The 3 Pillars of Immersive Games Pt. 2: Gameplay
The first of the 3 Pillars we'll discuss is the important in making a game that is good, but does not make a title immersive on its own
Gameplay is the first of the 3 Pillars because it is, at the end of the day, what games are all about (that’s why it accounts for the first half of the word). As someone who has played almost the entirety of Quantic Dream’s and Telltale Games’ catalogues, I’ll be the first to admit that it is possible for a game to be “good” while coming up short in this category. However, this often keeps these titles that are more or less interactive movies from feeling truly immersive, and just about every other aspect of them must be nearly flawless to be considered “good.”
When figuring out players’ roles within their games, developers have the pie-in-the-sky goal of creating gameplay that is fun — after all, the reason people play games is to have fun. Making a game fun is no small task, and there’s no exact science for how to achieve this criteria. Countless projects (and millions, if not billions, of invested dollars) have been scrapped after years of development when studio leaders realized a nearly finished product came up short of the F-word (and they probably said another F-word after realizing this). Legendary video game journalist Jason Schrier talks about some particularly devastating and high-profile instances of this in “Blood, Sweat, and Pixels” and “Press Reset” (both of which I’ll recommend to anyone even moderately interested in how video games are made).
With “fun” being such an elusive and moving target in game design, this puts finding a play style that hooks the player — without overwhelming or oversimplifying, while also feeling both fresh and familiar — at a premium. There’s no one, right, or automatic way to make a game that is fun, but cracking this formula is critical in delivering an experience that immerses players (you’re not going to be enraptured by a game that is boring to play).
A game that is not discussed in this book (though likely will be in a future work), SHIFT UP’s Stellar Blade delivers what I would call a best-in-class melee combat experience. It features an array of multi-button combos, aerial-to-ground (and vice versa) assaults, special attacks that build mid-battle by filling up meters both over time and by landing basic attacks, a variety of enemy types requiring different strategies to effectively cut through, a skill tree that offers a true RPG experience (allowing players to customize their build in a way that suits their own personal playstyle), and much more. And it all blends together seamlessly in a way that is satisfying, and is handed to the player in pieces over the game’s 40ish-hour campaign so it never feels like too much all at once. To me, this is a “fun” experience.
At the same time, a game like Super Mario Bros. Wonder — which rewrites the classic 2D Super Mario Bros. formula by introducing reality-bending Wonder Flowers that enact a new set of rules and gameplay mechanics in each level when activated — is also extremely “fun” while being technically limited by the 2D space it occupies on the Switch, compared to a fully 3D experience running on the much more powerful PlayStation 5, like Stellar Blade does. The point I’m trying to make is that while “fun” and “technically impressive” are not mutually exclusive ideals in game design, there are some universal core tenants that make games fun to play.
As someone who’s been playing video games for the past 25 years or more (Pokémon Red Version on the Gameboy, thanks for asking), I can tell you that a developer who is creative and is not afraid to experiment and break the mold with a wide range of ideas is much more likely to succeed in this category than one who likes to play it safe. One game I’m really excited to revisit and talk about in this book is The Game Awards’ 2024 Game of the Year Astro Bot, which throws new ideas at the player in the form of unique power-ups, mechanics of other PlayStation hits in bite-size chunks, epic boss battles, and innovative platforming mechanics from the beginning of the campaign all the way through its epic conclusion.
While Astro Bot established that developer Team Asobi is clearly one of the gaming world’s bright stars and deserves the right to experiment within its games, it should also serve as a lesson to other game-makers that players want experiences that are new and exciting, rather than retreading already-explored grounds. If players want to relive the experiences of games that are 10, 20, even 30 years old, they should go play those games again. (These games should also all be available to play on the latest systems, including in the physical formats of original releases, but this is a topic for a different book.)
As stated at the beginning of this section, gameplay is the most important aspect of what makes a game great and is essential for creating an immersive experience. Yet, as video games are the ultimate intersection of art and technology, let’s talk about what brings together these overarching themes in our next category …
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