1 the Message in the Mechanics

Home , Amy Hennig, Arcade (Marvel Comics), Creative Assembly, Game mechanics, Hollow Knight, Jonathan Blow

The Message in the Mechanics: Designing Game Mechanics that Reflect a Character’s Mental State

Thesis

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts

in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Bruce Evans

Graduate Program in Design

The Ohio State University

2019

Thesis Committee

Scott Swearingen, Advisor

Mary Anne Beecher

Monica Robinson

Copyrighted by

Bruce Evans

2019

Abstract

Videogames share many of the common traits found in traditional visual media, traits like the visual style, tone, and pacing. However, games have the added component of interaction through the game’s mechanics. The design of these mechanics can aid in the message of a game to add meaning and metaphor to the player’s interaction.

This study and subsequent creative project investigate the design of game mechanics and how they can portray the mental state of the character through the game’s interaction. The creative project based on contextual research will inform the player about these mental states through the game’s mechanics.

Dedication

To my wife, Cindy.

iii

Acknowledgments

I would like to extend a special thank you to my advisor Scott Swearingen for guiding this project as well as his tremendous feedback on game design. I would also like to thank Monica Robinson for her much-needed external view on games and Mary Anne

Beecher for her design expertise and honest feedback.

Another special thanks to the students in the Department of Design and ACCAD for their late-night playtests and feedback.

Lastly, I want to thank my partner in life, Cindy, for all her love and support.

Vita

2007 ……………………………………………………………...… Waverly High School

2011 ………………………………………………………………B.S.C Communications,

Media Arts and Studies,

Ohio University

2016 to 2018 …………………………………………….…Graduate Teaching Associate,

Department of Design,

The Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Design

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Dedication ...... iii Acknowledgments...... iv Vita ...... v List of Figures ...... vii Chapter 1. Introduction ...... 1 Chapter 2. Background Research for the Creative Project ...... 7 Defining Mechanics ...... 7 Mechanics vs Rules...... 9 Designing Game Mechanics ...... 10 The Role of Game Mechanics ...... 16 Creative Precedents ...... 23 Braid ...... 24 Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice ...... 26 Papers, Please ...... 29 Chapter 3: Concept Development for the Creative Project ...... 32 Chapter 4: Creative Process ...... 42 Chapter 5: Synopses ...... 59 Chapter 6: Evaluation of the Creative Research and Project Result ...... 63 Bibliography ...... 71 Ludography ...... 74

List of Figures

Figure 1. Screen capture from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by Eiji Aonuma (2017) ...... 9 Figure 2. Screen capture from Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor by Michael de Plater (2014) ...... 12 Figure 3. Screen capture from Oxenfree by Adam Hines and Sean Krankel (2016) ...... 13 Figure 4. The Elemental Tetrad by Jesse Schell (Schell, 2008) ...... 22 Figure 5. Screen capture from The Marriage by Rod Humble (2007) ...... 23 Figure 6. Screen capture from Braid by Jonathan Blow (2008) ...... 24 Figure 7. Screen capture from Braid by Jonathan Blow (2008) ...... 25 Figure 8. Screen capture from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice by Tameem Antoniades (2017) ...... 27 Figure 9. Screen capture from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice by Tameem Antoniades (2017) ...... 29 Figure 10. Screen capture from Papers, Please by Lucas Pope (2013) ...... 30 Figure 11. Screen capture of Remain Indoors ...... 33 Figure 12. Screen capture of Barbara’s In the Parking Lot ...... 35 Figure 13. Screen capture of the note in Eventide...... 36 Figure 14. Screen capture from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past by Tezuka Takashi (1991) ...... 41 Figure 15. An early texture swapping prototype ...... 45 Figure 16. Screen capture of the audio logs from BioShock by Ken Levine (2007) ...... 46 Figure 17. Screen capture of an environment puzzle in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune by Amy Hennig (2007) ...... 48 Figure 18. Early image of the torch, the source of the mechanic ...... 54 Figure 19. The ranger character model ...... 55 Figure 20. Design process for a Mechanics as Message game ...... 69

vii

Chapter 1. Introduction

Video games have become one of the largest entertainment industries in the world. Advances in real-time graphics and interactive technology, as well as the increasing accessibility to these technologies, has increased the popularity of games as a storytelling medium. However, games have distinct differences compared to other visual mediums like film and comics. Video games’ unique characteristic of interaction makes it a prime candidate for alternative modes of storytelling. The aim of this paper is to examine to what extent do game mechanics and gameplay influence the game player’s perception of the game’s message.

There are unique attributes to be found in all media. Visual media like film and comics have distinct characteristics that foster storytelling. For instance, film is made of shots juxtaposed together by the cut or edit. The “cut” is an important attribute, perhaps the most important attribute of film. The story in a movie is told through the cuts (Mamet,

1991). A shot of a man screaming then cutting to a mouse is a very different story than a shot of a man screaming and cutting to a dark figure lurking in the corner. Comics, in comparison, are comprised of juxtaposed images similar to film, however, the time between the frames can vary, unlike film, which is viewed at a fixed rate. The reader can spend seconds, minutes, or even hours dissecting a single comic panel. Scott McCloud in his book Understanding Comics, states that a major difference between film and comics

is the “space” that the image occupies (McCloud, 1993). A film occupies the same space, in a single frame on a screen. Comics are composed of frames drawn at various sizes and often found in a book on different pages. These spaces allow for different viewing experiences. Cinematographers use lenses, lights, and the shot to create the frame seen by the audience. These tools can be used to create a metaphor or add to the narrative found on the screen. The way a shot is framed or lit can give the audience insight into the character’s thoughts, ideas, or motivations. Similarly, in comics, the size of the panel can change allowing for different viewing perspectives. If comics and film have specific traits unique to their medium, what are the traits unique to video games as a medium?

Video games and film share many of the same characteristics. For instance, film and most video games occupy the same space, in a single frame on a screen. Style ideas that exist in film genres have been successfully transferred to video games. Sci-fi games like Mass Effect have created vast science fiction worlds that use many of the tropes found in science fiction films, such as advanced biomedical engineering and interstellar travel (Hudson, 2007). The game Alien: Isolation has successfully adapted an existing film universe into a video game, all the while keeping the same tone and style of the films

(Hope, 2014). However, that’s not to say film and video games contain exactly the same traits as a medium. Although they share many characteristics as visual media, there are many characteristics found in film that wouldn’t work in a game and vice versa. The medium of film has an established language that the viewer understands, such as the soft radial wipe cut in Star Wars. In Star Wars, the soft radial wipe has a different meaning

than the traditional cut; this usually signifies the passage of time and a location change

(Lucas, 1977).

In the film Mean Streets, a wobbly camera locked on Harvey Keitel’s face, a long take, and inconsistent lighting give the viewer the experience of intoxication as well as insight into the character’s mental state (Scorsese, 1973). This effect uses the strength of film as a medium by leveraging the camera composition of the frame and point of view of the viewer. This effect could be recreated in a video game visually. This shot relies on cinematic language rather than using the medium-specific strength of games as a unique medium, namely a player’s interaction with the game through the game’s mechanics.

The interactive quality of a game and the rules or systems in the game that allow for player interaction are the major differences that distinguish games as their own medium. These qualities are called a game’s mechanics. Game mechanics are “the procedures and rules of a game” (Schell, 2008). Whereas gameplay is the result of several mechanics interacting with one another, the game loop. Typically, a mechanic describes the verbs or actions that a player takes while playing, like jumping or climbing. Instead of camera effects to describe inebriation, the same message could be told through the interaction with the character. In a video game, perhaps the usual way of controlling the character becomes much less precise compared to when the character is sober. Using the game’s mechanics to describe a physical or emotional state is stronger than simply showing the player. The traditional film rule of “show don’t tell” (Lubbock, 1921) can be extrapolated to games as “play, don’t show” (Fine, 2011).

“In a film or a book, if the characters take the left-hand door, then they will

always take the left-hand door, no matter how many times you rewatch or re-read;

but in a game, you can take the right-hand door instead. Instead of being nice, you

can be nasty; instead of being cautious, you can be gung-ho; and you can see what

happens.”

In games, a creative design challenge can be to convey meaning through player interaction. Games can be described as not only seen, but players interact with them. A more complete definition of game mechanics and interaction will be presented in Chapter

Two.

If games are a visual medium with their own unique characteristics, how might the design of these characteristics be used to influence the mood or the player’s perception of a story in the same way the cut or camera techniques do for film? Games like Braid, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and Papers, Please use interaction to reinforce the message and theme of the game. After a close look at these precedents, I will explore the idea of mechanics and the resulting gameplay as meaning through project-driven research. In the Process section, documentation of designing interaction will be presented within a game to convey meaning that helps to increase understanding of the story being told.

If mechanics are the systems used for interaction with the game state (Sicart,

2008), and if the mechanics are designed in a way that shifts the player’s perception away from how they traditionally see and experience the world, in what ways will this altered view contribute to the player’s understanding of different states of mind in the character

or story being portrayed in the game? With this question in mind, the story would not be

like traditional narratives told in film and books. Instead, the conflict and resolution will

be in how the player interacts with the game and the changes in the player’s perception of

this conflict.

For this study, the design process will be explored so players can experience a

metaphorical representation of early-onset dementia through interaction. Players will have two very distinct comparisons of reality: 1) their everyday experience of reality outside of the game world, and 2) the reality created in the game that is driven by a metaphorical interpretation of the mental state and behaviors of a person with dementia, which in turn, drives the rules of the game.

My interest in dementia comes from a past personal history and interactions with

my grandfather, who developed Alzheimer's disease. This close experience with

dementia has always influenced my understanding of how we perceive the world around

us. My hope is that through this research into the design of game mechanics, players will

be informed about the dementia experience. The goal of this project is not to simulate the

true to life dementia experience. Instead, this project will offer a glimpse into the

emotional conflicts and confusion that are an everyday part of the disease through the

design of a video game to instill empathy.

The goal of this research is to show how games, with their distinct characteristic

of mechanics, can be used to inform the player’s experience of the game’s message and

the mental state of the game’s characters. This research will show how mechanics can be

designed to add meaning to a player’s interaction and depth to the game’s interactive

5 narrative. I hope this project will serve as a model of how to leverage the strength of video games as a medium for myself and other game designers in the future.

