| Reminds me of: > A very common practice in videogames is to make your game visually immersive—that is to say, to visually portray the game’s elements in such a way that makes the player, to some extent, feel like they’re “really there.” The most obvious way this is employed is via a firstperson point-of-view camera, as seen in titles like Counter-Strike or Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In these titles—especially in the highly fantasy-simulation-dependent Skyrim—part of the idea is to “immerse” the player in the world. > The problem is, this isn’t where “immersion” really comes from. Ever notice how people get incredibly immersed in a great novel? What could be further away from the literal, realistic portrayal of reality that Skyrim brings than a set of glyphs in black and white printed on dead trees? And yet novels routinely engage people to the point where they are completely and utterly immersed. > The myth is that immersion comes from visual/auditory messages, but the problem is the human mind wanders quickly. We’re curious and inquisitive and while a picture-perfect image might in fact immerse us for a moment, if there isn’t an engaging system there for us to keep us immersed, we’ll quickly snap out of it and remember that we’re just tinkering with some computer program. > The thing that engages people in interactive systems is actually quality interaction—for games, this means interesting, difficult and meaningful decisions as frequently as possible. Quote from Keith Burgun's "Clockwork Game Design" |