Group Contributors

Abhi, Chandana Ekanayake, Rayla Heide, Steven Lumpkin, 0William Chyr, Xalavier Nelson Jr

Introduction

At Polaris 2024, our group set out to build a shared framework for helping designers create emotionally resonant game mechanics, especially in novel contexts.  In our efforts to do so, first we established some vocabulary, then looked at existing tools for considering emotions.  Following that, we developed a set of questions that a designer can ask themselves to help in working through the process of creating a new emotionally resonant mechanic.  Along the way we discovered a wealth of existing games that serve as exemplars in the field in each context we examined.  In this paper, we attempt to lay this out in such a way that designers reading have access to our thoughts and methodologies; ultimately, we’re hopeful this framework will be a valuable tool to you in creating new emotionally resonant mechanics, or digging deeper into the emotional valence of the mechanics and systems you’ve already built.

Vocabulary and Framing

In order to have a more productive discussion, we first wanted to align on a shared vocabulary and framing; we came to this primarily because we wanted to make sure we drew our boundaries clearly.  Our goal here isn’t to provide a definitive definition for these terms- in fact, our conclusion was that “these terms probably mean what you think they mean,” so please default to that if our definition rings hollow for you.  With that said, the definitions we landed on for the purposes of our discussion are:

What is a game mechanic?

A game mechanic is a rule that guides player actions (as expressed by reliable reactions to inputs), or an interaction between two or more systems that results in changes to the game state.

Some examples of game mechanics that fit this definiton:

• “When the player dies, all of the unspent runes they’ve accumulated are dropped at the location of their death; the player respawns at their last activated respawn location.  Only one such death marker can exist; subsequent deaths replace prior markers, erasing previously dropped runes.”
• “The player can pull the L2 trigger to cause the older brother to grab onto or interact with objects or the environment; the player can do the same with the younger brother by pulling the R2 trigger.”
• “The player can stamp papers with various seals and indicators in order to determine whether the customer is allowed entry  to Arstotzka.”
• “The player is assigned multiple criteria to check for to correctly allow or deny entry.  The player is free to allow or deny entry as they choose.  The player is paid based on speed and accuracy; at the end of a period of time, the player is presented with bills they have to pay to support their family.”

What is an emotion?

An emotion is any instinctive or intuitive visceral mental reaction.  Especially for our purposes as game designers, generally this is a reaction of the player to the game, its mechanics, and the contexts in which the player experiences them.

Our group noted that it’s common to have difficulty naming (or even, sometimes, feeling) emotions!  Pretty quickly we realized that there is, in fact, a wheel- and that emotion wheels can be an extremely useful tool when exploring novel emotionally resonant mechanics.  A tool like this can help us slice down into the genuine intent we’re trying to communicate: Are we trying to instill a sense of dread?  Or panic?  Isolation versus abandonment?

The Framework

Our goal was to develop a framework that allows designers to thinka bout the mechanics they put in their game, both more critically and with more context than they otherwise might have.  We approached this task  from the perspective of “What questions in what order would be most helpful for designers to ask themselves to generate novel emotionally resonant mechanics?”

Early in our discussions we recognized that mechanics don’t exist in a vacuum.  Pushing the left stick away from their body doesn’t necessarily inherently convey emotion to the player (though we’ll discuss later some circumstances in which specific mechanics can).  Rather, emotion arises from the dialogue between the mechanics, their contexts, and the players themselves.  When seeking to develop a novel emotionally resonant mechanic, the first place the designer should look isn’t at the mechanics themselves, but at the contexts around them.

Theme

What are the themes of your game?

First and foremost, step back and think about the themes of your game.  Survival and desperation in a dog-eat-dog world?  The bond between siblings, and the power of grief and death?  Perseverence in the face of frustration, and the value of learning how to overcome new challenges?  Your game’s themes are a rich initial source for inspiration into the kinds of emotions that you may want to convey- or at least those that will be easy to do so, or resonate well with the rest of your experience.  Theme can certainly be emphasized through contrast as well- in a game entirely about leveraging violence to navigate the generational conflict between two groups, the moment of offering the player the option to put down their weapon in order to instead carry a wounded enemy can be extremely powerful.  