Chapter 2. Background Research for the Creative Project

Defining Mechanics

The player’s point of control of a game is determined by the rules and systems

available in the game. Often these rules or groups of rules are referred to as the game’s

mechanics. “Game mechanics are methods invoked by agents for interacting with the

game world” (Sicart, 2008). This description of game mechanics by Miguel Sicart defines the approach of mechanics in terms of object-oriented programming to analyze mechanics available to both the player and artificial agents like enemies or the environment. In Super Mario Bros., the character on screen jumps when the player presses the jump button (Miyamoto, 1985). The method of jumping is invoked via a button pressed by the player. In this case, physical action by the player: a button press, results in the action of the digital character Mario performing a jump. The behavior of an enemy or other AI entity is driven by a set of rules or logic. If the requirements are met, the enemy will perform an action or method. In Overwatch, if a player is in the line of sight of Torbjorn’s turret, the turret will fire at the player until the player dies or moves out of sight (Kaplan, 2016). The turret shooting is an action invoked by a rule, a player being in the turret’s line of sight.

This definition by Sicart is very abstract in regard to what mechanics actually do for the player. Jesse Schell describes mechanics as “the procedures and rules of your

7 game. Mechanics describe the goal of your game, how players can and cannot try to achieve it, and what happens when they try” (Schell, 2008). This definition is more closely aligned with the player. These mechanics were designed for a reason. What is their function in the game world? Does a mechanic allow the player to progress? Is the mechanic part of the world acting as a challenge to the player? Are these systems working together to create a challenging, yet enjoyable experience for the player?

With both definitions in mind, there’s a need to go beyond what mechanics are and describe what mechanics ultimately do from the player’s perspective in order to convey a deeper meaning. Games are played by players. They are not experienced by the artificial systems in the game. Game mechanics, therefore, allow a player to interact with the game and the agents within the game world. The style of interaction is a trait unique to games. It can vary from player to player, even within the same game. In Metal Gear

Solid, the player can play the game very stealthily, sneaking past all the enemies. The player can also be very aggressive and attack every guard (Kojima, 1996). The game grants bonuses depending on the play style of the player. The game offers more rewards and unlockables to players who complete the game with less violence. The systems in place work together to provide a unique experience for the individual player. The goal of successful game design is to “create great game experiences for players - experiences that have meaning and are meaningful” (Salen and Zimmerman, 2003). Meaningful play occurs when the designed intent of the activities or experiences gives the player feedback as they play.

Mechanics vs Rules

Game mechanics have also been described as the “verbs” or actions that a player or some other agent can perform (Jarvinen, 2008). These actions can be running, jumping, shooting, climbing, etc. Each of these verbs can have separate rules that affect these mechanics. For example, in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, climbing is an integral part of the game (Fujibayashi, 2017). The game is all about exploring the environment and the climbing mechanic allows the player to explore almost every area of the map. However, when the player climbs, a small green wheel that symbolizes the player’s stamina appears. The player can only climb while there is stamina left in the gauge. Once the gauge is depleted, the player can no longer use the climbing mechanic and must rest until the gauge is refilled.

Figure 1. Screen capture from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by Eiji Aonuma (2017)

In this example, “stamina” is a rule placed on the mechanic of climbing. The

player can only climb when they have stamina and must wait for the stamina gauge to

recharge in order to climb again. Similarly, in a shooting game, the player can only shoot

if they have ammo. Once the player fires their last shot, they need to reload, search for

more bullets, or find a different weapon entirely. “Game mechanics are concerned with

the actual interaction with the game state, while rules provide the possibility space where

that interaction is possible, regulating as well the transition between states” (Sicart,

2008). Mechanics are designed to interact with the game state while mechanic rules are

designed to change the game state and in turn, keep the play interesting for the player.

Designing Game Mechanics

The job of the game designer is to create great game experiences for the players

(Salen and Zimmerman, 2003). Mechanic design is essential to creating these experiences

because the mechanics determine how a player will interact with the other systems in a

game. “Mechanics are capable of receiving an input and reacting by producing an output.

Such outputs translate into a state change of the mechanic itself and/or into the triggering

of new interactions with other game mechanics” (Fabricatore, 2007). In this definition,

the mechanics of a game create an output that affects the current state of a game. The way

these systems interact, also known as a game’s dynamics, are the basis for enjoyable

experiences for the player. In Super Mario Bros, when a player presses the “jump” button, Mario jumps to a certain height. The state that is changed is Mario’s position on

the screen, particularly his position on the Y-axis. This mechanic was designed as a way to climb platforms, dodge projectiles, and kill enemies.

Designing mechanics is a subject unique to games. In film, the cinematographer is in charge of lights, the camera, and the lenses used to create a specific tone in a shot.

There are similar roles in game development, but because of player interaction in games, not every player experience is identical. The way in which mechanics are designed can greatly add to the atmosphere of the game and allow designers another mode of artistic expression and opportunities for non-traditional narrative.

In the game Shadow of Mordor by Monolith Productions, Tilion, a ranger bonded with an elf wraith, fights orcs as he tries to avenge his murdered family (de Plater, 2014).

Every orc in the game has unique features: strength, poison, fire, individual names, relationships etc. Most enemies are highly individualized due to a mix of designed and procedural systems. A novel characteristic of the game is the “Nemesis System.” As the player fights and dies, the orcs that kill the player are promoted within their army and become more powerful. If an orc kills the player multiple times, that orc will be promoted to an army captain or even a war chief. Once the player reaches the end of the game, one of these orcs will present themselves as a main “boss” of the game. The player must kill their “nemesis” in order to win. The nemesis character is unique to the individual player.

Often, the nemesis challenges the way a player has been playing the game. For instance, if the player prefers to play aggressively their nemesis might be an orc with a bow and arrow, making close combat more difficult.

Figure 2. Screen capture from Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor by Michael de Plater (2014) A system that tracks which enemy the player is weakest against and promoting the AI character within the story is something that can only happen in a game. In a film, the antagonist is often established at the beginning of the film (depending on the genre) and tries to hinder the protagonist in their quest. In a game like Shadow of Mordor,

procedural systems mixed with scripted writing create a very personalized story that

challenges how a player plays the game. This individualized experience is only available

in an interactive medium like games and is a direct result of the mechanics available to

the player.

Oxenfree is an adventure game about a group of friends camping on an island for

a night (Hines and Krankel, 2016). The game has a traditional narrative, the trip goes

horribly wrong and the group must deal with strange disturbances in the night, typical of

a teen horror film. The game, however, has no combat mechanics, points, or levels to

beat. Instead, the game focuses on the relationship between the other characters that are

trapped on the island. The main mechanic is responding to the other character’s dialogue.

The player determines how they want to respond to the other characters in real time. The

player can be respectful, passive, or a complete jerk. The game and other characters then

react to these decisions. Even if the player interrupts another character, the flow of

conversation doesn’t stop. Again, the game uses mechanics to create a unique experience

based on how the player wants to play the game, a trait only found in games.

Figure 3. Screen capture from Oxenfree by Adam Hines and Sean Krankel (2016) Another critical piece to analyzing game mechanics and their part in shaping the game experience is their role in creating gameplay. In broad terms, gameplay is “the activities that occur when one plays a video game” (Tavinor, 2009). “Gameplay is the formalized interaction that occurs when players follow the rules of a game and experience its system through play” (Salen and Zimmerman, 2003). This definition found in Rules of Play is closely related to the earlier definitions for game mechanics. If game 13

mechanics are the rules of the game, then gameplay is the resulting interaction of the

game’s various mechanics. Even with these definitions, it’s safe to say that gameplay is

quite abstract. Gameplay is the result of designed actions in hopes of an enjoyable experience, or perhaps a particular experience meant to evoke a particular emotion.

What does this mean for the game designer and mechanic design? A single mechanic may be enjoyable, but by itself is useless in creating an enjoyable experience without other systems acting and reacting to the mechanic. Baseball would be a boring sport if the batter simply swung the bat without a pitcher throwing the ball. Often, a designer will think about the style of gameplay before deciding on the mechanics (Rouse

III, 2001). Will the game be a fighting game? A stealth game? A racing game? If it’s a fighting game, what visual style will the game have? Who is the target audience? What technology will the game use? Answering these questions before deciding on mechanics will help the overall game experience. The violence in a game like Mortal Kombat would seem out of place in a cartoony game like Super Smash Bros (Boon, 1992). The design of game mechanics must match the desired gameplay and visuals in the game.

Games, because of their mechanics and resulting gameplay, are uniquely situated as a medium that can create more empathetic experiences. According to Dr. Paul

Fletcher, a neuroscientist at Cambridge, “games might offer insights that we wouldn’t get from pure scientific explorations by actually giving us an empathic view of what it might be like” (Fletcher, 2017). Dr. Fletcher made this comment in regard to the game

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, a game that attempts to describe the character’s psychosis through the puzzles, tone, and the story found in the game. Ryan Green, the creator of the

game That Dragon, Cancer, says that “[games] gives you a platform to create immersion and engagement - a new level of empathy. I’m not sure if everyone who has played That

Dragon, Cancer claims to have grasped what we went through, but they are now able to relate to it in a very personal way” (Green, 2016).

The goal of empathetic game design shouldn’t be true cognitive empathy.

Cognitive empathy is intentionally taking another person’s point of view (Bellman and

Flanagan, 2010). It occurs when a person has a true understanding of another’s situation.

According to Hoffman’s Theory of Empathy, this is done in one of three ways: mimicry, classical conditioning, and direct association (Wondra and Ellsworth, 2015) All three require a significant amount of time to fully realize.

This particular type of empathy is very much dependent on the individual. Dr.

Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz describe empathy as a “spectrum”, not unlike the autism spectrum (Perry and Szalavitz, 2011). A person can fall anywhere on the scale of unempathetic to extremely empathetic. They describe problems on both ends of this spectrum, extreme callousness and sociopathic tendencies to the inability to act because a person is so overcome with emotion. A person can fall anywhere on this spectrum.

Therefore, designing a game to induce cognitive empathy seems less dependent on the design of the game and more on the type of person experiencing it.

So, what “new level of empathy” does Green mean in regard to his game? The other broad category of empathy is emotional empathy. Within emotional empathy exists two categories, parallel and reactive. Parallel empathy occurs when a person understands another’s experience on an emotional level (Belman and Flanagan, 2010). Parallel

empathy is a mutually shared emotion. For example, if a person answers a question

incorrectly in a classroom and feels embarrassment, the other students may also feel

embarrassment for that student. Game designers should be aware of the possible

empathetic responses of those experiencing their game when designing mechanics and subsequent gameplay.

The Role of Game Mechanics

With these ideas of mechanic design, interaction, and empathy in mind, we can consider the question of a mechanic’s role in the message of a game. If mechanics are unique to games then how can mechanics be designed to strengthen the game’s message?

