1. Immersion Composition
Chapter 5
Immersion Composition

2. Elements of Engagement – how the game is designed for audience engagement
Genre
Story
Challenges
Success and Escalation
Progress and feedback
Mental tasks
Sound effects
Narrations and Voices
Competition model
Intuitive gameplay and physics

3. Genre
Genres are classifications of games based on the type of gameplay provided.
A survey of an audience can help developers choose the genre of a game they want to make.

4. Story
Should be something that the audience can understand and relate to
Audience must be able to relate to the characters
Rewards and resolution are worth getting to

5. Challenges Consider physical and mental ability
Should be interesting to the audience
Find a balance between anxiety and boredom.
Explicit- “tutorial” style games.
Implicit- figures out game on their own, limited instructions

6. Success and Escalation
Success – A critical part of any challenge.
Should be properly rewarded.
Should escalate the challenges to different stages of difficulty.
Shouldn’t make the game too difficult or else the player may lose interest.
Should have a pause-and-relax activity.
Saw tooth-challenge design – should allow for challenges to increase and drop in difficulty.
Challenge retracement – a drop in difficulty during a game to allow a pause and relax moment needed for sustainable gameplay.
Challenge escalation – an increase in difficulty of new tasks compared to previous tasks.

7. Progress and Feedback Goal Progress Feedback
Receiving information from the game.
Let’s the player know how they are doing.
Helps the player know what is going on.

8. Mental Tasks Keep the player mentally engaged in the game.
Mental tasks get the player’s mind in the game.

9. Sound effects Three different kinds of sound effects
Ambient-Created by background, helps complete environment
Sound Effects-Created by actions, all small clips
Background Music- Music in background, sets mood

10. Narrations and voices A Narration is a commentary voice over the game
NPC Dialogue: when an NPC speaks to the player
Multiplayer Dialogue: Speech between players
Keeps a player immersed by keeping a player on track with a voice informing the player

11. Competition model
It is how the player will interact with the game to complete it.
It keeps the player immersed by everything above
There are 7 different types:
Player v Game
Multiplayer v Game
Cooperative Play versus Game
Player verses Player
Unilateral-one person against everybody
Multilateral-three or more people are against each other
Team competition model-teams against other teams

12. Intuitive gameplay and physics
Intuitive gameplay is prior knowledge the player has
Using a game interface that is similar to the real-world equivalent
Physics is the laws of physical properties of matter and energy
Gravity
Contact with objects (collision)

13. Elements of Interest - game features that a player may find interesting.
Camera view (perspective)
Scope
Customization
NCP interaction
Multiplayer environment
Physical tasks
Difficulty
Visual elements
Background music

14. Camera View Camera View is also known as the “perspective”
Keeps the player engaged through the different perspectives.
First Person
Second Person
Third Person
Translation – When the camera moves on the game map
Rotation – When the camera pivots around a central point
Zoom – Does not move or rotate camera, simply increases or decreases magnification of the view

15. Scope Area that only the camera can see
Game action could still be occurring even when it is not in the scope
Mini Maps
HUD (Heads Up Display)

16. Customization Allows player to change controls. Makes more personal.
Mod- alters gameplay of existing game.
Hacking- a way of cheating in a game.
Firewall- a computer program of physical device that prevents users or information from entering a computer network.

17. NPC interaction
Make NPC’s more realistic and interesting via Artificial Intelligence
Three Laws of Robotics:
A robot may not injure a human or, through inaction, allow a human to be harmed
A robot must obey orders without conflicting the first law
A robot must protect its own existence without conflicting the first two laws
Bot – AI programmed to play as though it were controlled by a human player
Multiuser Domain bot (MUD) – A bot that is often used to perform trivial tasks while the player is doing other things.

18. Multiplayer Environment
Allows many players to play the game in different modes.
A LAN party (Local area network) party is a single computer network to play with or against each other
Online play can allow people to connect from all over the world.

19. Physical tasks
Physical tasks are ways to keep players interested in the game.
Give them different obstacles to keep the game varied and not repetitive.

20. Difficulty
Most games have 4 different levels of difficulty (easy, basic, difficult, expert)
Most games have different tasks to complete based on level so easy players have easier tasks and expert players having expert level tasks.
Intrinsic skills are those that are essential to complete the task
Extrinsic skills are those that are not essential to complete the task.
You can add difficulty to a level by adding the amount of intrinsic skills in one level. This can be done by having to do multiple different things in a short period of time.
Stress can be increased to make a game feel harder and can be done by making the game balance on precise actions, having riskier encounters with high stakes, losing health or lives, or by adding a time limit.

21. Visual elements
Graphics can increase the level of interest rather than text or numbers, an example of this is a colored health bar rather than a number of health left, or a picture of ammo to an extent.
This isn’t limited to just your HUD but also the graphic style of the game, an example of this is Borderlands.
High contrast can also help things “stick out” to players.

22. Background music Makes the player interested or excited
Balance- music should not be too loud or too low
Creates memories
Foreshadowing

23. Balance of Elements
How does a game designer balance all of the elements?
One element should not overpower the others
If one element is too prevalent an imbalance will occur.
Proper testing with the target audience will help you tweak the mix of options needed for a player-centric design.
Success is having people enjoy your game and telling others to play it.

24. Maintaining Interest
Maintaining interest keeps the player entertained.
An engaged player will have a good experience with the game.
Test the game with the intended audience to help ensure the game feel complete and unified to the audience.

25. Automation of tasks
Trivial tasks must be automatic to keep the gameplay balanced
Back-office tasks should also be automated

26. Vary the Difficulty of Challenges
Challenges must be balanced to maintain immersion for the player
It also tracks the player’s level using AI.

27. Reward and praise Must be balanced with failure
Message of encouragement at death or fail
If the player cannot fail, the game is not fun to play.

28. Frustration
Frustration and stress go hand in hand, as too much stress can cause too much frustration
Too much frustration can cause the player to stop playing the game.
Just barely fail- Allows the player to believe that they almost achieved victory
Red Herring- Distraction that doesn’t provide any story forwarding, can frustrate players
Dead end- Side quest or activity that provides no reward
Cookie cutter design- Allows games to be built quickly and economically, however causes the feeling of Deja-vu

29. Age to skill Balance between age and skill.
Older people are usually better at games than younger people.
Games sometimes have difficulty options for players.
Some online multiplayer games suggest a game difficulty based on the player’s age.