My presentation from GameCultures conference at Magdeburg, in March 2009.

1. ‘Stargazing’
Emotional Analysis of
Game Designs
Aki Järvinen, Ph.D.
GameCultures Conference /
Magdeburg 2009-3-21

2. Background:
PhD study in
game design
theory
http://acta.uta.fi/english/teos.php?id=11046

3. Recent work • ‘Understanding Video Games as
on games & Emotional Experiences’
emotions • B.Perron & M.J.Wolf (eds.) Video
Game Theory Reader 2. London &
New York: Routledge. 2008.
• Adapting the ‘OCC model’ into
game analysis

4. Exploring
models for
analyzing
events,
agents &
objects in
game worlds

5. My design
research
into games
as results of
design
practices &
solutions

6. • The author introduces means for
analyzing existing game designs with
‘Stargazing’ particular emphasis on identifying their
emotionally relevant features.
summarized
• The method aims to give tools for
uncovering the secrets of successful
game designs, so that such findings could
be creatively reinvented for new
designs.
• The method applies terminology from
object-oriented programming in order to
produce results that can be
reformulated into a game design
document, or channeled into a rapid
prototyping task instantly.

7. • Recognition of something significant
Phasic
• Evaluation of the situation; plans to cope
emotions with the situation
parallel • Action readiness; tendencies
phasic • Bodily and expressive effects
gameplay
• The four-fold phasic nature of
emotions is constantly at work in
gameplay
• Such, admittedly totalizing view to
gameplay emotions, lets us to try to
design them, knowingly

8. • Metaphor of stars, sky, and their
Emotional relationships
game design • A romantic metaphor for a romantic
through the design practice
metaphor of • In terms of the stargazing method, the
design elements of a game represent
stargazing the stars that align into certain
constellations...
• ...thus creating so-called eliciting
conditions, i.e. ‘conditions under which
an emotion can be triggered.’

9. The most frequently
designed/played
eliciting condition in
video games?

10. • The premise: any particular emotional
episode of a player, or players, can be
Game Design traced back to a certain game state, or a
Research sequence of game states.
Problem • Examples:
• Scripted events in Gears of War or Dead Space
• Sequences of dialogue interaction in Animal
Crossing
• Instance in World of Warcraft
• Behavior of fire in Far Cry 2
• How to analyze their emotional constituents
& consequences with a rigorous method?

11. Game States • Game state is the ‘frozen slice’ of
gameplay, a recognizable phase,
as emotional that can be used
waypoints • as a focus point when analyzing games
• as the smallest factor in designing game
play from an emotional /experience
design standpoint
• Game states combine into
sequences, and emotional
experiences are sequences of
emotions, where the result is more
than the sum of its parts

12. • Goal monitoring is a concept originating
Goal from psychological studies in personal goals
monitoring; • It conceptualizes the constant tracking of
how one is doing in terms of the goals under
where does it pursuit
focus, • i.e. as behavior that has to do with both
perceptually? predicting and experiencing of emotions
• Are there certain perceptual and cognitive
vectors or formations – constellations - that
emerge in the game play process, and are
particular important for goal monitoring
• ...and consequently, for the emotional
design of the game?

13. Stargazing at
Zuma:
‘The vector
of suspense’
between the skull
and the closest
ball as the focus
of goal monitoring

14. Stargazing at
Tetris:
‘The skyline
vector’
as the focus of
goal monitoring

15. A practical
• Future work: Turning stargazing
results into concrete design tools
future with which emotional gameplay
application: dynamics, similar to the above
examples, could be modeled and
tested through abstractions
Emotional
wireframe
prototypes

16. Abstractions
of vectors
into game
design ‘toys’

17. Stargazing at
Braid

18. Stargazing at
Portal

19. • The emotional vector, rather than being
Stargazing at a concrete visual set of dynamics, is a
mental projection into the game space
Braid & Portal: that has to be figured out, and then
executed, by the player
‘Projected • Goal monitoring consists of a sequence of
logical deductions and their outcomes
vectors’
• Perceptual goal monitoring is used to
inform cognitive goal monitoring, and
vice versa.
• ... This type of goal monitoring has
different consequences to the emotional
flavor of the play experience

20. Stargazing
3D & sound:
Flower:
‘musical
time-space
vector’
heavily based on
aesthetic
perceptions

21. Stargazing
Facebook
games;
Parking
Wars:
‘revisiting
vector’
via login/
logout

22. Practical
design case:
Jukem the puzzle
game prototype
with a design
where the
skyline and
suspense vectors
combine

23. How to • Research question in the works:
extrapolate • How can more complex game
mechanics & dynamics be modeled
the method in abstract forms?
to more
complex
• Hypothesis: With the help of
analyzing metaphors, and how they
genres? relate to the events, objects, and
agents
• Left 4 Dead: how is the ‘left to
one’s own devices’ metaphor
emotionally aligned in the design of
the game?

24. Contact
• Aki Järvinen, Ph.D.
• aki@mygamestudies.com
• www.mygamestudies.com
• Twitter: @aquito