How can games be leveraged in a way that other storytelling mediums cannot? How can games use their unique strengths to share the mental states and emotions of the characters? As an area to test these questions, I thought about scenarios that are of personal interest to me. Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias have had a very personal impact on my life and so many others. The disease affects the various people around it in different ways. The symptoms are slow growing and pervasive. The people outside the disease have little idea what the experience is like. In her article

Understanding the Dementia Experience, Jennifer Ghent-Fuller describes people with

Alzheimer’s disease as “people with an altered view of reality due to Alzheimer’s”

(Ghent-Fuller, 2014). There’s a need to portray this alternate reality because the dementia experience isn’t simply an illness requiring hospital visits and medication. Alzheimer’s disease changes the way a person perceives and experiences the world resulting in altered

16 behavior and a different state of mind. How can this altered mental state be expressed through game mechanics?

There are numerous symptoms that come with Alzheimer’s disease and they can vary from patient to patient. The interest in dementia comes from my past history and interactions with my grandfather, an Alzheimer’s patient. Towards the end of his life, my grandfather fluctuated from moments of confusion to moments of lucidity. These lucid moments that were once the norm now became moments of respite for my grandmother and memorable times for the rest of the family. As he grew older, the calm, normal moments became more infrequent. He suffered from hallucinations, restlessness, and would often be disoriented in his own home.

One afternoon as he watched television, he called my grandmother into the room saying, “isn’t she cute?”

“Who are you talking to?” my grandmother replied, extremely confused.

“The girl behind the television. She likes to peek out and wave at me.”

Interactions like this were commonplace with my grandfather. Hallucinations were a large part of his dementia experience, but the symptoms vary from patient to patient. His dementia spells took a heavy toll on my grandmother and father. It’s such an emotional time for the people surrounding the dementia patient and often the patient is oblivious. This dichotomy immediately makes for an interesting, but heartbreaking conflict. Dementia alters the perception of a person, making it difficult for others to truly empathize with them.

There are many more symptoms a person with dementia can experience and are

possible throughout the course of the illness. My interest in the disease as a game

designer isn’t to perfectly simulate the disease inside of a game, but instead, to describe

the mental states within dementia through the game’s mechanics. The symptoms of

dementia will inspire game mechanics that will drive the systems of the game. How can

games with their distinct characteristic of mechanics be used so the player experiences

the game’s message? Stemming from this main research question, how can the design of

game mechanics provide insight into the mental state of early-onset dementia? With this

creative project that explores research through design, I hope to distill the mental states

and accompanying emotions into inspired game mechanics. Games and their mechanics

can be an alternative way to allow a player to explore the theme and message of a story.

While dwelling on game design and dementia, another question came to light that

is integral to this research. If games at their core are satisfying or perhaps enjoyable to play, and experiences like dementia are not, how can the design of a game be inspired by the dementia experience and other difficult scenarios? My hope is through research- driven mechanic design, players will be informed about the dementia experience and game designers will have a model for creating games from otherwise difficult scenarios.

As a precursor to the creative project, three games should be reviewed because of

the way they use game mechanics to share the emotions of the main character, share the

mental state of the character, and evoke emotions in the player through the mechanics.

The games are Braid developed by Jonathan Blow, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice by Ninja

Theory, and Papers, Please by Lucas Pope. The next section of the paper will analyze the

mechanics of these games through the lens of the MDA Framework, the 6-11

Framework, and the Elemental Tetrad.

The MDA Framework provides a landscape for designing mechanics as it includes the perspectives of both the designer and the player. The designer creates mechanics that result in dynamic systems based on user input and ultimately provide a certain aesthetic experience for the player. Players, on the other hand, experience the game’s aesthetic as a result of the dynamics crafted by the interaction of the game’s mechanics. From the designer’s perspective, “the mechanics give rise to dynamic system behavior, which in turn leads to particular aesthetic experiences” (Hunicke et al, 2004).

From the player’s point of view, “aesthetics set the tone, which is born out in observable

dynamics and eventually, operable mechanics.” An example of an aesthetic within the

player would be games as challenge or games as sensation. The game Quake uses the

sensations of challenge and fantasy as its aesthetic experience (Romero, 1996). Using the

MDA Framework to establish target aesthetics in the player will help to design the

mechanics and systems in order to achieve the desired gameplay.

The MDA Framework also provides a more exact vocabulary than simply “fun”

or “enjoyable” when describing a game. These aesthetics include games as sensation,

fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, and submission. These

target aesthetics will also work to describe a game inspired by dementia as more than

simply fun or enjoyable which is essential in creating a gaming experience from dementia

and other emotionally difficult scenarios. This framework will also help to establish a

target audience by focusing on the style of game that needs to be designed.

While the MDA Framework seeks to better describe the gameplay experiences

created by the designer and played by the player, the 6-11 Framework aids the designer in

“crafting emotionally engaging and, ultimately, ‘fun’ experiences” (Dillon, 2011).

“Games can be so engaging at a subconscious level because they successfully rely on a subset of basic emotions and instincts which are common and deeply rooted into all of us.” If the MDA Framework describes the player’s experience through the eight aesthetics, the 6-11 Framework works to describe why how those aesthetics are achieved through gameplay. This framework describes six basic emotions and the possible natural instincts that result from those emotions. The combination of these emotions and instincts result in either “joy” or “excitement.” If the game is designed according to a target emotion and instinct, the player should react in a certain way, if the design is successful.

The six emotions and eleven instincts found in the 6-11 Framework work to map out the player experience. For example, when a game is first played, the player might be in awe of the environment design. The players appreciate the rich colors and greenery found in the environment. The instinct of “appreciation” leads to curiosity as the player begins to explore the environment. Exploration is a dynamic within the game made up of the locomotion and viewing mechanics in the game. As the player explores, they may encounter an adversary. The instinct shifts from curiosity to survival. This framework can work to visually diagram the players experience in the game based on instincts and emotions as they play.

These two frameworks seek to describe emotions and aesthetics in the player that are a direct result of the mechanics and systems within the game and work to bring a

more direct vocabulary to describe the gaming experience. The fiction of the world is

important, but “fun” or “excitement” is a direct result of the game’s mechanics. “Chess is

a great game whether playing with stones or diamond encrusted ivory sculpted pieces”

(Humble, 2007). Every chess piece has a basic mechanic: movement. However, the

various rules on the pieces affect the styles of movement, just like rules on video game

mechanics. The queen has more movement options than a rook, and rook has more movement options than a pawn. These limitations (rules) work to change the game state resulting in strategies (dynamics) that result in a player aesthetic. In chess, the target

MDA aesthetic could be challenge, fellowship, or even submission. The satisfaction felt by playing chess comes from the strategies used and the rules on the various pieces.

When designing digital games, it’s important to remember the various rules on game mechanics and the accompanying changes in the game state.

The last model is the “Elemental Tetrad” from The Art of Game Design by Jesse

Schell. The elemental tetrad seeks to place equal importance on four critical parts of video game design: mechanics, story, technology, and aesthetics (Schell, 2008).

According to the tetrad, these four traits should be in harmony, reinforcing each other and working towards a common theme. Richard Rouse echoes this idea in his book Game

Design and Theory by saying the story, mechanics, and technology should support the gameplay (Rouse, 2001). This tetrad reminds designers that although mechanic design is a unique field to games, the finished experience is viewed as a whole by the player.

Figure 4. The Elemental Tetrad by Jesse Schell (Schell, 2008) In thinking about the design of my game and its mechanics, the core mechanic

needs to carry the weight of the message. The mechanic, or basic idea of the mechanic,

should result in the intended aesthetic and emotion regardless of visuals and audio. Rod

Humble’s game The Marriage is an attempt at creating a visually minimalistic game

about his interpretation of the marriage experience (Humble, 2007). However, the game was meant to be played and interpreted differently by players. “The game was created to be played, to be enjoyed by each person exploring the rules and how it related to their own life” (Humble, 2007). When creating a game where the interaction of the player and

the game’s systems carries the message, it’s important the designer knows many

interpretations of the meaning will be created. This is ok. This is what games are all about, the player having agency in the story.

Figure 5. Screen capture from The Marriage by Rod Humble (2007)

Creative Precedents

In this section, I want to examine three video games that in some way or another

use mechanics to share a deeper message, all driven by player interaction. All three

games attempt to add a deeper sense of meaning to the mechanics available to the player.

In doing so, I will explain how this transcends simple button pressing to a meaningful experience for the player. 23

Braid

Jonathan Blow has long been an advocate for games as an artistic medium. He believes that games can create unique story experiences. In his game Braid, the main character Tim tries to find the princess, much like the beginning of Super Mario Bros

(Blow, 2008). Except in this story, Tim forced the princess out of his life and now he’s trying to win her back. He wants to fix his mistake. The core game mechanic reflects this theme. The gameplay is similar to Mario, press a button to jump and press a button to move left or right. However, Braid introduces a new mechanic, time reversal. If a player falls into a pit and dies, the game doesn’t stop. The colors fade and the music halts, but the player can press a button and time reverses, allowing the player to try again, to fix their mistake.

Figure 6. Screen capture from Braid by Jonathan Blow (2008) Blow coined the term “dynamic meaning”, essentially stating that the mechanics of a game communicate something emotionally or intellectually with the player through 24 the player’s interactions. The meaning that Blow refers to is loose rather than strict. The meaning impacts players differently. In a lecture given at the 2008 Montreal Games

Summit, Blow says that “Perhaps the problem is that we so deeply rely on reference points like film, which require stories progressing over time, when we could be referring to things like sculpture or painting, which require no timescale and people find just as moving" (Blow, 2008). The idea of dynamic meaning in a game is less about a strict story and more about the player’s experience of the game at that particular point in time.

Figure 7. Screen capture from Braid by Jonathan Blow (2008) Braid, again, is about correcting mistakes. Tim did something in the past that needs to be fixed and he feels regret. The mechanics were designed to reinforce the idea of regret in the player, and yet allow them to fix their mistakes as they play, reflecting the character’s mental state. Tim’s main goal is to fix the mistake he made in the past with the princess. The mechanics echo this mental state by allowing the player to make mistakes and fix them throughout the game. Together with clever puzzles, Braid doesn’t 25 rely on in-game theatrics or points to reward the player. Instead, Braid rewards the player with natural rewards, the feelings of success and satisfaction when a player solves a puzzle. Ironically, the only mistake Tim can’t fix is the one that sent him on his quest in the beginning. Not all mistakes can be fixed, not even with time.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

When a player begins playing Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, they aren’t met with combat tutorials or maneuverability tests designed to teach the player the rules of the game in a safe environment (Antoniades, 2017). Instead, the camera follows Senua, the main character, in a canoe surrounded by hanging bodies and many of her internal voices.

