Journal article: Designing Game Feel

 

Designing Game Feel

    This journal article aims to describe how to achieve the subjective effect of players' satisfaction during gameplay. This effect is called immersion. 

According to this text, M. Pichlmair and M. Johansen (2022) "While games are multisensory experiences, we are focusing on the haptic and visual aspects of game feel in this article, aware that narrative content, music, art, and many other aspects of a game influence how it feels." 

The task of game developers is to create a consistent product - a video game. That means gameplay, graphic style, story, music, and everything else together must form a coherent game world. That makes the game addictive and the player is rather staying with the game longer. Otherwise, that can destroy that feeling of immersion.

According to the article, M. Pichlmair and M. Johansen (2022) "The logical starting point for defining what “game feel” means is the book of the same name by Steve Swink, who defines it as “real-time control of virtual objects in a simulated space, with interactions emphasized by polish” [1]. He further expands on that definition by stating that great-feeling games convey five kinds of experiences, which are as follows:

• the aesthetic sensation of control;
• the pleasure of learning, practicing, and mastering a skill;
• extension of the senses;
• extension of identity;
• interaction with a unique physical reality within the game."

Some games are cheating players. For example, many platform games add invisible extensions to the platforms. that prevents players to fall into the abyss. Normally the personification should fall, however, it is a good game design practice to give the player a second chance. Another example, is in shooter games enemies, especially the hidden ones or the outside of the player's field of view. will miss the shot to make the player pay attention and give another chance. Those developers' small cheats make games more satisfying and more playable.

References:

M. Pichlmair and M. Johansen, (June 2022) "Designing Game Feel: A Survey," in IEEE Transactions on Games, https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.proxy.library.dmu.ac.uk/document/9399794 ( Accessed 7 December 2022 )