Aesthetics in the realm of art means to evoke feelings, stir emotions, and create impactful experiences. When it comes to games, aesthetics carry a similar weight, involving the intentional creation of feelings and senses in players. Whether visual, haptic, or auditory, aesthetics in gaming should aim to form a coherent and compelling experience. A seamless fusion of visual design and gameplay mechanisms is key to deliver this to the player in order to stimulate an intentional, purposeful response.
Game Aesthetics
One of the profound theories that highlights this connection is the MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) Framework. It underlines the interplay between mechanics (the rules and systems), dynamics (the interaction of these mechanics), and aesthetics (the emotional responses provoked by the dynamics). It’s a framework that guides game designers in crafting experiences that engage and evoke specific emotions, reinforcing the importance of aesthetics in the gaming landscape.
In Simon Niedenthal’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Game Aesthetics,” he notes, “game aesthetics has to do with the senses, with art, and with a particular kind of experience.” This is vital to creating impactful, unique games. It involves crafting a specific ambience that evokes a feeling, a personal response in players, weaving together visual and sensory elements to immerse them in a unique experience.
The beauty of game aesthetics is in its fluidity of emotions, yet it should still remain intentional, however fluid it may feel. Game design encompasses multiple aspects, from narrative and mechanics to the audio-visual elements, all culminating in a coherent and compelling experience for the player. The game designer’s role lies in being deliberate about these various facets of the design. All these aspects should serve the same intention, the same purpose.
Guiding the Process
In my game studio class, “Playful Experience Design”, I try to guide the students to capture a certain feeling in their daily life. A feeling they felt deeply, however small or insignificant it may seem, and turn it into a play activity. For most students, this play activity ends up being a game, but they are free to stay in the wider circle of play.
In this class, I guide the students to find a unique and personal core idea to develop it with coherent game mechanics to create something of an art game. They find an emotion, a feeling to project to the player, something their player will experience while playing it. Last year expecially, students kept going deeper and deeper in themselves. They were interested in self expression and not shy about expressing their inner workings.
Some common theme I noticed is that some students tend to embed the three part structure to their game / playful piece. It is usually easy to contrast emotions through different levels that have certain atmospheres. That contrast helps highlight the feeling they convey. Another common point was their choice of the theme, that being anxiety and depression.
Something I notice within myself and other creators is thinking about implementation too early. If we think about “how am I going to program this”, we limit ourselves before we begin the work. At the end of the semester students submit a playable demo but my expectation is scaled down according to the students expertise; if they are in a group or solo. And also, after designing the concept freely, you usually can find an easy solution that you can’t think of at the start. So its best to go wild at first, approach reality later. However the aesthetic direction of the game should be decided (or felt) early in my opinion.
Depression and anxiety themes were used in previous years, but last year depression felt like a main topic. Difficulty finding motivation, doing useless repetitive tasks, stressing player through confusing prompts, showing depressive moods through atmosphere comes easy using digital game games.
I avoid giving examples if its not in the form of a feedback, in order to not influence them. But Journey and Abzu -mainly Journey- are so timeless that these games are referenced by students themselves as reference game design each and every year. They are widely admired for their game aesthetics.
Embracing the Power of Senses in Design
Utilizing multiple modalities and senses in game design brings forth an intriguing avenue. Engaging inventive design elements allows for the exploration and utilization of the human body’s sensory capabilities. By acknowledging the profound influence of senses in shaping experiences, game designers can craft experiences that touch the player in unique and profound ways. This is why we should try to break conventions, the limits of the standarts such as WASD and mouse setup.
Ultimately, the key to successful game aesthetics lies in the intentional creation of an immersive and emotionally evocative experience. Sensory inputs, when carefully harnessed and harmonized, have the remarkable potential to transport players into a world of emotions, imagination, and unbounded experiences. The success of a game’s aesthetics lies in its ability to invoke a particular feeling or response, a notion that remains both intriguing and fundamental in the realm of game design.
Zeynep Burcu Kaya 