The voices react to the player’s movements, often questioning why they made that choice. As the player looks around at the death and decay of the landscape, a sharp whisper hisses “turn around, turn around!” The game builds anxiety as soon as it is loaded. Senua suffers from severe psychosis and the game mechanics were designed so the player felt many of the emotions that come with the illness. The game has two main categories for mechanics, the combat and visual landscape puzzles.

The creators behind Hellblade, Ninja Theory, are known for their fast-paced action games like Enslaved and Devil May Cry. Hellblade, in comparison, is slow and clunky. There are no chain combos worth extra points if the player swiftly performs combat maneuvers to take down their enemies. Every attack with Senua’s sword has weight, every strike she receives is impactful. The player learns from the beginning of the game that defeat is an inevitable part of the game. The first fight the player enters is

impossible to win. Prior to fighting, there is no tutorial on how to fight, no explanation on

how to dodge. Instead, the player learns through failure. In doing so, the player learns

about a major source of anxiety as a result of a game mechanic: permadeath. Should the

player die in battle enough times, and the player will die throughout the game, all

progress is lost, and the player must restart the game. This mechanic isn’t directly related

to a mental state, but instead, works to create a sense of anxiety in the player during times

of combat. There is always a lingering fear of failure and the resulting death that occurs.

Figure 8. Screen capture from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice by Tameem Antoniades (2017) Related to the combat mechanics are the various enemies the player faces.

Besides the bosses, the player only encounters one enemy, the Northmen. These

repeating enemies develop a sense of dread in the player when they begin to recognize

the patterns that signal combat. Often Senua’s voices react to the play style of the character, cautioning her to be methodical and analytical with her approach to combat.

Unlike many action games developed today, there are no reward or skill points after

defeating an enemy. The combat portion of this game, while feeling repetitive at times, is

ultimately determined by the player’s skill and ability to learn the systems without a

traditional tutorial.

Repetition is an idea that inspired many of the design choices in Hellblade. Often

paths to new areas are blocked and Senua needs to solve a puzzle to gain entrance to the

new area. Senua sees visions of symbols floating in the air and searches for patterns in

the environment. From a design perspective, this mechanic is a great example of why

portraying mental states like various mental illnesses through game mechanics can be

extremely difficult. In illnesses like dementia or psychosis, repeating the same task over and over is very common. Repetition can be very boring, but it’s such a critical symptom of many mental illnesses, how can it be used as a satisfying game mechanic? The solution

in Hellblade was to use these puzzles as an opportunity for the player to explore the environment. This portion of the game has been critiqued fairly heavily. Alessandro

Fillari, a game critic at Gamespot, describes the puzzles as “clever”, but “the same style

occurs far too often, making some of the more drawn out sequences a chore” (Fillari,

2018). Ninja Theory took an almost literal approach to the illness of psychosis in the

design of their game mechanics. Anxiety and repetition were their main points of

inspiration for the resulting gameplay. This brings up an interesting design question of

which is better, an adaptation of the symptoms versus a metaphorical representation of

the mental states of these diseases?

Figure 9. Screen capture from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice by Tameem Antoniades (2017)

Papers, Please

The mechanics in Papers, Please are extremely simple (Pope, 2013). It could be argued that the systems aren’t even actually game mechanics, instead, the player is simply reading and checking. These words are verbs, however, and according to Jarvinen, these are the basis for creating mechanics in games. The game takes place in the fictional communist country of Arstotzka and the player is assigned a position at a border control checkpoint charged with checking passports. The player reads the updates for the immigration rules prior to the workday and must check passports and other documents to either deny or allow entry into the country. On the surface, the mechanics seem too simple to try and replicate mental states, but actually, it excels by placing emphasis and

consequences on the decisions the player makes. The mental state and emotions felt by

the player add another layer of depth to the game.

Figure 10. Screen capture from Papers, Please by Lucas Pope (2013) Papers, Please has a lot of text that needs to be read in order for the player to be

successful. In this game, the text works to inform the player of the game’s narrative but is also a critical component of the game’s main mechanics: reading and checking. Lucas

Pope, the game’s designer, used layered narratives to create internal conflict in the player.

The main loop in Papers, Please is as follows:

1) Allow a new traveler in the station

2) Check their papers against the day’s regulations

3) Make the decision to allow them entry or not

Based on the player’s decision, they are rewarded with extra money that can be used to

buy medicine and food for their family or be punished by not receiving the day’s wages,

which will eventually result in a family member’s death by starvation or illness, ending 30 the game. The decisions become more difficult as more regulations are placed on those who can enter the country. On day one, entrance to the country is restricted to those with an Arstoztka passport. On day two all papers need to be current. On day four, a woman tries to enter to see her son, but her papers aren’t current. Another layer of decision making is added, what’s the right thing to do? Is this the correct decision? Paper’s Please quickly adds other layers to the game’s decision making by incorporating bribes, threats, and terrorist watch lists. This quickly adds tension to the decisions made by the character.

The main reward in Paper’s Please is about resolving the internal conflict within the player (Johnson, 2014). The mechanics in the game were designed to allow the character to have an impact on the story and create their own conflict based on the player’s personal values.

Chapter 3: Concept Development for the Creative Project

Initially, I focused my creative work on simulating the dementia experience within an interactive setting like a traditional video game or VR experience. These experiences generated interest in their own way, but they weren’t enjoyable and players didn’t find them satisfying to play. The project began to evolve into a metaphorical representation of dementia through the player’s interactions rather than a strict recreation of the dementia experience. However, early in the research, I tried to create a simulated experience based on a single dementia symptom. Four prototypes exploring hallucinations, disorientation, and confusion resulted. These projects sought to describe the symptoms of dementia through the medium of interactivity. Because they led me to my current hypothesis, I consider them to be successful. Three of the projects attempted to make the player feel the same emotions as a person with dementia by causing frustration and confusion. The last loosely interpreted the symptoms that could be used in an arcade-style video game, more closely aligned with this creative project.

The first of these projects is called Remain Indoors. Prior to this game, I had never made a complete gaming experience. I focused on creating a finished project without taking a deep dive into the content. However, I made an honest attempt to create hallucinations within the player.

The main character of this game is an old man in his office. As the player explores the home, red warnings flash across the screen cautioning the player to stay in the home because strange disturbances are occurring in the city and to keep all doors locked. The player clicks on the screen to move the old man. As the player moves through the home, they find notes, keys, and photographs that hint to a science fiction story and the player’s past life. The more notes and keys the player finds the more access they have to the home. If the game is played long enough the creatures from the story invade the home and force the player to the basement. In the ending scene, a lone creature follows the player down the stairs and transforms into the player’s wife. She asks why on

Earth he’s in the basement. The game ends.

Figure 11. Screen capture of Remain Indoors

My personal experience with my grandfather influenced this game heavily. He

enjoyed reading, movies, and documentaries. He loved animal documentaries. Later in

his life, he began seeing characters and animals in his home. Many of these scenarios

were slightly outrageous, like a group of bunnies in the living room, or even an elephant

trying to go into the basement. The rest of the family had a good laugh. Sometimes, these

hallucinations were more frightening and dangerous. He accused family members of

being terrorists or spies. I tried to capture the dangerous hallucinations within Remain

Indoors. After making this game, I wanted to make lighter scenarios as well.

I titled my next project Barbara’s In the Parking Lot. The creation of mechanics

that would lead to confusion and disorientation influenced this game. I attempted to

recreate those feelings in the player as they played. People with dementia can at times

forget their surroundings. Ghent-Fuller points out that “The geographic disorientation

extends from an inability to orient themselves in their community, in their neighborhood, in their own home to eventual disorientation to their own body.” (Ghent-Fuller, 2014)

This quote really drove the central idea of this game. I wondered how I could design a

game where the player searches for something that doesn’t exist? How long will the

player play before they realize the gimmick? What will they do when they realize there is

no goal to be found? These questions influenced many of the design decisions of this project.

Figure 12. Screen capture of Barbara’s In the Parking Lot The game begins when Barbara leaves the supermarket and enters a parking lot.

The player is free to go wherever they want, but if they remain inactive, cars honk and other drivers yell at the character. The player, as Barbara, receives notifications on their phone from family members asking when she will be home because everyone is waiting on her. The main idea behind Barbara was to create a sense of disorientation in the player through repetition and randomly placed vehicles and pedestrians. I had hoped this situation would create similar feelings of frustration and hopelessness in the player, which it did. However, players would often quit the game before finishing. This was an

extremely important lesson to learn: the frustrations need to be balanced with in game

rewards.

Figure 13. Screen capture of the note in Eventide. In Eventide, the player is tasked with exploring various disturbances that occur

throughout the players home. At the beginning of the game, the player is in their office.

Prior to leaving, the player needs to do several small tasks like picking up a notebook or

turning out the light. Eventually, these tasks increase in number and in impact. When the

player finally goes downstairs, they are met with a shattered window and a rock with a

cryptic message saying “stop this please.” Other noises and bumps occur throughout the

sequence, leading the player throughout the home. An intentional design decision in this game was to make the events arbitrary. The player is being led throughout the home with no goal in mind. This created a flat ending to the game and left players confused as to why they were taking these actions. This project was a step in the right direction because these confused feelings were the goal, however, the lack of a goal hurts the “game-ness”

of this experience.

To bring all the ideas behind these prototypes back to game design, I decided to

look into gaming’s early history with arcade style games. Arcade games are typically

skill based with points and high scores as a reward. The goal of most arcade games is to

earn the high score so the player’s name will be on a public scoreboard. The mechanics

of these games usually involve quick twitch reactions and are easy to learn but very

difficult to master. For example, the original Donkey Kong involves only two main

mechanics, horizontal movement and jumping. Once the player reaches taller platforms,

the game becomes increasingly difficult (Miyamoto, 1981). The Kong character throws

more and more barrels and the space between the barrels shrinks, making the jumping

extremely difficult. The player must learn to quickly and almost instinctively combine the two mechanics to reach the goal. With this idea in mind, quick to learn and difficult to

master, I designed several prototype mechanics that eventually inspired the main

mechanic of this research project.