Consider asking yourself the following questions around theme as you explore your game’s mechanics and emotions:

• How do the emotions you’re trying to create speak to your themes?
• How do your themes grow, evolve, or change over the course of the game?
• How can you map mechanics to moments in your theme?

A few games that really lean into their themes in evoking emotions in their players include:

• Life is Strange explores deep themes of being a teenager, friendship, love, acceptance, and moving on from the past
• A Mortician’s Tale, which lead writer Kaitlyn Tremblay visited our group to discuss.  She found that some players worried it would be a violent or gory game- but actually, thematically, it was a game about processing grief and caring for the dead.  She described the tension between fidelity and accuracy of the embalming process, and wanting to maintain the game’s themes- in some cases sacrificing fidelity in the embalming process in order to steer away from unwanted themes, and maintain the game’s focus on grief and care.
• Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy investigates themes of perseverance, challenge, and loss simply by placing the player in a position of confronting an extremely difficult challenge where the consequences of failure might be enormous setbacks.

Emotions

What emotions do you want to convey?

The second crucial step in this framework is to get clear about understanding the specific emotions you want your game to convey to players; knowing these makes it much easier to adapt them into your mechanics.  In helping focus on the full range of emotions you want to convey, it can be especially powerful to focus in on significant inflection points in your game, moments in which what the player’s been exposed to previously becomes recontextualized.  Identifying the emotional change the player has to experience at that moment can help you identify the emotions the player should be experiencing (and perhaps growing accustomed to) prior, and after.  Looking at the full journey the player has to take and mapping emotions to it can help you make sure your game has a rich emotional palette of complimentary experiences.  Note that where emotions are concerned, specificity can be extremely powerful!  Often, as designers we can tend to try to make our experiences generic in order to resonate with a wider audience.  In actuality, our group discussed finding in our work that the more specific the emotion you’re trying to convey, and the mechanic you’re engaging to convey it, the more universal and relatable the experience is to all players. 

Once you’ve identified a specific emotional moment you want to invest development effort into, consider asking yourself these questions:

• Where does this emotion (or near-adjacent emotions) appear in the real world?
• How have you experienced this emotion in your own life?
• If you haven’t experienced it personally, how can you learn more about it?
  • Can you put yourself in that situation (safely, both to yourself and others)?
  • Can you find adjacent situations that evoke similar emotions, and go experience them?
  • Can you explore other media that strive to engage this emotion deeply?
  • Can you research experiences that other people have had?
  • Can you interview others directly?
• If the emotion you’re trying to evoke is often associated with a real world context, can your game reference that context- either literally or metaphorically?

Some examples of specific emotions from specific games:

• A Short Hike explores the emotions of taking a hike and exploring a pleasant adventure- optimism, curiosity, discovery, and accomplishment.  The ending phone call recontextualizes the previous excursion and imbues it with a sense of anticipation or trepidation- while also leaning into relief and love.  If a designer wanted to make a similar game about similar emotions, we’d encourage them to actually take a hike that should end with them feeling accomplished, to think back to a time when they were waiting on a phone call in anticipation, or to (sensitively) speak with some people who had to wait to hear news about a loved one’s medical procedure.
• Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy has a particular moment that tends to evoke extreme emotions- many youtube compilations exist of streamers “riding the snake.”  Approximately a third to a half of the way up the mountain, there’s a tricky jump involving a bucket- and off to the left is a snake, and a sign saying “Do not ride the snake.”  If the player hooks their hammer onto the snake, they ride it all the way back to their very starting point, entirely undoing enormous effort and progress.  Players may experience astonishment, betrayal, dismay, rage, or despair.  Players who continue likely feel renewed determination, along with anxiety or trepidation.  In Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, Bennett speaks to the experiences that inspired him- Sexy Hiking, yes, but also a deep appreciation for difficulty and even loss.

Mechanics

What mechanics are in your game?

