‘Stargazing’
Emotional Analysis of
Game Designs
Aki Järvinen, Ph.D.
GameCultures Conference /
Magdeburg 2009-3-21

Background:
PhD study in
game design
theory
http://acta.uta.fi/english/teos.php?id=11046

Recent work • ‘Understanding Video Games as
on games & Emotional Experiences’
emotions • B.Perron & M.J.Wolf (eds.) Video
Game Theory Reader 2. London &
New York: Routledge. 2008.
• Adapting the ‘OCC model’ into
game analysis

Exploring
models for
analyzing
events,
agents &
objects in
game worlds

My design
research
into games
as results of
design
practices &
solutions

• The author introduces means for
analyzing existing game designs with
‘Stargazing’ particular emphasis on identifying their
emotionally relevant features.
summarized
• The method aims to give tools for
uncovering the secrets of successful
game designs, so that such findings could
be creatively reinvented for new
designs.
• The method applies terminology from
object-oriented programming in order to
produce results that can be
reformulated into a game design
document, or channeled into a rapid
prototyping task instantly.

• Recognition of something significant
Phasic
• Evaluation of the situation; plans to cope
emotions with the situation
parallel • Action readiness; tendencies
phasic • Bodily and expressive effects
gameplay
• The four-fold phasic nature of
emotions is constantly at work in
gameplay
• Such, admittedly totalizing view to
gameplay emotions, lets us to try to
design them, knowingly

• Metaphor of stars, sky, and their
Emotional relationships
game design • A romantic metaphor for a romantic
through the design practice
metaphor of • In terms of the stargazing method, the
design elements of a game represent
stargazing the stars that align into certain
constellations...
• ...thus creating so-called eliciting
conditions, i.e. ‘conditions under which
an emotion can be triggered.’

The most frequently
designed/played
eliciting condition in
video games?

• The premise: any particular emotional
episode of a player, or players, can be
Game Design traced back to a certain game state, or a
Research sequence of game states.
Problem • Examples:
• Scripted events in Gears of War or Dead Space
• Sequences of dialogue interaction in Animal
Crossing
• Instance in World of Warcraft
• Behavior of fire in Far Cry 2
• How to analyze their emotional constituents
& consequences with a rigorous method?

Game States • Game state is the ‘frozen slice’ of
gameplay, a recognizable phase,
as emotional that can be used
waypoints • as a focus point when analyzing games
• as the smallest factor in designing game
play from an emotional /experience
design standpoint
• Game states combine into
sequences, and emotional
experiences are sequences of
emotions, where the result is more
than the sum of its parts

• Goal monitoring is a concept originating
Goal from psychological studies in personal goals
monitoring; • It conceptualizes the constant tracking of
how one is doing in terms of the goals under
where does it pursuit
focus, • i.e. as behavior that has to do with both
perceptually? predicting and experiencing of emotions
• Are there certain perceptual and cognitive
vectors or formations – constellations - that
emerge in the game play process, and are
particular important for goal monitoring
• ...and consequently, for the emotional
design of the game?

Stargazing at
Zuma:
‘The vector
of suspense’
between the skull
and the closest
ball as the focus
of goal monitoring

Stargazing at
Tetris:
‘The skyline
vector’
as the focus of
goal monitoring

A practical
• Future work: Turning stargazing
results into concrete design tools
future with which emotional gameplay
application: dynamics, similar to the above
examples, could be modeled and
tested through abstractions
Emotional
wireframe
prototypes

Abstractions
of vectors
into game
design ‘toys’

Stargazing at
Braid

Stargazing at
Portal

• The emotional vector, rather than being
Stargazing at a concrete visual set of dynamics, is a
mental projection into the game space
Braid & Portal: that has to be figured out, and then
executed, by the player
‘Projected • Goal monitoring consists of a sequence of
logical deductions and their outcomes
vectors’
• Perceptual goal monitoring is used to
inform cognitive goal monitoring, and
vice versa.
• ... This type of goal monitoring has
different consequences to the emotional
flavor of the play experience

Stargazing
3D & sound:
Flower:
‘musical
time-space
vector’
heavily based on
aesthetic
perceptions

Stargazing
Facebook
games;
Parking
Wars:
‘revisiting
vector’
via login/
logout

Practical
design case:
Jukem the puzzle
game prototype
with a design
where the
skyline and
suspense vectors
combine

How to • Research question in the works:
extrapolate • How can more complex game
mechanics & dynamics be modeled
the method in abstract forms?
to more
complex
• Hypothesis: With the help of
analyzing metaphors, and how they
genres? relate to the events, objects, and
agents
• Left 4 Dead: how is the ‘left to
one’s own devices’ metaphor
emotionally aligned in the design of
the game?

Contact
• Aki Järvinen, Ph.D.
• aki@mygamestudies.com
• www.mygamestudies.com
• Twitter: @aquito