A common game genre found in arcade games is the platformer. Players usually

control a character on screen and move them left or right with a directional pad or

joystick. Platformer games usually consist of stationary and moving platforms that the

player needs to maneuver across using a combination of jumping and lateral movement.

Typically, the goal of these games is to journey past the obstacles and enemies to reach

the end of the level or stage. Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. are two examples of

platformer games. Using this popular genre as a starting point, I looked closely at the

physical symptoms that result from the various forms of dementia.

The platformer genre has a relatively long history compared to other game genres.

Donkey Kong was released in 1981 and sold over 60,000 arcade cabinets making it one of the most popular arcade games of all time (Kent, 2002). Even in the modern era of games, developers are still making fun and interesting platformer games that are extremely popular. Games like Hollow Knight combine developed characters and art styles with traditional platform mechanics to create more immersive experiences (Gibson and Pellen, 2017). Hollow Knight alone has sold over a million copies across multiple platforms (Walker, 2018).

Utilizing the history and popularity of the genre, I attempted to create my own platformer game but tried to manipulate the mechanics in a subtle way so players would perhaps feel similar emotions to those with Lewy Body Dementia or Parkinson’s, namely the physical tremors that occur when the person tries to hold still. In the game, the player controls the character like normal, left and right movement combined with jumping, however, when the player tries to stand still, the camera begins to shake violently.

Oncoming enemies and projectiles are difficult to see and dodge. The player is always forced to move the character in order to successfully navigate the level. The shakes were disruptive but ultimately didn’t feel natural in a platformer game. A major critique of the project was that the metaphor was too weak or unclear. Players couldn’t easily extrapolate my design goals from the camera shakes and relate them to anything other than an added challenge within the game. A personal critique of the prototype in retrospect is that the tremors weren’t a direct mechanic controlled by the player. The shakes were a result of the player's actions but there were no added rules to the mechanic

that kept the game interesting for the player. Moving on from this project, I wanted the

player to have direct control over the mechanic and somehow have it manipulate the way

the player explores the game and change their perception of the environment.

Mike Stout, a senior game designer that has worked on many successful

franchises including Resistance and Ratchet and Clank writes:

“In order for a game mechanic to be deep, it needs two very important things: 1)

It needs a clear objective, so the player knows what he has to do to succeed.

Confusion and obfuscation tend to make players feel like a mechanic less deep

once they find themselves needing to experiment randomly to win. 2) It needs a

variety of Meaningful Skills that you, as a game designer, can use to create good

challenges for the player and the player in turn can use to achieve mastery over

the game.” (Stout, 2010)

Using Stout’s advice as a guide for constructing a mechanic and thinking about the

dementia experience, I began prototyping an exploration mechanic that would eventually

lead to my research project. Due to the limited computing power of early arcades, the on-

screen characters often had simple animations that limited their expressions. Often the

movements of an arcade character aren’t as smooth when compared with modern game

animations. The Mario character in Donkey Kong only has three images to produce the

run animation. Compared to modern 3D games, a run cycle can have over three hundred

images. Using this limited processing power as a self-imposed problem to spark creative mechanics, I experimented with ways of limiting a player’s view of the game world in hopes of adding a sense of curiosity or mystery in the player. By limiting the view of the

world, I wanted the player to explore and learn about the environment and the mechanic

through interaction. Limitation, while not directly related to dementia, is an excellent way

to describe many of the symptoms. In a way, a person with dementia has a limited view

of the world. They can no longer recall what they used to. They can no longer safely

venture on their own. Even at times, their own homes become mysteries. Looking at the limitation of arcade games really sparked creative ideas that would eventually help me to create design goals for my research project.

Using interaction and game mechanics as the main area to describe dementia, creating a list of mechanics and ideas that could potentially inspire the main mechanic in a game or even a game itself became a logical next step. Some of these mechanic ideas included mechanic degradation, deciphering symbols and messages, making point or progress sacrifices to proceed, changing the perspective of the environment, and disappearing narrative and story information. There are many more ideas, but the concepts that really seemed important are the ones that affected the player’s interactions directly. Dementia is a very personal battle and struggle. The changes in perception are caused by the person’s own degradation of the mind. I believed it was important for the player to feel a similar struggle through their interactions.

I am interested in the way a player explores the environment. In the Legend of

Zelda: A Link to the Past, the player must explore an underground passage early in the game (Tezuka, 1991). The environment is dark, making it difficult to decipher enemies, puzzle blocks, and doors. Restricting a player’s own ability to perceive the game seemed

40 like a good starting point for conceiving a mechanic that it still enjoyable and yet a good representation of dementia.

Figure 14. Screen capture from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past by Tezuka Takashi (1991) I prototyped my own version of the Zelda lantern mechanic. The player had a limited view in front of them similar to Zelda. Instead of giving the player free reign of movement, however, I limited the character’s movement to only the forward direction.

The player can only move in the direction the character is facing and in the vertical or horizontal axis only, with no diagonal movement. This restriction of movement made it very easy for the player to overlook items that were right next to the character. These mechanics created gameplay that matched very well with subject matter I’ve been researching, and it’s all done through the movement choices of the player. This early prototype served as the basis for discovering the main mechanic for my game.

Chapter 4: Creative Process

Uncovering the Mechanic

The most common symptom found in Alzheimer’s disease is memory loss,

specifically the diminishing short-term memory. Early in my research, I used trickery or slight of hand to create memory difficulties in the player. In my game Eventide, I tried to move objects when the player wasn’t looking. If they saw an object on the table then went to the next room, when they returned that object may have been moved or missing. I always felt this was an unrealistic portrayal of the memory loss in dementia because as the designer, I was tricking the player. For my research project, finding alternative answers for portraying memory in an interactive game seemed important, especially in a

way that added meaning to the player’s interactions.

Thinking long and hard about how the design of these mechanics can aid in the

portrayal of the character’s mental state to add meaning to the player’s interaction, I

settled on an idea of dementia being the inspiration for distorting a person’s reality.

Dementia just doesn’t alter the brain; it completely changes how a person views and

interprets the world. The hallucinations and other symptoms are very real experiences to

the person with dementia. Thinking about the disease in this way opened a multitude of

new ideas that could make interesting game mechanics. Coming to this idea started with

nailing down the core qualities of dementia. This involved spending a lot of time with the

subject. This paper is partially the result of reading personal accounts of dementia

patients, healthcare professionals, and family members. The answer for creating a

mechanic relied on the answer to the question “what is at the core of dementia?” For me,

the answer is memory.

I began thinking about memory as a window or lens into the past and how

dementia changes what the person sees. Perhaps it would distort the view, make the lens

blurry or shrink the size of this lens depending on the rules of the mechanic. The player

could have control over this lens and use it to explore the past game world. The player

could see how objects and the environment changed over time, but all within a very

limited view. The player doesn’t have full access to the past, just what can be seen within the window. They must use this lens to uncover new areas and secrets within the environment to proceed to the next area.

The lens shows the past, not an alternate dimension or reality, but the past. This is

an important distinction as it relates to the dementia subject matter. The player needs to

view both their own past and the past of the environment with restrictions. To make this

point clear, I designed the environment and props while thinking about words like

erosion, aging, and decay. These descriptors worked well for the slow ruination of the

environment and functioned as a metaphor that mirrors the character’s own perception of

the world in the game.

Early Prototypes

Once the mechanic was created on paper, I began prototyping the mechanic in

Unity. I chose Unity partly because I am more familiar with the software, but also because of its strengths in 3D. I thought long and hard about the graphic representation, not the art style yet, but mainly 2D vs. 3D and what would work best for this mechanic. I believed the added depth and control that come with custom shading programs and the parallax from digital cameras would add to the sense of discovery and exploration I was hoping the player would feel. 2D would limit the use of digital lights and require handcrafting every animation. The focus of this project needed to be on the mechanic and how the player interacts with it, not necessarily the movement of the player character. 3D was better suited for most of these design intentions.

Once settling on 3D, I identified several large design problems before opening the software. One of the main challenges is that in order to show the past and present, I needed to create two versions of the environment. I began to research rendering and texture swapping techniques that would ease this creation process. Certain objects within the environment wouldn’t change their form or shape between the past and present, but perhaps the color would fade, and the object would wear down over time. It seemed a waste of resources to make two versions of something that wasn't going to change its form. I chose a texture swap solution by writing a piece of custom shader code within

Unity’s rendering system. A shader is a piece of code that determines what color the pixels on the screen will eventually be. They can manipulate how reflective and shiny an object is and they can determine the final color based on 2D images. Depending on the

44 input from the player, the position of the lens can move around the screen and show two different colors computed from the object’s shader.

Figure 15. An early texture swapping prototype

Fiction vs. Gameplay

Once this early test was successful, I began thinking about the MDA aesthetics I wanted the player to feel. The aesthetic “discovery” encourages the player to explore the game world. I designed the lens mechanic to better explore the environment and in turn, discover more about the world. However, for a game to have a successful discovery aesthetic, there needs to be enough interesting content for the player to find and a reason to explore the world.

These two factors contributed heavily to the type of game and gameplay that would eventually be in the final product. Discovery can be used in very different ways. In

a game like SimCity, discovery occurs when players interact with the game’s mechanics

and the resulting gameplay produces an output that is interpreted as a story by the player.

Jesse Schell refers to this style of gameplay as the “story machine method” (Schell,

2008). Games with these mechanic-produced narratives are often referred to as “emergent

narratives” (Ralph, 2014). In a game like Bioshock, discovery occurs as the player plays

and uncovers artwork and story segments by exploring and advancing through the world

(Levine, 2007).

Figure 16. Screen capture of the audio logs from BioShock by Ken Levine (2007) In my game, I wanted the player to have a sense of discovery by exploring the

environment using the main lens mechanic. There needed to be a reason to use the lens other than finding new fiction in the world. The game’s emphasis is on the mechanic and by extension, a player’s interactions not the fiction of the world, whatever form that would take. Early on I made the decision that whatever fiction would be in the world

must be uncovered using the lens mechanic, or its impact on gameplay must be through

the lens.

After sketching the mechanic on paper, I was curious what genre of game I would

choose. Instead of letting the mechanic itself dictate the style of game, I went back to the

source material. What style of game could bring about similar feelings and emotions that

relate to dementia? As I thought back to the symptoms, it always seemed that patients of dementia had a goal in mind, and they couldn’t quite figure out the answer. For example,

my grandfather would wake up and get ready for work late in life. He would shower, put

on old work clothes, and stand at the edge of the driveway where his coworkers would

pick him up and ride together to work. He had an objective and a goal but there was a

piece missing - that he was retired and no longer needed to work. This obvious piece of

missing information was caused by his dementia. Similarly, as I thought about the

dementia experience and memory to create a mechanic, I dwelt on the style of game that

would suit the subject matter. Missing pieces and mysteries seemed a great place to start,

like a puzzle that needed to be solved.