With a strong understanding of your game’s theme and the emotions you want the player to explore, the next step is to consider the mechanics you’re planning on committing to.  It’s important to consider, now, that not all mechanics are neutral; they often come with their own inherent emotions associated with them, either from past games your players have experience with, or that you yourself have encouraged players to associate with them previously in this game.  Many game players have past experience mashing a button repeatedly to smash open a door, lift a heavy stone, or rip an enemy asunder; this is something you should consider if you’re looking to add “mash X to pet dog” into your game.  Note, of course, that context can be key- in a game about a character with a fear of dogs, who spends much of the game fleeing from dogs but who has finally overcome that fear, needing to mash x to pet that dog may actually be exactly the emotional valence you’re looking for your mechanic to convey.  The right context can change a conventional mechanic into something entirely new.  Consider asking yourself the following question about your assumed mechanics, or other possible mechanics you’d like to evaluate:

• Do these mechanics have emotional valence they inherently bring along with them?
  • What expectations are associated with these mechanics?
  • Can you add context to a mechanic that can change or subvert the emotions it naturally carries with it?
• How much attention do you want to draw to this mechanic and this emotion?
  • Do you want this mechanic to feel seamlessly integrated into the play experience?  Or set apart, like a minigame of its own?
• Do you need a new mechanic to convey the emotion you’re aiming at?
• How do you commonly contextualize the use of this mechanic?  Can you recontextualize this mechanic in a way that gives it more (or different) emotional weight?

Some examples of games that leverage their mechanics (and contexts) to really drive emotions strongly:

• In Death Stranding, the player spends hours delivering boxes across a hostile and unforgiving world.  Total weight and distribution of weight have a significant impact on the main character’s ease of traversal, with the player learning how to pack and prepare, read terrain, execute button inputs for balancing, and likely experiencing the consequences of failure more than a few times.  Two significant moments in the story subvert the emotional valence of the common mechanics of the game.  Early in the story, Sam’s mom dies of cancer, and he has to transport her body to an incinerator a ways away.  At the very end of the story, after traversing the entire game world, Sam has to transport the body of another longtime companion to the same incinerator.  Through the new context of the actual contents of Sam’s delivery, the player’s emotions about the core mechanics shift- what was originally irritation, frustration, mastery, or dominance over nature (especially through constructions like bridges, roads, and vehicles) adjusts into feelings of care, grief, loss, caution.  This is especially marked on the second journey, as the player has returned to a portion of the game prior to earning all of their supporting tools, and thus returns to caring deeply about the mechanical fundamentals of balance, weight, and terrain in a way that reemphasizes the importance of the task.

Harmony

How can you create a cohesive whole?

Our group recognized that some games seem to take a disparate collection of mechanics and emotional beats and form them into a cohesive whole that adds up to more than the sum of its parts; we called this harmony.  Importantly, just like in music, the harmony of a piece (or game) doesn’t have to only be consonant- in fact, having a little dissonance in the mix can elevate the whole.  We identified three components to harmony.  Resonance is what we chose to call mechanics and emotions that are multipliers on each other, where each strongly supports the other.  Consonance is what we chose to call mechanics and emotions that are compatible, especially when the mechanics and emotions fade into the background of the experience and become invisible or seamless, the waters the player is swimming in naturally without even thinking about it.  Dissonance is when the mechanics and emotions don’t naturally align, perhaps even subtracting from each other, but the discordance can actually draw attention to the moment in a way that heightens the overall experience of the game.  The proper use of all three- resonance, consonance, and dissonance- can leave your overall game feeling in harmony.

An example of harmony through resonance, consonance, and dissonance:

