Once more with feeling...

I'm not sure I agree. If a game commands your full attention, it's immersive. Chess is immersive, if you're any good at it: you don't think about anything except chess when you're playing. Candyland (to choose an extreme example) is not immersive, at least not for an adult or older child, because there's nothing to think about.

For me, A Game of Thrones is incredibly immersive. Okay, it's mainly a war game, and markmist acknowledges wargames as simulations. But El Grande is also immersive, and it isn't really a simulation of anything.

Give your players important and interesting choices to make, ensure that those choices will impact the decision-making of the other players, and you'll have an immersive game. Wrap it in a good theme with distinctive artwork, and you'll have a memorable experience as well.

Now if I can only manage to do this for any of my games... ;)

Getting the right feeling for a game is the most complex but most important element of a game. I would say that the important is not to have a balanced game, good rules, theme or artwork. You must have a good game feeling while playing the game. This will make you come for more and become addicted to the game.

It is the same case in video games. Take for example an old video game named Contra 3. Look at the specs of these game : No Story / 6 stage only ( finish game in 1 hour ) / Goal of the game: Shoot aliens ( seem pretty boring) / Little replay value, etc. But if you finish the game 3 times in a row you will still want to play again since you are addicted.

Also in video games, there is 3 type of addiction classes:

Constant event (Master of magic/Orion and civilisation) : it consist of having always something that happen to keep you in the game. New tech, cNew building, new army to invade.

Object Supervision (Diablo) : it consist of taking care of something. It`s also the idea behind the tomagochi. You wan't to make your character or creature evolve and place all your attention on it.

Social Relation (MMORPG) : This is a new type of addiction where people feel needed by others or are craving for recognition or a social rank.

So making a game with good feeling is essential. But how do you do it? This is the invisible element of a game that I cannot put a finger on it myself. I think it is a combination of many element that create the feeling. These element include the rules, artwork, material, theme, etc. For example, in hero quest, just seeing the board with the furniture makes the game look cool and intriguing. You want to play it even if your friend say that the rules are bad.

The best way is to play test intensively your game and make test on different variation. In other word it is the test and error method. Test various aspect and keep the ones which creates a better feeling.

I am not sure if there is really a rule, law or theory that could be followed to make a good game feeling. Like some other said, it might also be different for each player. One thing for sure, is that I won't be satisfied with a game that does not have the right feeling element involved.

For example, I had made some sort of CCG demo where you where making Mecha duel. You deck was all the abilities and equipment of you mecha and when you received damaged you where loosing card from your deck(you damaged mecha lose equipement). The idea looked cool and interesting but when we played the game, even after some rule change, it was just boring to play.

In CCG, making the deck can also be a part of the feeling of the game. I remember thinking about various ways to build my deck in magic the gathering. While making decks for other CCG was not as much interesting.

So there is not really a way to get the feeling correctly, you have it or not. You must rely on your luck to hit bulleye while having some control on the bow and the string.

IMO, the "feel" of a game stems from three basic "hooks"

1) Your (personal) connection/affiliation with the theme presented. (ie, if you could give a rat's behind about exploration in the amazon, then a card game that simulates this probably won't heavily involve you, no matter how innovative its mechanics).

2) The extent that form matches function. Some games, form matches function very well (Magic: the Gathering, for example...I cannot even ENVISION what the game would be like if it were anything but a CCG. Can you imagine trying to develop a board game adaptation of it? It'd be a logistics and planning NIGHTMARE...*shivers at the thought*). So some games clearly work better with certain mechanics. To a lesser extent, your own "comfort level" with said mechanics plays a role here. If you're not much into card games, then even the most intricate, wondermous card game on the planet depicting exploration of an ancient mayan temple isn't gonna get it done for you.

3) The art/writing. These are the visual cues we take from the game itself, and these, much more than any mechanical aspect of the game, will make or break the immersion factor. For example: Imagine how immersion-destroying it'd be to be playing this fantastic medieval, sword and sorcery game, and you're really into it, Good Lord it's so great! I wonder what'll happen next, and you draw a Sorcery Card, flip it over with the greatest of anticipation, and........

..........find a full color photo of a Dodge Viper sitting on the card.

Huh?

All stop.

Your brain rejects it, cos it simply has no place in the game, and in that moment, immersion is totally wrecked.

Of course, that's a rediculous, blatant example. In reality, it'll be a death by a thousand cuts. A thousand little things that you might not notice individually....bad writing, use of modern words or concepts in what's supposed to be a medieval setting, artwork that isn't "on theme" etc....these things can ruin any chance you may have had at an immersive experience, even if everything else falls nicely into place.

-=Vel=-

Oops, what topic? I think you accidentally created a new topic instead of replying to an existing one.

-- Matthew

D'oh! Page 2!

Can a game that allows for player elimination help to create an immediate desperation that, in turn, opens one's mind up to the immersive quality that is being talked about here? I tend to feel more attached to my 'role' in the game when there is a chance that you can be sent off if you aren't playing your 'A' game or if the dice just aren't a fallin'. Even if it is a roll and move game, I feel I want roll 'harder' because I want to stay in the game.

Even in video games, you are IN the game, but if that game had no elimination, i.e., god-like powers and infinite life, do you really feel like you are playing the game or are you really just taking a "let's smack 'em around for fun" tour of the game.

I think a couple of points have been made here recently that address a misconception in my earlier post of a couple of months back. That is that there are two kinds of "immersion." One is the kind where you're so wrapped up in the game that you forget that the rest of the world exists. The other is related to role-playing and is the feeling that while the game lasts, you are being "somebody else."

Call the first kind "flow" and the second kind "role-playing." Flow is a term that some psychologists use to denote a state of mind where you are completely and continuously focused on your task, and as a result you are unselfconcious. Role-playing is perhaps not an ideal term because it brings to mind a certain kind of game (the RPG) and I don't intend to suggest that only RPGs can offer the role-playing experience.

This weekend I played two long games: one of Railroad Tycoon, and one of Arkham Horror. I find RRT to be incredibly immersive, but it is the "flow" kind. I definitely enjoy the theme and flavor of the game, but I am not imagining myself to be J. P. Morgan.

Arkham Horror is the opposite. Its rules are so fiddly (IMHO!) that I can't get into flow at all. But the theme is so rich, and there is such opportunity to identify with your character, that I can see why so many people seem to experience the role-playing kind of immersion. It's hard to imagine another game other than an out-and-out RPG that offers a gamer such a rich opportunity to be somebody else, somewhere else, for an entire evening.

I think that flow immersion requires at least these characteristics: a constant stream of significant and non-trivial decisions to make; minimal downtime (or at least, plenty to think about while your opponents are taking their turns); and clearly understood, internalized rules. (That last is where Arkham Horror breaks down for me.) A good level of tension always helps, too: the constant worry that your opponent's behavior will upset your carefully laid plans.

Story arc is another factor, I think. Doing the same thing for three straight hours can get dull; but if the gameplay evolves in a way that forces you to continually modify your thinking to meet different kinds of challenges, that helps to keep your interest, and therefore helps to keep the flow going.

Role-playing immersion probably has similar requirements, but perhaps with less dependence on a rich decision tree, and with the addition of strong relevance to an attractive and exotic theme. (I don't know how important story arc is in this case, but I doubt that good story arc ever hurts a game!)

Someone suggested that length of game might be a factor, and I think that may be at least partly true. It's hard for a 45-minute game to have much of a story arc, for one thing. But perhaps Through the Desert is a good counterexample: it typically lasts under an hour, yet has all the other characteristics that I associate with flow-immersion games.