Is it just the visual semblance of reality, or is it the real-life choices mirrored in games, that form the emotional trigger that acts as a catalyst to help you immerse yourself in a game world, or in the skin of a character. My hunch is that it's the latter, since the near-reality appearance of games has only come about lately, but tonnes of games before this have managed to captivate and immerse without the eye-candy.
The most powerful tool that makes games such, that the player connects with the character or role they're playing, is the implementation of morality engines where you're given a couple of choices pertaining to the actions you must commit, and depending on which path you take, the game world cocoons you accordingly. In simple words, games that allow you to choose between being the bad or good guy compel you to either reflect or repel your own personality traits, and apply them in the game. This seemingly simple mechanic is deceptively powerful. Whether you're going with or against your own character traits in real-life, the fact that your in-game choices pivot around your real-life personality, means that you sub-consciously draw a connection with your in-game avatar, making the game that much more immersive!
 |        What is it about video games that draws you in via a human connection? Is it just the visual semblance of reality, or is it the real-life choices mirrored in games, that form the emotional trigger that acts as a catalyst to help you immerse yourself in a game world, or in the skin of a character |  |
The implementation of morality engines has come naturally to role-playing games, since RPGs have a more free-form structure where making choices forms the backbone of gameplay. But its only recently that the more-popular action games have adopted morality engines, after seeing how powerful a tool they are. There are games like Fable that have taken the simple path, where you have two choices to make in most cases, one that tips you towards being 'bad' and the other towards 'good'. From a game design standpoint, the system works since it offers two ways to play the game, and depending on your choices, the game world responds to you accordingly. If you've been bad, the game world reacts to you negatively, and if you've been good, you're adored by the game's local AI populace. Also, depending on the choices you make, you physical appearance changes - if you've been a troll to most people, you're up with horns, and if you've been good you end up with a halo above your head.
While Fable takes the easy way out, there are games like Fallout 3, and the Witcher that don't just contain black and white choices, but dabble in shades of gray too. Your choice in either one of the two games might not be the 'good' or 'bad' path, you may even choose to be neutral and tip towards either side whenever you choose to. Such games that explore the gray areas are far more immersive for a mature audience, since they actually compel you ask yourself - "what would I do if I were in his/her place?" - and make a decision based on the answer. The fact that it mirrors real-life, since that which is good for one may be bad for another, adds more variables to the equation and makes the choice that much harder. Do you let the innocent little kid die, or do you let an entire village perish to keep him alive? The harder the choice, the stronger the impact of the game's emotional trigger, since in weighing out the odds (as cliched as it may sound) - you discover yourself.
| While Fable takes the easy way out, there are games like Fallout 3, and the Witcher that don't just contain black and white choices, but dabble in shades of gray too. | |
Such tough choices are made in a ton of other games too, such as Mass Effect, where you have to pick between letting one of your team-mates die at one point of time. Now there's no right or wrong there, but the fact that you have to get one of your companions killed, and YOU make that decision, makes you form a small emotional bond with either one of your squad mates. Just as in any medium of entertainment, the more the subject sees glimpses of themselves or their lives in the game, or can relate to any of the characters, the stronger the illusion of reality that seeps in.
Some games even choose to reward you for the path you've taken. Games such as inFamous give you different powers depending on the path you've taken. If you've been good, the powers you gain are far less reckless than if you've been bad. The grenades in the game for example, are different for each - the good guys get a powerful grenade with a small blast radius to ensure that there's minimum collateral damage, while bad get menacing cluster-grenades, that have a large blast radius but aren't as powerful (since bad guys don't care about civilians, right?). Such reward systems haven't been explored in action games before, so it should be interesting to see how it will evolve over time, to fit the skin of upcoming games.
| Games such as inFamous give you different powers depending on the path you've taken. If you've been good, the powers you gain are far less reckless than if you've been bad. | |
To sum up, morality engines are a powerful tool that have only recently become a vital part of many games. They offer loads where diversity is concerned, and even re-playability in many cases. It shall be interesting to see how these systems evolve over time, and if they manage to intertwine themselves with genres that they've steered clear of so far.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to leave a comment here. Don't be rude, use only English, don't go offtopic and read FAQ before asking a question. Owners of this website aren't responsible for content of comments.