• In Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons, one player is in control of two characters- the older brother relegated to the left side of the controller (stick for moving, L2 trigger for interacting) and the younger to the right side.  Each brother has specific capabilities for solving certain puzzles- the younger brother can pass through narrow spaces, the older brother can swim well and carry the two across water, and more.  At first, this experience of controlling two characters simultaneously can be very challenging- in context, these brothers are not very good at working together.  They’re constantly bumping into things, dropping what they should be carrying, and overall creating a challenging experience for the player.  The beginning of the game is a player’s experience of dissonance- the challenging mechanics don’t naturally align with two brothers working together.  As the player grows more familiar, however, this mechanic becomes consonant- the player’s capabilities grow to the point that the two brothers work well in tandem, the mechanics and emotions fading into the background of the experience for the player, becoming simply the atmosphere of the game, largely unnoticed.  At a climactic point in the game, the older brother dies.  From then on, if the player pulls the L2 trigger associated with the older brother, the younger brother simply falls to his knees and sobs.  On his way back home, a storm picks up- rain, lightning.  The creek outside his home has flooded to a raging torrent- but the younger brother couldn’t swim; crossing water was always the purview of the older brother.  When the stymied player realizes they can pull the older brother’s L2 trigger and the younger brother screws up his courage to swim the raging waters home- that’s resonance.

The Player

What space can you leave for the player?

The game isn’t in the computer!  The game is an experience that happens in the mind of your player, and players bring a lot of themselves to the games they play.  They’re an equal participant in the dialog between the player, the game, and the creators.  As designers, it can be easy to get lost in our uncertainties, or to miss the forest for focusing on the trees- filling every moment of the player’s experience with what we think they “should” be getting out of it- but this is a trap.  Our group asks: What space can you leave for the player?  How can you step back and leave emptiness for the player to bring their self and their past experiences and interpretations into your game?

Similarly, as designers we discussed often encountering pressure to reduce friction, or smooth the player’s experience along in the game.  This can be a real pitfall if what you’re aiming towards is evoking a specific emotional experience.  Friction- like in Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy- can often be essential in creating the space for players to genuinely confront the mechanics, the contexts, and the emotions you’re putting in front of them.  Ask yourself: Instead of solving for smoothness and ease of progression, can we solve for really bringing every player along on the emotional journey we intend?  Can slowing the player down here actually accomplish more than smoothing them along?

Some games incorporate systems or mechanics that almost force space for players to bring themselves into the experience, for example:

• Our group discussed rain in Breath of the Wild.  Link can climb just about any surface freely, so long as he has stamina.  But when it’s raining, he’ll slip off any surface, unable to make progress.  We told anecdotes about being halfway up a cliff or a tower when the weather turned and rain started falling, forcing us to simply pause and wait.  In that time, Breath of the Wild created space for players to bring our own past experiences and emotional contexts into the game.  For me, it recalled sitting on my back porch as a kid, listening to the rain fall all around me.  An experience that could be fairly simple in the game gained much more emotional context purely because it also created space for me to stop and just be present for a moment.

Common Pitfalls

Our group discussed a few pitfalls that designers can fall into when crafting emotionally resonant game mechanics.  Notably: Don’t undercut spotlighting!  When everything is important, nothing is.  Not every emotion needs to be mapped on your player journey, not every emotion needs to be resonant- sometimes consonance is enough.  Contrast between peaks and valleys in emotions and emotional valence alike can be a powerful tool.  Second, keep an eye out for unintended dissonance.  Dissonance can be a result of oversight, and can arise from departmental or disciplinary siloes.  Ask yourself- are mechanical needs taking precedence over the emotional needs of the story?  How can both work to support each other better?  Make sure to avoid designing mechanics in a vacuum- bring other disciplines in, and look for ways to leverage all the skills on your team in aiming at the emotional experiences you intend.  Finally, take care when designing for an experience that isn’t yours, or that you personally haven’t had.  Have you done enough research to support it?  Are there others you can engage who are more personally connected to the experience you’re creating who can help you convey the experience you want in a way that will resonate with your players?

Conclusion

In conclusion, thank you for reading our framework for creating novel emotionally resonant game mechanics.  We’ve covered: What mechanics and emotions are; How to mine your game’s theme for emotional context; How to focus in on the specific emotions you want to convey; How to consider your mechanics, and the emotional contexts they bring; How to infuse your whole experience with a harmony that is greater than the sum of its parts; How to consider and leave space for players to bring themselves into the experience; and some common pitfalls to be cautious of.  We hope this conversation can help you look at the games you’re creating through a few new lenses, and help you deliver even more authentic, compelling experiences for your players.