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How can you use game mechanics to create empathy with your character?

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Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. In game design, empathy can be a powerful tool to create immersive and meaningful experiences for the players. But how can you use game mechanics to create empathy with your character? In this article, we will explore some examples and tips on how to design games that make the players feel what the character feels.

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Yuri Flagrare ??

Coding and designing narratives for games and a thousand universes | Nothing is more powerful than a story | ??…

1 Choose a relatable character

One of the first steps to create empathy with your character is to make them relatable to the players. This means giving them a personality, a backstory, a motivation, and a goal that the players can connect with. You can use dialogue, cutscenes, voice-overs, or environmental clues to reveal your character's traits and history. For example, in The Last of Us, you play as Joel, a grizzled survivor who lost his daughter in a zombie apocalypse. Through his interactions with Ellie, a young girl he has to escort across the country, you learn more about his past, his regrets, and his hopes.

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Georgios Christou, PhD

Helping Software Developers Master Their Craft | Writing for Aspiring and Junior Software Developers | Software Development Consultant and Professor of Computer Science
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Creating empathy means creating an emotional connection between your player and your player's avatar. Therefore your character needs to be relatable. That does not mean that your character should not have all the superpowers in the world! However, there needs to be a specific challenge to your character's view of the world so that the character will have to struggle to make the world just a little better. From killing zombies to creating a beautiful farm, your player's avatar needs to have compelling challenges that grow with the character's experience, so that you motivate your player to discover more of the game, and become more related with the avatar.

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Malik Fida Hussain

#GameProducer #PassionateGamer #ProductManagement#ProjectManagement #ImmersiveExperiences #TeamCollaboration #PlayerExperience #InnovativeMechanics #ProcessImprovement #PsychometricTesting
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For example in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons This game showcases empathy through its unique mechanic of controlling two characters simultaneously. Players navigate challenges, fostering a deep connection between the brothers. The game uses gameplay mechanics to emphasize their bond, such as coordinating movements or solving puzzles that require cooperation, effectively engaging players emotionally in their journey. Leveraging game mechanics strategically is pivotal in creating empathy with characters. By immersing players in emotional narratives, fostering character growth, enabling player-driven choices, and utilizing immersive mechanics, games can evoke empathy and forge emotional connections between players, enhancing gaming experience.

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2 Use perspective and control

Another way to create empathy with your character is to use perspective and control to influence how the players see and interact with the game world. Perspective refers to the point of view from which the game is presented, such as first-person, third-person, or top-down. Control refers to the degree of agency and freedom that the players have over the character's actions, such as movement, combat, dialogue, or choices. For example, in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, you play as Senua, a Celtic warrior who suffers from psychosis. The game uses a first-person perspective and a limited control scheme to make you experience her hallucinations, voices, and fears.

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3 Create emotional feedback

A third way to create empathy with your character is to create emotional feedback that reflects the character's state of mind and affects the gameplay. Emotional feedback can be visual, auditory, or tactile, and can range from subtle to dramatic. For example, in Heavy Rain, you play as four different characters who are involved in a serial killer case. The game uses a dynamic soundtrack, a shaky camera, and a context-sensitive control system to convey the characters' emotions, such as anxiety, sadness, or anger.

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4 Challenge the players' morals

A fourth way to create empathy with your character is to challenge the players' morals and values by presenting them with dilemmas, consequences, or ethical questions. These can be explicit or implicit, and can have a significant impact on the story, the character, or the gameplay. For example, in Papers, Please, you play as a border inspector in a fictional dystopian country. The game forces you to make difficult decisions, such as whether to accept or reject immigrants, whether to follow or disobey the rules, and whether to help or harm your family.

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Jonathan Molina-Flores

Student at Hunter College
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When challenging a player’s morals, The question that should be asked is, what kind of morals will we be challenging? We also need to understand where the morals will be coming from, is it from humanity? Society? Philosophy? Culture? Politics? Once we have made a decision, we incorporate it, and test a player in how they themselves will define and deal with morals. Other examples like papers please, is the Last of Us Part II, where the entire dynamic of the main characters and what is right and wrong is questioned and challenged entirely. Another few examples are the Bioshock series, the Walking dead telltale game, and Fallout series in which your choices will depend on where your morals are and change the path of the player’s and ending.

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5 Involve the players' emotions

A fifth way to create empathy with your character is to involve the players' emotions by making them care about the character, the story, or the outcome. This can be done by creating emotional bonds, stakes, or twists that engage the players' feelings, such as happiness, sadness, anger, or surprise. For example, in Undertale, you play as a human child who falls into a world of monsters. The game allows you to befriend, spare, or kill the monsters, and changes the story and the tone depending on your actions. The game also breaks the fourth wall and addresses the players directly, making them question their role and their morality.

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Daniela dos Santos

Sócia da BLW GAME BRASIL Ltda | Tecnologia | Sustentabilidade
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A realidade de vida do jogador retratado no game contribui para que seja criado um la?o entre ambos (jogador e personagem), isso já está comprovado. A realidade de vida é o campo que se faz necessário realizar um amplo estudo para que seja retratado de forma respeitosa. O conjunto emocional de um game também deve ser testado com o intuito de n?o provocar rea??es adversas, como tristeza profunda ou despertar fobias.

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6 Experiment with different mechanics

A sixth way to create empathy with your character is to experiment with different mechanics that can enhance or subvert the players' expectations, assumptions, or perceptions. These can be innovative, creative, or unconventional, and can challenge the players' cognitive, emotional, or social skills. For example, in The Stanley Parable, you play as Stanley, an office worker who follows or defies the narration of a mysterious voice. The game plays with the concepts of choice, agency, and metafiction, and offers multiple endings and paths that reveal different aspects of the character and the game itself.

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7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Yuri Flagrare ??

Coding and designing narratives for games and a thousand universes | Nothing is more powerful than a story | ?? Narrative Designer and Programmer
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Character = gameplay. Repeat that with me. Character is gameplay. Gameplay is character. Your character and the game mechanics should be so linked together that you wouldn't be able to say what came first. In a well-designed game mechanic, a great character is inevitable. The first thing to achieve that is, every time you add a new mechanic ask yourself: Why? Why would the character have to interact with the world this way? Why would this character have this ability or capability? Why would the world enable this? Approaching it this way, you will find that your characters will become the mechanics - and hence an extension of the gameplay experience (and player agency)

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How can you use game mechanics to create empathy with your character?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 Choose a relatable character

2 Use perspective and control

3 Create emotional feedback

4 Challenge the players' morals

5 Involve the players' emotions

6 Experiment with different mechanics

7 Here’s what else to consider

Game Design

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How can you use game mechanics to create empathy with your character?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 Choose a relatable character

2 Use perspective and control

3 Create emotional feedback

4 Challenge the players' morals

5 Involve the players' emotions

6 Experiment with different mechanics

7 Here’s what else to consider

Game Design

给文章评分

感谢您的反馈

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