We have recently been asked to each produce a 1000 word research essay on an area of game history, culture or design. After being given this very open choice assignment, I began to brainstorm ideas. Given the word limit, the research question needed to be fairly narrow, or at least easily summed up in 1000 words.
The area that most interests me out of these three subjects, is the area of design. So I began to think of game design and how it effects me as I play. The first thought that came to mind was my childhood experiences with The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, by Nintendo. I have always seen the games as having a near flawless design with a perfect progressive formula. The game switches from open world exploration, to small confined and linear dungeons. This mixes two very different experiences, creating a whole new one which many have tried to emulate. I then started to consider what formulae other games take on. There are too many to count. It also becomes difficult to define "progressive formula". Does it include difficulty curves? Do all games use them? Why do games use them. This research idea brings up far too many other questions to cover in 1000 words.
After some serious brainstorming, I finally came up with another research idea. One that I am both interested in and, although it could be covered in an enormous amount of detail, I feel I can sum up in 1000 words. My research question was, "What makes a game 'trance-inducing'?".
Although I will have to described exactly what I mean by trance inducing in my introduction, I believe that this is the most concise research question for the exact topic I want to cover. I want to see what games like Tetris, Bejeweled and even Guitar Hero do that forces the player's mind to go into a very specific state of mind. The "zone" or, perhaps more accurate to say, "trance" state of mind is very obviously brought on by a very specific design that creates games which have become notorious for their addictability*.
I have already started a small amount of secondary research into this particular state of mind, which I only intend on spending a paragraph talking about. Being an essay for a games course and not a psychology or neurology course, it goes without saying that I should focus on the actual design of the games over the science behind it all.
My next stop for secondary research will come from people like Jesse Schell and Chris Crawford. I want to see if they were aware of this particular effect. I will also be looking for other games that produce a similar effect and finding out how varied this becomes.
*"Addictability is not a real word but, dammit, it should be!
No comments:
Post a Comment