Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering

In this chapter, we looked at a number of ways to create First-Person Deepening:

• Emotionally and/or Morally Difficult Decisions.

• Responsibility. Responsibility could be something the player grows into, as part of a First-Person Character Arc, or something the player has from the start of the game (such as your responsibility for the young girl in Ico).

• Multiple and sometimes even conflicting viewpoints of a subject, event, situation, person, group, plan, object, or aspect of life that you (the player) care about or that matters to at least one NPC whom you care about or identify with because of that character's Rooting Interest.

• Certain First-Person Character Arcs specifically, Learning to Take Responsibility for others (mentioned earlier) and Attaining Wisdom. One common component of Attaining Wisdom is coming to grips with emotionally complex consequences of your actions.

• Learning that some situations aren't black and white, and therefore require deep thought if you're to help those you care about.

So, are games entertainment, or are they art? Obviously, like film, they're both. First-Person Deepening Techniques can help move games from being simply entertainment to also being art.

Let's define art as communication that operates on many levels and that brings us insight, complex emotional experiences, and potentially introduces us to new ways of seeing.

The Lord of the Rings films are entertaining because they're artful they do all of the above. This, along with the thrills the films offer, is why audiences go to see them in droves.

When games become artful, they'll be more emotionally compelling and thus more entertaining. When applied artfully, First-Person Character Deepening Techniques can move a person emotionally with a power equivalent to a great film, but through experiences totally unique to games.