Puzzle games come in many shapes and sizes. Examples of puzzle games include

Tetris and the Portal series from Valve Software (Swift, 2007). Puzzles are even included

in many other genres to help keep the gameplay interesting. In the action-adventure game

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, the designers use puzzles to change the pace of the game

(Hennig, 2017). Normally the hero Nathan Drake is fighting a gang of criminals, but the

puzzles offer respite for the player, a short break to think about the environment and the

fiction in the world.

Figure 17. Screen capture of an environment puzzle in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune by Amy Hennig (2007) For my project, the genre of puzzle games seemed like a good starting point. I

played many puzzle games and watched other people solve the same puzzles to help with

my own designs. If my game was to be a puzzle game, I needed to know how people

solve them. Why do people solve puzzles? What kinds of rewards are offered to the

player for their solution? How are interesting puzzles made? In a talk given at the Game

Developer’s Conference in 1997, Bob Bates described what makes a good puzzle. He describes good puzzles as fair, natural to the environment, and they amplify the theme of the game (Bates, 1997). The answer to every puzzle needs to be located within the game.

Players should also be able to solve the puzzle on their first attempt if they think about it long enough. Puzzles also shouldn’t feel out of place within the world of the game. How a player moves through the puzzle space and the mechanics used to solve the puzzles should match the environment. Lastly, the puzzles should work with the theme of the

game. The decisions the player makes while solving the puzzle shouldn’t contradict the

choices they’ve made throughout the game.

I decided to make the solutions to my puzzles involve environment exploration.

The player must use the lens to uncover artifacts or areas that will lead to the puzzle

solution. Throughout the design of the project, I followed my self-imposed golden rule of all narrative needs to be uncovered using the lens, as well as all puzzles must, in some way, require the use of the lens. Again, the emphasis of the game needed to be placed on the player’s mental state represented by the mechanic. This way, all puzzles are created and solved through exploration using the past versus the present. The past and subsequent puzzle solutions are only visible through the representation of altered perception provided by the lens mechanic.

The Mechanic’s Rules

To create a mechanic with depth, it needs several key attributes. The player needs clear objectives in order to use the mechanic and the mechanic needs to have enough variety, so the player has different objectives when using the mechanic (Stout, 2010).

Lastly, a mechanic needs a bit of theatrics. Players need feedback when using game mechanics, because it can partially take place in the visuals and audio cues of the game mechanic. Of these three key points, “variety” is the most difficult problem to solve with this mechanic. My solution to this design problem is to add rules on the mechanic that directly affect how the player interacts with the main goal of the lens mechanic in hopes to change the game state and spur the character to make decisions.

The first rule I added onto the mechanic was the fading and shrinking of the size of the lens. The longer the player uses the lens the more it fades. This adds variety to the mechanic by adding an invisible timer to the puzzles and their solutions. Players must solve the puzzles before the lens completely shrinks. Once the lens is too small to use, the player must recharge it. The player can recharge the lens by bringing it to a certain object or zone within the environment and interacting with it. There are also areas in the game where a thick green fog shrinks the size of the lens and other areas that increase it, almost allowing the player to completely see into the past.

The ability to recharge the lens mechanic is a deliberate decision that stemmed from the dementia experience. Often a familiar object brings comfort and eases anxiety in a person with dementia. Other tools like a diary or calendar can add routine and objectives for the dementia patient. “An established routine and familiar environment are extremely important to a person with dementia’s comfort level.” (Tyrell, 2018) Creating a routine using visual and interactive metaphors was extremely important when crafting how the mechanic functioned and how the player can identify functions of objects within the world. In the game, the color purple and the various pools used to refill the torch’s fuel functioned as a respite area for the player.

The Art Style

I wanted all my decisions to be a result of the main game mechanic, everything

from the gameplay to the art style. I began thinking about what imagery would be best

suited for this game mechanic and ultimately the subject of dementia.

The landscape of many places in rural America, specifically the areas in southern

Ohio, has seen major changes in the past ten to fifteen years. The rise of the opioid crisis

and the use of fentanyl as a recreational drug have caused massive changes to the culture

around the counties of southern Ohio. The changes in my own hometown of Waverly,

Ohio in Pike County are immense and far-reaching. In Pike County alone, the number of overdose deaths has risen by more than five thousand percent in the last eight years, 509 total deaths in 2017 in a county with a population of less than 30,000 (Ohio University,

2018). Although the opioid crisis in America is not the focus of this paper or research

project there are interesting parallels between the degradation of a person’s mind due to

dementia and the change of a city or town over time. The drastic change in scenery from

quaint small towns lined with old German brick buildings to dilapidated and abandoned

streets make for strong visual metaphors to aid in the telling of my story, especially with

the chosen mechanic and gameplay of environment exploration.

I wanted to find outside sources to use as a reference for the culture in southern

Ohio. I have my own experience but in hopes of being objective, I wanted to find

personal accounts of the area. The collection of short stories called Knockemstiff by

Donald Ray Pollock was an excellent resource (Pollock, 2010). It served as a creative

precedent for representing the culture of southern Ohio, particularly Ross and Pike

County. The stories embrace the grit and poverty of the area in a way that I thought was

important to accurately represent the environment, both past, and present.

The two environments, both past and present, are the main stage areas for the

player and the mechanic. The two settings needed to be vastly different and obviously

past and present to the player. As a start, I chose two different times of the day. The

present, which is gloomier and foggier in comparison to the past, is also considerably

darker and less saturated. The past, in contrast, is brighter and warmer. This is

accomplished in two ways. Within the rendering system, the past environment has

brighter digital lights with warmer colors. The color textures used on the 3D models are slightly more saturated to stand out amongst the overbearing present environment. The fog also works to make the present more difficult to see. It’s purposely slightly green

with slow animations. The fog is a visual metaphor for the mind. Dementia can make

decisions difficult and clouds a person’s judgment. I wanted to reflect this through the

fog in the present environment.

I wanted to be specific with the colors I chose in order to create a sense of

repetition that is so important for patients with dementia and for visual storytelling. The

visual metaphors need to represent areas or zones that affect the strength of the lens

mechanic. Players can immediately know the result of interacting with these zones and

objects. I chose a soft, vibrant purple as the color of the past environment to create a

sense of mystery around the past without being sinister or forceful. A dull green and

brown are the main colors found in the present due to the overgrown and fading

52 environment. Because much of the game takes place outdoors, the purple tint to the past adds a much-needed contrast to the present to help the player decipher past from present.

The source of the lens mechanic needed to come from something. Early in the development of the project, I thought the mechanic should stem from the mind of the character because dementia occurs in the mind and alters a person’s perception. I moved away from this idea because perception changes can occur from external stimuli as well.

The mechanic needed to be a tool for the player and more puzzle design opportunities were available by attaching it to a prop within the game environment. Players would have two ways of interacting with past and present objects. They can hold the object and move with it, or they can position the object in an area and create a cause and effect scenario between the past and the present.

Ultimately, the prop became a torch that the player finds during their adventure.

The torch is old but has a faint purple glow. When the player first encounters the torch it’s nearly out of fuel and the player must recharge it at a nearby pool. The pool is reflective and purple. It works as the source of this mysterious power offered by the torch. I wanted the prop to be some sort of light. Just as a flashlight allows a person to see in the dark, the magical torch allows a person to see into the past. I purposely stayed away from any modern electronic device. An object with an almost natural source of energy, like a torch or perhaps even a gas lantern, would have a stronger attachment to the natural environment than an electronic device. The torch with its pools of energy became a visual metaphor for memory and familiarity.

Figure 18. Early image of the torch, the source of the mechanic

The Ranger Character and the Narrative

Because the emphasis of the game is on interaction, the mechanic needed an

avatar to drive the interaction. The character in the game is a state park ranger. The

ranger is old and tired, he’s been in the woods a long time as part of a search party for a

missing person and has yet to find anything. The player will uncover more about the fiction as they play and search the environment. The narrative is very loose, it’s up to the player to piece the bits together by exploring artifacts and objects scattered throughout the world. Again, the emphasis of this research project is on the interactions of the player through the mechanics. I tried to create a narrative and setting that adds motivation and reason to the mechanic and decisions made by the player.

The ranger character himself is old and balding. He has long, lanky limbs with a large beer belly. There is mud on his shoes and pants. The large belly, in contrast with his

long limbs, creates a unique shape when viewed through the game’s camera. It’s very

easy to find the character on screen even though he blends in with the surrounding green

and brown colors. The hat hides his face as he walks through the game. I purposely didn’t

want players to see too much of his face in hopes they would project themselves onto the

character.

Figure 19. The ranger character model

Camera

Prior to coding the systems that are used in the game, I looked at several games

and how their cameras function. These games include Diablo II, The Legend of Zelda: A

Link to the Past, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, and Hotline Miami. Each

of these games has a top-down camera and their camera systems were relatively simple,

but more importantly, these games are about exploring and using the environment to aid

in the gameplay. After a long look at these cameras, I decided a top-down view of the world would allow the player to see more of the environment as they explore. Using a 55

first person or third person camera would severely limit how much the player can see at

one time, especially when the player needs to view parts of the past in order to solve

puzzles in the present. The player isn’t necessarily the focal point of the game, instead it

is how the player interacts with the environment. Both need to be highlighted as the

player progresses through the game.

This brought up the next problem of camera perspective. The main systems in the lens are a mix of rendering tricks and adjusting what digital objects the camera can see.

Depending on the object, they are seen by a different camera and then saved as an image.

That image is applied to a cylinder slice that is being used as the lens. Problems arose

when determining how close to the camera the lens mesh should be. If the main camera is

isometric (no perspective), the mesh can simply move closer to the camera and there’s no

change in the parallax or depth effect and the lens appears to be on top of everything else.

However, after experimenting, I realized that using a perspective camera really added to

the mood of the game. The player was able to view the environment and see more of the

artwork. I switched to a top-down camera so players could view more of the environment

to allow for easier exploration. I switched to a perspective camera and a new problem

arose. The lens still functioned, but there was unwanted parallax and depth shifting when

the camera moved because of the lens’s position above everything else.

