Games and Video Games - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 26

further discussion of this issue, consider reading James Paul Gee's topics, What
Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (Gee, 2004) and Why Video
Games Are Good for Your Soul (Gee, 2005).
Creative and Expressive Play
People love to design and create things, whether clothing, creatures, buildings,
cities, or planets. They also love to customize a basic template of some kind to
reflect their own choices. This activity can directly influence the gameplay (a
player chooses a model of car to drive in a racing game) or can be purely cosmetic
(a player chooses a color for the car). If a personal choice affects the gameplay, play-
ers won't always select the option the designer might consider the best option, even
if they're told which one it is. They often choose one that they like regardless of the
consequences. That's how strong the appeal of self-expression is.
As video game machines become more powerful and games begin to reach a wider
audience, creative and self-expressive play become increasingly important. Research
shows that girls and women are often more motivated by a desire to express them-
selves through play than by a desire to defeat others in competition. Chapter 5,
“Creative and Expressive Play,” is entirely devoted to the design issues of creative
and expressive play.
Immersion
…it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters
supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human
interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination
that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
—S AMUEL T AYLOR C OLERIDGE , B IOGRAPHIA L ITTERARIA , C HAPTER XIV
Coleridge was originally referring not to immersion but to an absence of skepti-
cism. He wanted people who read his poems to accept the poems' romantic,
imaginary people (“shadows of imagination”) on “poetic faith,” without asking
questions. However, the term suspension of disbelief , as used by the game industry,
has come to mean immersion : losing track of the outside world. Immersion is the
feeling of being submerged in a form of entertainment, or rather, being unaware
that you are experiencing an artificial world. When you are immersed in a topic,
movie, or game, you devote all your attention to it and it seems real. You have lost
track of the boundaries of the magic circle. The pretended reality in which you are
immersed seems as real as, or at least as meaningful as, the real world.
This feeling of immersion is deeply and satisfyingly entertaining to some players;
others prefer not to become immersed and to remember that it's only a game while
they play. People who take the game seriously find interruptions that break their
sense of immersion jarring and disappointing. This is part of the reason that har-
mony is so important.