How the immersion effect in games is created?
Never wondered why it is so hard to turn off the game and finally go to sleep? Why I don't want to throw another quest in halfway at "Witcher 3" or leave the board of Normandy, without talking for the hundredth time with each crew member ? I want to not just explore the best virtual worlds, but to register them forever – and all due to the fact that the developers took care of your immersion in the game.
The gamemeracies try to closely ensure that you can plunge into the virtual world with your head and feel like it, at least for a short time forgetting about the harsh reality. In this text, together with LG Electronics and specialists of the SCREAM School computer technology school, we will try to figure out how the immersion effect is created, why is it needed and what does psychology have to do with it.
Professional approach
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Games = Psychology?
First of all, let's figure out what the effect of immersion is, or, as scientists call it, the effect of spatial presence. Researchers say that it arises when “media content is perceived as real, that is, when users experience a feeling of spatial location in an indirect environment”.
In other words, when a person perceives the world on the screen as a real. People who feel immersion make decisions, guided by the logic of the world presented (or seen) by them. For example, players penetrated by the atmosphere Skyrim , They will forget about quick movement and go on a long way on foot to feel like real travelers and not to ruin the illusion of adventure by game conventions. And in Arma 3 And you can completely play on servers, where each team has a clear system, subordination and army hierarchy, as in real life.
The effect of immersion arises in two stages: first, the user forms an idea of the game in his head (how it looks, sounds and feels), and then gradually begins to perceive the virtual environment as the main “coordinate system”, as a place where it is located and whose rules obeys. If you played in Dayz or any other realistic “survival”, you probably understand what we are talking about: the first minutes (or watches) of gameplay usually go to acquaintance with management, careful intelligence of the area and so on, but after some time you begin to set goals, justified context – that is, a virtual environment. You begin to enjoy the landscapes as if they are real, to pretend to be where and what resources to get, and a sudden shot will be alert or not even joke.
Will Wright, Game Designer, Creator of The Sims and Spore
Sound game experience creates a whole system of restrictions, freedoms, goals, awards and joys in the mind of the player. With the course of the gameplay, this new psychology replaces the user user motivation from the real world. Game development includes as much “programming” of the human brain as work on game mechanics.
What is the immersion of?
The word "atmosphere" is found in every second discussion of any game. Surely you have repeatedly heard the phrases “this game has a luxurious atmosphere!"," Music/visual design perfectly create an atmosphere "and everything is like that. So, the atmosphere is a key element of the immersion effect: in games this word is usually called a whole combination of feelings. Vision, hearing, touch, and in the VR games-also a vestibular apparatus!
A combination of graphics, sounds, music, history, gameplay and the ability to make decisions create this atmosphere, and the player tries it upon himself, translating his thinking into a “game” plane. If the atmosphere carefully worked out by the developers allows the user to feel the virtual world through the impact on all possible senses and the psyche, then consciousness itself erases the border between reality and illusion. And this, in turn, gives the player the opportunity, for example, to empathize with the characters on the screen or enjoy the study of the open world.
In addition, all this sensory information must be integral and logical. Imagine: you play, say, in Uncharted , tied to the adventures in the spirit of the Indiana of Jones, and suddenly spacecraft (or, khe-khe, the Spanish zombies, as in the first part) appear from nowhere, while the game does not explain how they ended up here. This creates a gap in a causal relationship, and the more such gaps, the more the player will have to think up the details himself, and this seriously pulls out of the process.
Here is the recent Re-Legion There are just big problems with this: from the level to the level, the player has to capture the same sectors on the map – those that he has already captured several levels ago, although the plot moves on. Because of this inconsistency, you constantly doubt what is happening. Who secretly conquers the already captured lands? Why the whole world of the game is limited by one single card? Immersion, of course, does not smell here.
We must not forget about the setting that the developer creates for the player. If you want to make a game about the era of industrialization in England, you will not add dinosaurs there, without explaining how they were clogged there sideways. Otherwise, the player will be discouraged and simply will not be able to perceive the developed world as a real. If you want dinosaurs in the surroundings of London of the 19th century – explain their presence so that the player in it believes!
Long -suffering Battlefield v With its customization, the players accused of this: you just have to read the comments on the first game trailer! It is quite difficult to compare the realities of the Second World War with a British soldier, whose katana hangs behind him, or with the owner of an advanced prosthesis of his hand. It looks cool, of course, but it does not look like a historical context, and therefore it is not so easy to believe at first glance.