The solution to this unwanted movement was another rendering trick. With a little

bit of custom code, the lens was set to render above everything else, no matter its position

in 3D space. This solution allowed for the position of the lens to be directly on top of the

ground or even slightly below it and still appear as if it’s on top of the ground. This was

incredibly important to make the view into the past believable.

Changes During Production

As mentioned earlier, the project did go through numerous changes during production. The largest was a move from Aztec and Mesoamerican visuals to a rural forest setting. This change also brought a slight shift in the style of game. The project’s main gameplay influences outside of the main mechanic came from top-down Zelda games found on consoles like the Super Nintendo and Game Boy. These games rely on puzzles and combat as their main source of mechanic design. Early in the design of the game, I thought about creating ways for the player to fight enemies but ultimately decided that combat of any kind would feel out of place within this game. The subject matter of dementia and altered perception needed to be the focus. I didn’t want my players to feel any violence or aggression as they played my game, the emphasis would be exploration.

Another major change as a result of the visual change was the controller input itself. Previously I had planned on the game being controlled by a traditional game controller with two joysticks but eventually switched the input device to touch controls.

The game controller added too many unnecessary buttons and complicated the interactions. Using the touch controls the final project is built on a tap system. Depending on what the player touches, the on-screen character will interact with that object. For example, if the player taps on the torch, the ranger will walk to the torch and pick it up. If

the player taps on a pool to recharge the torch, the player will walk to the pool and refill

the torch. Most objects in the game react to the player touching them and provide

feedback to the player in some way.

The game was originally created in a dungeon style that’s often found in games like Zelda or Diablo. This level layout worked with the initial Aztec theme because the level was made to represent an Aztec god. When the style changed to a forest, I removed the architectural layout of the rooms so they player would feel like the connections between areas were more organic. The initial puzzles remained, however, their presentation altered greatly. This change also led to the addition of a short transition scene that required the player to lead the ranger left to right in a slightly darker wooded area to create a feeling of exploration and travel. I really wanted the forest to feel large without making an entire forest. This transition sequence was my compromise.

Chapter 5: Synopses

Short Synopsis

Clear Lake is an exploration adventure game in which the player uses the past to explore the present by means of a mysterious burning torch. Players take the role of the ranger, an old man on the search for a group of missing campers. Use the torch to find objects in the past that uncover the mystery of the present.

Long Synopsis

When I began designing Clear Lake, I wanted to create a game that showed the main character’s mental state through the creation of a unique game mechanic. I wanted to discover what interactive metaphors could look like and how they differ from visual metaphors found in other visual mediums. I really wanted to add depth to the actions of the player because they reflect the in-game character’s perception or mood of the world.

The content I chose to explore this mechanic was dementia. I began by experimenting with abstract shapes and movements. I strongly felt that memory was by far the most important dementia symptom that needed to be represented. Distilling that into an enjoyable game mechanic, however, took many iterations and hard looks at various games and their genres. The work of Jonathan Blow and Rod Humble were huge inspirations as I began to explore story and meaning through interaction.

The creative process involved the creation of the mechanic and discovering a

narrative that benefited the theme of dementia and memory loss. The mechanic ultimately

took the form of a magic torch that allowed the player to view into the past. The torch

illuminates a small radius around the player allowing them to interact with past objects

while in the present. This becomes useful especially when the player discovers fallen

trees that block the exit and a bridge that had collapsed. Using the torch allowed a tiny

window into the past. This view is very restricted and has its own rules. The longer the

player uses the torch, the faster it burns, reducing the circle of view. The window into the

past becomes smaller and smaller until it’s more of a hindrance, distracting the player

from their main goal.

The setting of Clear Lake is loosely based on the forested areas of southern Ohio.

The landscape of small Appalachian towns has changed drastically in the past ten to

fifteen years. What used to be lush green forests and quaint small towns have turned into a population of drug abusers due to the opioid crisis. This change from past beauty to modern degradation matched well with the degradation of the mind that comes with

Alzheimer’s disease.

The narrative outside of the ranger character involves a community searching for a group of lost campers. The main character, the forest ranger, is part of a search crew scouring the forest for any sign of the lost group. The search party has turned up empty-

handed in their efforts. Many folks in the town are starting to give up hope.

The ranger comes across the torch as the player explores the forest. Many objects

in the forest have eroded away. Several of the signs are unreadable, beer cans scatter the

60 ground, and fallen trees act as obstacles. A soft purple fire still burns on the end of the torch. A small ring forms on the ground at the ranger feet, radiating from the soft glow of the embers. In the ring, the grass is greener and fresh, it almost smells like spring. It reminds the ranger of happier times.

The ring is too small to explore with. Nearby, a similar purple glow comes from a natural spring. Walking to the spring causes the ring to expand. The entire area within the ring becomes lush. The broken signs are whole again. Tree stumps become large pines.

Fallen trees are back upright. More areas are open to the ranger, places the search party has yet to look.

Moving forward through the forest brings the ranger to a small stream, nearly dry.

The torch fades the longer he holds it, the land returns to its modern decay. The green shifts back to brown, the stale smell of beer returns to the air. The faint purple glow of another spring calls to the ranger. As he nears the spring, again the torch comes to life, the beautiful landscape returns. The small brook is now a full flowing river. Where it was previously impassable, the old bridge is still solid. The search continues.

Along the way, the ranger uncovers several clues, a shoe, a backpack, and a sweatshirt. This doesn’t bode well for the missing campers. After reaching a clearing, the ranger spots a sagging tent, still no children. He searches the area and comes across a body, it’s been dead for a while. Using the torch, the ranger gets a better idea of what happened to the boy and gathers more clues to the whereabouts of the rest of the group.

With Clear Lake, I hope that players will begin to see the torch as a faulty means of exploration. The torch is necessary but ultimately not reliable due to the fade. The past

61 isn’t always available to the player. I want the spring that causes the torch to burn bright to become a breath of fresh air for the player, that they begin to view the spring as an area of respite. They can now progress with the game and the ranger can move forward.

Chapter 6: Evaluation of the Creative Research and Project Result

The purpose of this research project was to investigate the design of game mechanics and how they can represent a character’s mental state. Another question that came about because of this investigation was how to portray difficult scenarios like dementia and still create a satisfying game.

In order to conduct this investigation, I designed a game mechanic inspired by the symptoms of dementia. Addressing the above research questions required developing a game mechanic that functioned as a metaphorical interpretation of memory loss and a game that utilized the mechanic. The creation of Clear Lake came in many layers starting with simple shapes and colors with minimal narrative to explore how interaction can shape an experience. This led to more detailed graphics and a firm traditional narrative surrounding the mechanic. The first major step was designing the core of the game, the dementia mechanic. The mechanic then helped to inspire the gameplay and the graphical representation.

To design the mechanic, I distilled dementia into its most recognizable symptom, memory loss. This allowed me to focus on the creation of a single, unique game mechanic. I began to design the overall gameplay once the mechanic was designed to be sure the message in the mechanic fit the gameplay. These tests that were interaction focused allowed for iteration to create the proper gameplay style. An early prototype was

more aligned with an action adventure game. I decided that combat wouldn’t represent

the subject of dementia well, so I quickly abandoned the prototype. This early exploration

was valuable because I thought about the impacts that the game would have on the player

through the lens of the MDA Framework and the instincts they should feel as described

by the 6-11 Framework. This ultimately led to the exploration and slow movement found

in the final project.

The focus of the game is in the mechanics, how the player interacts with the

ranger and in turn, how the ranger interacts with the world. While visuals were not the

primary focus of this project, the environment and the visual style of the ranger character

would add to the interactive narrative I tried to craft. In particular, the balance of past

versus present and the distinction made using color, deterioration, and fog helped to add a

sense of time passing between the two worlds.

Technology did not dictate the outcome of this research project. I chose the engine and format because of their strengths in 3D and versatility in creating games for various platforms. However, there were a few limitations as the solo developer of an interactive project. A few design problems I would have liked to have solved included the disc I used for rendering the past world and the quantity of props found in the past and present. The main disc that rendered the past was a 3D object displaying the contents of a camera looking at only the past objects. It’s obvious the disc is separate from the glow and the effects that work to show the past. Possible solutions for this problem are a custom rendering shader that feathered the edges of the disc or applying the noise effect to every single object, an option I will probably choose in the future.

In order to entice the player into exploring the world, there needs to be enough

content in the world for them to find. Apart from the main story of searching for the

missing campers, I’m working to add subtle side stories involving photographs and letters

of a person’s dive into drug addiction. This small side story was to reflect the

deterioration of the environment within an external character. The good parts of this

character would only be viewable in the past and the worst in the present. Ultimately, I

wasn’t sure that this side story added to the representation of dementia, but I felt it added

to the environment that the player could explore.

The creative project attempted to make the environment intriguing by giving the

player the ability to see the past and present environments. This view is meant to

represent the ranger’s memory of the past environment. As the player moves throughout,

the size of this view decreases, causing the memory to shrink until nothing can be seen.

The memories are brought back when the player find the glowing, purple pools. This interaction, I’m sure, will be interpreted differently by each player. As a game designer, I believe a player’s interpretation of their own interactions is extremely valid and personal.

Will a person know what the dementia experience is like by playing this game? No,

however, through a careful design of mechanics, players can begin to create their own

interpretation of the on-screen character and their current mental state. It’s important for

the character to realize the restricted access to the past that they have control over. The

link to dementia is through interaction, not the forest narrative in the game.

Richard Rouse in his book Game Design Theory and Practice presents three common

starting points for developing games. In this section I want to focus on the first of his

three approaches, “Starting with Gameplay” (Rouse, 2001). This process begins with

thinking about a style of gameplay and how it compares to similar games as an excellent

starting point for designing a new game. Narrowing down the gameplay helps to solidify

the game’s genre: FPS, platformer, survival horror, etc. Once the game type is

determined, the designer will work to make all aspects of the game cohesive. These

aspects include visual style, mechanics, the technology used, and the story being told. All

these smaller parts work together to create an enjoyable game because they resonate and

support each other. Jesse Schell refers to this support system as the “elemental tetrad” as

referenced earlier in figure 4.

Each of these elements is a pillar of equal importance in the game development

pipeline. They each have their unique problems and solutions. The game would feel flat if

even one of these pillars were weaker than the rest. Together, they form the foundation of

a good, cohesive gaming experience. The four tetrads need to “work in harmony,

reinforcing each other, and work together toward a common theme” (Schell, 2008).

