In the previous two articles of the Anatomy of Videogames series, we’ve learned about the inner mechanisms of videogames in detail and how they work together to create the overall tapestry of audio-visual-interactive-experience that we know as Videogames. And in this article, we’ll go even beyond and take a good look at what directs that whole mechanism from within—I’d like to call them Design Philosophies. They form the ‘heart’ or the ‘main theme’ of a videogame and basically answer the question of what a game ‘means’ from a purely human perspective.
To understand the role of design philosophies in a videogame, simply consider the reactions and emotions that a game invokes inside the player—what does the gameplay make them feel? Is it empowering and rewarding or does it feel monotonous and tiring? What does traversing the levels feel like? Does it feel like a thoroughly enjoyable journey or a lackluster trudge through some 3d environments? Does the story feel like you’d want to experience it again and again or does it feel empty and not worthy of your emotional engagement? The answers to these questions are determined by the design philosophies that drive all the design elements that make up the overall videogame experience.
There’s always two sides to every craft—one is the technical or the mechanical level which is responsible for making it all work. And then there is another level which carries the ‘theme’ or the ‘message’, what it stands for and it’s reason for existing. We can call it the ‘core’ or the Soul (if you will) part of the whole experience.
To give you a personal example, it’s been a really long time since I played Half Life 2, one of my all time favorite videogames. Now when I look back on that experience, what immediately comes to my mind is the grand sense of adventure that the game offered—the long and engrossing journey towards Black Mesa East, the thrill of exploring the possibilities of the Gravity Gun, the warmth that I received from Alyx and Dog, the sense of empowerment when I was wielding the Supercharged Gravity Gun and so on.
Now it may seem otherwise, but these feelings that I had from playing Half Life 2, they are also a part of the ‘programming’ of the game, just like it’s 4 pillars and their sub-divisions. The game feels like it does simply because that’s specifically what the developers intended for the player to feel, all of that was consciously designed in a way that would invoke those feelings inside us, when playing specific parts of the game. They were also a part of the overall designing process.
This is simply that ‘other’, deeper layer that’s built into any form of entertainment medium. All movies have it (the scripts are designed in a way that would invoke a specific reaction or emotion from the viewer in different areas), all great novels and forms of literature has it and as videogames have become more evolved and sophisticated, they feature this too, in their own unique flair.
And this is where truly great games shine, they know how to tap into the emotions of the players, while many other games fall short and become less memorable. Now this is a work of art by itself—how a game manages to leave an emotional footprint in the player by using it’s 4 mechanical parts.
All videogames engage the player intellectually with their 3 elements but only the truly great ones manage to engage us both emotionally as well as intellectually.
So in a nutshell, the design philosophies of a videogame are the purpose for the design elements to behave the way they do, to make the player feel the way the developers intend to.
Because after all, the live human stands as the centerpiece of the whole experience. Everything that we experience in a videogame—the structure and the flow of the gameplay, the scope and the emotional weight of the main plot, the levels themselves and the possibilities they offer, all of that are ultimately aimed at the live human being, to make him/her feel certain things through it all. So the player can remember the game long after they have played through it, and how they remember it (which is based on what the game made them feel) determines whether they will go back to the game in future or not.
This is what the design philosophies are all about, they are the invisible ties that bind the player with the experience. And with that, this third and last part of the Anatomy of Videogames series comes to it’s close. There will be another article which will build upon these three articles but till then, I hope you enjoyed this series of articles as much as I did writing them. I did the best I could to break down the videogame experience in different parts and provide an understanding of how each of them work from within, and I hope you find it at least interesting to read through.
See you on the next article, till then, happy gaming.
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