In a word, the fewer a video game recalls that she is a video game, the higher the chance to captivate the player to the very credits. He must believe that things that are not knocked out of the same coordinate system created by the game are going on around him. It is unlikely that the creators S.T.A.L.K.E.R They would give a guitar sitting at the fire in the hands of the stalkers like that of Jimmy Hendricks: electronic, patterned, with a combination in the kit. This would instead the player's idea of the post -apocalyptic Chernobyl.
The integrity of the gameplay itself also plays an important role in the effect of immersion. Every time you go to the download screen, the imagination begins to fail. After all, the world, in fact, for a few seconds (or painfully long minutes) literally disappears nowhere; A screen with the inscription "loading" and an animated logo is sharply pulled out of the gameplay, once again recalling that everything around is a fake. But the developers are the last God of War They just took care of this: many users called it with a “game without loading screens”, but they are there – they just disguised them. When moving to a new location, you find yourself in a closed space, and the world outside is literally rebuilt. But, since you do not see this, what is happening on the screen is perceived seamlessly, without exhausted pauses.
Here is Kratos with a son, for example, for more than thirty https://tropicanza-casino.co.uk/ seconds they make their way through a dark climax in a rock – at this time the next location is loaded
In a similar way, the developers Assassin’s Creed. Since the main character is in the Animus system – while the game is loading, they give us to run through an endless three -dimensional space: they say, the game is not loaded, but the car itself. And the plot is due, and interactive
The final contribution to the atmosphere makes the interactivity of the environment. To make the player believe in the game world, you need to give him the opportunity to interact with him: for example, to eliminate key members of the local gang to destabilize it and weaken the influence.
A great example of this – Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and her system "Nemesis". Your hero must properly prepare for the assault on the castle. To do this, you need to kill or recruit orc captains, and this can be done in many ways: from an honest fight to the use of recruited spies.
But the main feature of the Nemesis is that enemies generated by the game do not disappear from the map after each battle, but continue to live their own life, “remembering” the experience lived. Failed to overcome the orc and fled? The next time you pump and return to take revenge, it will also be stronger and remind you of the previous fight. Playing Shadow of War, the player realizes that he is not just a tourist in the virtual world, but his inhabitant, who directly affects the position of things.
But, of course, interactivity is not always obliged to go so far: sometimes it is enough to give the player the opportunity to indulge with objects. Open and close the doors, drag objects from place to place … in Prey In general, you can move and turn almost any subject! And it is not aimless: how else to check whether the coffee mug will turn into facial expressions?
And in Prey, all interactions with information terminals occur in real time, and not in a separate menu. While you are leafing through someone’s working correspondence, time does not freeze-which means that the enemy can sneak from behind the back at any time. Here the principle is the same as with the loading screens: the less you are distracted from the game "reality", the better
What is Immersive SIM?
By the way, about PREY: a separate current is distinguished in the industry (it is still not called the genre) games where almost all the features of the project are tied to the dive effect: they are called immersive SIM (from English. – "Simulator of immersion"). These include the already mentioned PREY, Deus Ex , The first two parts Thief , Dishonored And, for example, System Shock.
In the "immersion" the player, as a rule, has quite a lot of control over the surrounding objects and many ways to achieve the goal using a variety of mechanics. Thief, for example, is given (and not always) a building card – but it is necessary to understand it yourself: there are no signs, no markers, no other tips. And if no one was in the place you need before, then you will not get the cards, it would not be obtained: there was no one to draw it. Maximum conventions so that the player feels inside the game.
Why do developers care about so many little things? Typically, they try to achieve the effect of immersion in order to improve the impression of the game. Agree, if in the world Fallout: New Vegas It was impossible to plunge, surrendering to the study of locations under some Big Iron on the radio, then it would be remembered by much fewer people.
Or take, for example, Dead Space : The first part of the series is usually placed above the second and third, since it was the original that scared the best. However, this does not mean that developers are required to constantly try to create the effect of immersion. On the contrary, somewhere he is not needed at all. Think for yourself: the player in Counter-STRIKE More important is the venerable balance and gameplay than the backstory De_DUST 2.
And in which of the virtual worlds you yourself plunged with your head? Which seemed more interesting to you and why? Which is more important to you – a champion challenge or atmosphere, the opportunity to believe in what is happening? Tell us in the comments!