Emotioneering
January 29th, 2009
A fellow game art student from the year below me wrote on his blog about the film United 93. He also talked about emotion and gaming, which evoked a response from me.
People engage in entertainment to feel emotions, whether its to feel excited, relaxed, and happy, or to feel inspired, and motivated, or even sadness.
We are feeling creatures, we do something because we feel. (or don’t feel if that’s the case)
Good stories take the watcher, reader, or player for an emotional roller coaster. It’s the contrast between highs and lows of the ride that brings out the emotions in us. Books are a very matured art form which do this well, after all we have been writing and reading for a good while now. Films although a significantly younger form of story telling, have also matured significantly over recent decades and also do this well.
Gaming as a media is still in its infancy, and creating emotion in games is a big subject that demands much thought and skill to achieve. The day when a game evokes such sadness and grief that players break down and cry has still yet to come. Emotioneering in games is considerably harder than well… any other media form. It requires ingenious script writers, who weave a diversity of paths a player might take into a coherent whole, a story the player is unfolding at their own discretion, which evokes a sense of this emotional roller coaster. The script writers also are required to write believable dialog, and develop strong characters which the player might engage in.
The visual artists also, need to understand what it is about a their art, that will contribute towards this quest in emotioneering. How do I compose my scene? What features about my character will tell their history and increase their believability?
Believability is another massive issue all on its own so I’ll only just touch on the subject. Believability doesn’t have to mean everything looks and moves and sounds realistic. Something completely unrealistic can still be believable. The stunts Neo can do in the Matrix are believable because of the atmosphere that is created. Right away, before you know anything about the matrix, zion, or anything, you see Trinity doing unbelievable things, which are believable, because the film has already created a sense of ’somethings not quite right here’, which tells the mind that things out of the norm might happen, and thats ok. Also the use of advertising before the film came out would have contributed towards this. (major point of thought into the use and value of adverts)
I’ve focused a lot on the telling of stories, but thats not the only purpose of entertainment. Regardless, of whether its to tell a story, to just have fun or any other reason, emotions still play a big role in the quality and value of what is created.
If you’re interested, check out David Freeman. He does a lot of work in emotioneering, both in film and games.
As usual I’m interested to hear other peoples thoughts and insights into the subject, so if you have something to share, comment away.
[note: The photo up top is an olde which cracked me up when I found it, of two great friends that wouldn't harm anything or anyone. Nothing to worry about. haha]