My approach to the design of Clear Lake differed slightly from Rouse and

Schell’s approach to game design. My goal was to use the game’s main mechanic as a

way for the player to experience the game’s message, in this case dementia. The player

would explore the world using the mechanic, but the specifics of the game and gameplay

were not designed until after the main mechanic was designed on paper. I felt the main mechanic needed to carry narrative weight on its own, without technology or visuals. By designing the mechanic with the goal of portraying a message through interaction away from the other elements, I was able to create a mechanic that worked to share this

66 experience through interaction alone. Once this process was complete, I was able to look at the rest of the tetrad components and give them adequate time to strengthen the main mechanic and add context to the player’s interaction. This process keeps the tetrads at equal importance, but simply changes the order when they occur in the game design process. Clear Lake began with a game mechanic. After the mechanic was designed, compatible gameplay was created using the MDA Framework following a target aesthetic. Using the framework led to developing a visual style that would be cohesive with the desired gameplay. Lastly, the narrative was written with the help of the 6-11

Framework to establish target instincts that the player should feel as they play, namely curiosity to urge the player to explore the environment.

Rod Humble’s experimental game, The Marriage, seeks to describe a narrative through only interaction. The problem with this narrative, and Rod Humble admits this in his write up, is the game requires an explanation in order to learn his true design motivations for creating The Marriage. He describes this game as an attempt to create

“art” and “expression through gameplay” (Humble, 2007). These descriptions are not unlike my own attempts at developing mechanics to share a character’s mental state. This game does not rely on Schell’s tetrad and does not follow Rouse’s “starting with gameplay” workflow. Instead, Humble focuses on designing mechanics that had personal meaning to him and shared the game with the world. People contributed their own meaning to the interactions as they played. The message could potentially become clearer had Humble leaned more on Schell’s tetrad, specifically the narrative. However, his goal as a designer was to solely convey meaning through interaction.

Jonathan Blow, similarly, has created “message through mechanics” style of games as well. His game Raspberry was an experiment in seeing if gameplay could induce similar rhythm-based emotions that music does (Blow, 2006). “The original idea was to try and explore the way music can induce emotion and see if the same sort of thing can be done through gameplay” (Blow, 2006). In his own description of the game, Blow admits the game is hard to “get” and like The Marriage, needs some explanation (Blow,

2006). However, his intentions were to experiment with gameplay to see its effects on players. These games attempted to communicate the game’s message through interaction.

My work is heavily influence by these two games. I want to create mechanics that on their own can lead players into finding the game’s message. By surrounding this mechanic with the proper aesthetics, technology to develop the aesthetics, and the correct narrative, the game will carry a cohesive message built on the foundation of the game’s mechanics. The figure below works to graphically represent my approach to this design process by making Clear Lake. While Schell’s elemental tetrad describes the equal importance of each aspect, my chart describes my design approach in creating a

“mechanics as message” style of game. This chart is intended to show the steps taken to create a game mechanic that can also carry story weight and share a character’s mental state.

Figure 20. Design process for a Mechanics as Message game This process contains three main steps in creating a game mechanic that can function within the tetrad approach and still share the game’s message through interaction. The first step is deciding the content. This requires time with the subject and hard research into the content. For this project, I read personal accounts of dementia patients, health professionals, and personal accounts of family members of dementia patients. Once this initial info gathering was finished, I wrote a list of verbs and adjectives that described the subject. For dementia, I wrote the symptoms and descriptions of what is occurring. The personal accounts were very helpful because they describe the disease based on their own experience. It’s very helpful to see the situation based on someone else’s experience. Next, search mechanics in other games for possible overlap. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past served as heavy inspiration for my lens

mechanic. Last, prototype a few of the better ideas on paper and submit them to peers for

feedback.

Once the initial mechanic has been designed, the designer should begin to explore the metaphor they’re taking from the subject matter. How does the mechanic move from paper to game engine? How does the interaction feel? What do the interactions mean?

How do they relate to the subject matter? Keeping in mind the aesthetics from the MDA

Framework and instincts from the 6-11 Framework will allow the designer to formulate interactions that serve as a metaphor for the core of their subject.

Lastly, refer to the original subject for gameplay inspiration. Return to the lists and begin to design gameplay in support of your mechanic. In Clear Lake, the mechanic generated a lot of mystery around the player. This led to puzzle designs that urged the player to use the mechanic to explore the environment. The mechanic, the gameplay, and the subject matter all reflected each other and worked to share the mental state of the character.

By shifting the pipeline, designers can begin to craft mechanics that achieve storytelling through interaction by designing meaningful mechanics. The emphasis moves from the finished game product and gameplay towards the design of a mechanic that works to share narrative information about the character or story. This research worked to show how a mechanic can shed light on the character’s mental state and allow the player to experience the altered perception crafted by the mechanic.

Bibliography

Bates, Bob. “The Art of Puzzle Game Design.” http://www.scottkim.com.previewc40.carrierzone.com/thinkinggames/GDC00/bates.html

Bellman, Jonathan, Flanagan, Mary. “Designing Games to Foster Empathy.” Cognitive Technology, Vol 14, no. 2

Blow, Jonathan. “Conflicts in Game Design 2008 Talk.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 Apr. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTV8qLbBWE.

Dillon, Roberto. “The 6-11 Framework: A New Methodology for Game Analysis and Design.” DigiPen Institute of Technology, Singapore, 2011

Fabricatore, Carlo. “Gameplay and Game Mechanics: A Key to Quality in Videogames.” Expert Meeting on Videogames and Education, 2931 October, 2007

Fillari, Alessandro. "Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Review." GameSpot. April 06, 2018. https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/hellblade-senuas-sacrifice-review/1900-6416724/.

Fletcher, Paul. “Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - Senua's Psychosis Feature.” Oct. 10 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31PbCTS4Sq4&has_verified=1

Ghent-fuller, Jennifer. Thoughtful Dementia Care: Understanding the Dementia Experience. Amazon Createspace, 2014

Humble, Rod. “The Marriage.” https://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/marriage.html.

Hunicke, Robin, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek. "MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research." Northwestern.edu. https://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf.

Järvinen, Aki. “Introducing Applied Ludology: Hands-on Methods for Game Studies.” Veikkaus the Finnish National Lottery, 2007

Johnson, Cory "What Games Can Learn from the Engagement Layers of Papers, Please." Gamasutra Article. https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/CoryJohnson/20141210/232045/What_Games_Can_L earn_from_the_Engagement_Layers_of_Papers_Please.php.

Kent, Steven L. The Ultimate History of Video Games. Random House International, 2002.

Lubbock, Percy. The Craft of Fiction: By Percy Lubbock. J. Cape, 1921.

Lucas, George, and George Lucas. Star Wars. 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, 1977.

Scorsese, Martin, and Taplin, Jonathan. Mean Streets. Warner Bros. 1973.

Mamet, David. On Directing Film. Penguin, 1991.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. William Morrow, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.

“Ohio University.” OHIO Researchers, Partners Find Meth, Similar Drug Overdoses Growing Rapidly, 29 Oct. 2018, www.ohio.edu/ucm/media/news- story.cfm?newsItem=86615DD9-5056-A874-1D631237677FFFED.

Perry, Bruce Duncan. Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential - and Endangered. HarperPaperbacks, 2011.

Pollock, Donald Ray. Knockemstiff. Vintage Digital, 2010.

Ralph, Paul, and Kafui Monu. "A Working Theory of Game Design." First Person Scholar. http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/a-working-theory-of-game-design/.

Rouse, Richard. Game Design, Theory and Practice. Wordware Pub.

Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. The MIT Press, 2010.

Sicart, Miguel. “Defining Game Mechanics.” Game Studies, Vol 8 Issue 2, Dec. 2008. http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/sicart

Schell, Jesse. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. Taylor & Francis. 2008.

Stout, Mike "Evaluating Game Mechanics For Depth." Gamasutra Article. https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134273/evaluating_game_mechanics_for_dept h.php.

Tyrell, Karen. "Alzheimer's Disease And The Need For Familiar Environment and Routine." Personalized Dementia Solutions Inc. December 20, 2018. http://www.dementiasolutions.ca/alzheimers-disease-familiar-environment-routine/.

"U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Pike County, Ohio." Census Bureau QuickFacts. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/pikecountyohio/PST045217#PST045217.

Walker, Alex. "Hollow Knight Has Sold More Than 1 Million Copies On PC." Kotaku Australia. July 05, 2018. https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/07/hollow-knight-has-sold- more-than-1-million-copies-on-pc.

Wondra, Joshua D., and Phoebe C. Ellsworth. “An Appraisal Theory of Empathy and Other Vicarious Emotional Experiences.” Psychological Review, vol. 122, no. 3, 2015.

Ludography

Allgeier, Brian. Ratchet & Clank, Insomniac Games, 2002

Antoniades, Tameem. DmC: Devil May Cry. Ninja Theory, 2013

Antoniades, Tameem. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Ninja Theory, 2017

Blow, Jonathan. Braid. Number None, 2008

Blow, Jonathan. Raspberry. Number None, 2006

Boon, Ed. Mortal Kombat. Midway, 1992

Brevik, David, and Schaefer, Erich and Schaefer, Max. Diablo II. Blizzard North, 2000

Davies, Mark. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Ninja Theory, 2010

de Plater, Michael. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. Monolith Productions, 2014

Fujibayashi, Hidemaro. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nintendo

Entertainment, 2017

Gibson, Ari, and Pellen, William. Hollow Knight. Team Cherry, 2017

Green, Ryan. That Dragon Cancer. Numinous Games, 2016

Hennig, Amy. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Naughty Dog, 2007

Hines, Adam and Krankel, Sean. Oxenfree. Night School Studio, 2016

Hudson, Casey. Mass Effect. Bioware, 2007

Hope, Alistair. Alien: Isolation Creative Assembly, 2014

Humble, Rod. The Marriage. 2007

Kaplan, Jeff. Overwatch. Blizzard Entertainment, 2016

Kojima, Hideo. Metal Gear Solid. Konami, 1998

Levine, Ken. BioShock. 2K Games, 2007

Pope, Lucas. Papers, Please. 2013

Miyamoto, Shigeru. Donkey Kong. Nintendo, 1981

Miyamoto, Shigeru. Super Mario Bros. Nintendo, 1983

Pajitnov, Alexey. Tetris. 1984

Romero, John. Quake. Id Software, 1996

Shikata, Hiromasa. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Nintendo, 2013

Söderström, Jonatan and Wedin, Dennis. Hotline Miami. Dennaton Games, 2013

Stout, Michael. Resistance. Insomniac Games, 2006

Swift, Kim. Portal. Valve Corporation, 2007

Tezuka, Takashi. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Nintendo, 1991