from representing enough “realism” to present sufficient “expression for emotion” (i’ll talk a little bit more about this later..)
Now for the sake of arguement lets look at the first reason…

It seems pretty obvious that many games developers see their games as a form of escapism over anything else. A place where users can jump in and free themselves from the worries and stresses of everyday life and enjoy the experience of exploring a world defined by abstract rules which defy many of the constraints of the real world and take part in various compelling and involving activities (gameplay). As a result many games are developed with a kind of “desolation factor” when it comes to the human element. Most of the games people play have no more than a handful of significant characters present throughout the experience (with other NPCs being either cannon fodder, a la FPSs, or mute, stupid bots with little to no means of providing anything that could be considered human expression). I can think over probably over a hundred titles where the protagonist is just about the only “human” character present in the game at all and its that kind of experience which really ruins any chance of truely giving the player the opportunity to become emotionally engaged with the experience.

Now relating the the subject of the technical aspect, it’s pretty clear that it’s hard to create NPCs in a game world who dynamically behave in a human-like fashion. Its the computational load factors which prevent games from giving the characters in the world “true AI” I agree. I do worry however that human expression in game characters fails more because of the design than the lack of processing capability. I say this because anyone who has ever played Super Robot Taisen on the GBA (the first or the second one) will realise that true human reflection requires a greater emphasis on personality over anything else. The game itself sets the player as a Super Robot Pilot aboard a battleship in a war against an army of aliens out to takeover/destroy the world. The thing that really struck me about this game however was the dialogue elements which, in practise only acts as a form of intermission between the turn based battles/missions but is also used to drive the plot of the game forward. Throughout most of the dialogues you spend listening to conversations about characters talking about their favourite TV programs, their hobbies and interests and various other abstract bits and bobs that don’t do anything for the plot, but work really well to flesh out the characters and personalities of each one. Admittedly reading a load of text broken up only by consistently pressing the “ok” button didn’t make particularly great gameplay but it did do one thing really well. That was to really enable the player to connect to the characters in a very deep and engaging way, so much that you actually begin to care about them during play. When one of your team defects you feel a sense of loss for example and it really draws you into the experience which, on the surface doesn’t even seem possible through a story told by characters represented by static drawings with scrolling text dialogues. So if SRT can do this then why do we have so many games which attempt to emphasize narrative and end up providing only hollow, uninspring and cliche characters who, when given a gun within the game, you wouldn’t think twice about blowing them away?

Overall this subject made me wonder… What if a game could put you in a position where you could adaquately develop a true sense of involvement with the world. By providing a protagonist that is as human as you or I? By creating gameplay situations out of the very life experiences this character would face in the world and never removing the player from his seat at the control of this character. What if the world would react not only to the character and his actions but even moreso to itself, with NPCs able to interact with each other, carrying out important tasks and influencing the plot in deeper ways (hopefully contributing the the removal of the notorious “I am the centre of the universe” mechanic that ruins the believability of so many “open world” games)..?

Well these are some few of my many musings on this subject.. For now however I must end here but i’ll be back soon to ponder over the subject some more..

Feel free to drop comments, criticisms and general questions as you so desire..

Happy watchhogging!

- Hog