Just an Ordinary Day - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 91

• Sensational objects: Objects that attract attention through nonvisual senses,
spatialized sounds, vibrations, smells, and so on.
• Awesome objects: Large, famous, or expansive objects.
• Dynamically confi gured objects: Objects that are relocated in space/time.
• Complex: Objects made up of a number and possibly variety of attractors,
perhaps seen at a distance.
The nature of health packs, whether fl oating and revolving or not, in an FPS are
interesting because in many other genres they would be shocks that would destroy
the illusion but in this genre they are alien attractors—implausible but benefi cial;
unrealisms in other words. They are part of the general street furniture of this type
of game. So much so that they could even be considered sureties in that they would
be missed if they were not there.
However, although attractors rely on a player's natural curiosity they are also
directly related to the player's emotional involvement with the game. Two of the
most important emotions for games are:
• Objects of desire: Objects that have some benign signifi cance to the player
and more particularly to the task at hand.
• Objects of fear: Objects that have some malign signifi cance to the player and
to the task at hand.
Some games will have a mix of both while others may have predominantly objects
of fear. Any game which is all objects of desire may not particularly challenging or
engaging. Very often an attractor might have several possible intentions associated
with it and thus becomes a choice point, a source of great dramatic potential.
However, the consequences of making choices should be at least hinted at so that a
perceptive player will be able deduce the consequences of his or her choices or at
least understand them after the fact. More on choice points below.
When we talk about attractors we will therefore always suggest intentions asso-
ciated with them. Attractors are thus the means by which players are coaxed into
following a particular course, choosing between possible courses, or changing
course. An attractor might lead a player into a position where another attractor
becomes perceivable and follow this to a previously undiscovered reward.
To make the concepts we are introducing clearer we are going to illustrate POs
with reference to SinCity which, as we already said above, is a DM level of Sin, an
FPS . For the sake of simplicity we will assume only one opponent in this analysis.
Figure 7.2 shows some of the attractors to be found in SinCity. In the fi gure, gun
fl ashes (the top highlight) aimed at you certainly focus the attention as active objects
of fear—an extreme form of attractor that should stimulate an immediate response
on the player's part. The associated intention “fi nd cover immediately” would seem
reasonable.
The lower two highlights are approaching bullets. Bullets and ricochets make
great attractors, as objects of fear, for obvious reasons, but their alignment also points
out the top highlight which is the opponent: here just a few animated pixels, but a