1.
#Metagame Book Club
“Game Design: Creating Psychological Experiences”
Sherry Jones | Games & Psychology Instructor | Fall 2015 | Twitter @autnes |
http://bit.ly/gamepsych1
Life is Strange Flappy Bird
V.S.

2.
Watch the Live Webinar!

3.
1. Meier, Sid. “Psychology of Game Design: Everything
You Know Is Wrong.” Game Developer Conference.
2010.
2. “Behavioral Game Design” by John Hopson for
Gamasutra. 27 April 2011.
3. Fetterman, Adam K., Tianwai Liu, and Michael D.
Robinson. “Extending Color Psychology to the
Personality Realm: Interpersonality Hostility Varies by
Red Preferences and Perceptual Biases.” Journal of
Personality. February 2015.
Texts in Focus

4.
4. Iakovides, Stefanos A. “Psychophysiology and
Psychoacoustics of Music: Perception of Complex
Sound in Normal Subjects and Psychiatric Patients.”
Ann Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 29 March 2004.
5. Tan, Siu-Lan. “Video Games: Do You Play Better With
the Sound On or Off?: The Role of Music and Sound
Effects in Video Games.” Psychology Today. 5 Feb.
2014.
6. Baron, Sean. "Cognitive Flow: The Psychology of Great
Game Design." Gamasutra. 22 March 2012.
Texts in Focus

5.
Why are Game Developers Interested
in Psychology?

6.
“Gameplay is a psychological experience: I base my games on things
like railroads, pirates, and history, and I try to make the games I
design true and real. The more historical, the more realistic, and the
more factual, the better. The more railroady and piratey, the better.
But what I thought I knew was wrong. During the early days of my
career, I hadn’t taken into account what was in the player’s head.
By acknowledging that simple concept–that gameplay is a
psychological experience–it can make your games better.”
(Sid Meier)
Gameplay is a Psychological Experience 1

7.
“People who play games are egomaniacs. It says on the box you get to control
armies, discover new technology, and create entire civilizations. So, right
away, you’re an egomaniac.” (Sid Meier)
Gameplay is a Psychological Experience 2

8.
“Player psychology has nothing to do with rational thought. My
background is in mathematics. In CIV REV (Civilization Revolution, the
console-only Civilization game), we found interesting reactions to
what seemed to me very rational situations. For instance when we pit
civilized militia against uncivilized barbarians, and their points were
1.5 to 0.5, respectively, we heard players complain. Even when players
were in a battle with 1: 3 odds, they felt they could win. I watched
these testers and players, and they would say, ‘I had the lower
number, and I felt I could win in a 1:3 battle.’ It made sense to the
player that they could win. I thought, ‘Something is going on there.
But it’s not mathematics.’ Right around 3:1 to 4:1 area, the player
felt like he or she should have the chance to win.” (Sid Meier)
Gameplay is a Psychological Experience 3

9.
“Every computer game is designed around the same central
element: the player. While the hardware and software for games
may change, the psychology underlying how players learn and
react to the game is a constant. The study of the mind has actually
come up with quite a few findings that can inform game design,
but most of these have been published in scientific journals and other
esoteric formats inaccessible to designers. Ironically, many of these
discoveries used simple computer games as tools to explore how
people learn and act under different conditions.”
(Hopson)
Gameplay is a Psychological Experience 4

10.
Psychology of Attention and Games

11.
1. Human beings have attentional systems based on the
senses.
2. Attentional Spotlight Metaphor - Our ability to pay
attention to our environment can be explained using
the “attentional spotlight metaphor.” We “attend” to a
small amount of information at a time in order to
“remember” that information. Attention and memory
are connected.
Spotlight Model of Attention

12.
1. Sensory Cues - Designers should create sensory cues
to help the player understand what to do next to finish
a level. The cues serve as feedback that player is doing
the “right thing.”
2. Game Design Goals? - 1) Alleviate player frustration
with not knowing what to do in a game; 2) Direct the
player to the place he/she needs to go; 3) Give player a
sense of progress (that are well timed).
Attention and Game Design Implications?

13.
1. Priming - The process of attending to certain
information that we already “remember.” Such as
responding to someone when they call your name.
2. Gameplay and Priming? - A player knows how to play
a new game if it displays familiar sensory cues played.
A player learns to navigate through a game based on
memories of previous game of similar genre.
Let’s see an example! --->
Gameplay Affects Memory?

14.
Infamous Bathroom Scenes
Resident Evil - Bathroom Surprise
Source: http://lparchive.org/Resident-Evil-1/Update%206/
Silent Hill - Bathroom Surprise
Source: http://silenthillwelcomesyou.tumblr.com/page/60

15.
Seeing Platformer Double
Super Mario Brothers - Underwater Level Flappy Bird

16.
Psychology of Color and Games

17.
“Light and colours are also involved in psychological theories.
Rorschach developed a psychological test in which colours are an
important issue, commonly known as inkblots test. He stated colours
remit to emotions, and a more responsive behaviour towards
colours indicates a greater affectivity. [15] Jung suggested
chromatic experience as different ways of perception and expression,
and stated an equivalency between colours and feelings. [16]
Phototherapy is a therapy used for depression diagnosis, the patient
is exposed to a potent source of light in order to make him/her
feel better. It has been proved regions with long non-light periods
have higher records of emotional disorders and suicides. [9].”
(Zammitto 3)
Color Emotions

18.
“There are now a number of experimental investigations of the color
red, most documenting the influence of exposure to red stimuli on
subsequent outcomes such as achievement performance or
personal attraction.”
“There are several reasons for positing that the color red may be
associated with hostility. The emotion that often follows from
hostility is anger (Buss & Perry, 1992), and anger is metaphorically
linked to the color red (e.g., “seeing red” is a common metaphor for
anger; Gibbs, 1994). There is a physiological basis for this relationship
in that angry faces are often redder in coloration due to increased
facial flushing (Drummond, 1997; Levenson, 2003).”
(Fetterman et. al. 107)
The Color Red and Hostility

19.
“Wearing the color red primes competitors to think more about being
particularly aggressive and dominating. That is, it makes thoughts
about those concepts come to mind quicker and more easily. In sports
like boxing or tae kwon do where aggression makes you more
competitive, this matters. Wearing red, the researchers argue,
essentially makes it just a little easier for you to get pumped up
and visualize the kind of behavior that wins bouts. And the
competitor in blue might compound the effect by perceiving
his/her red opponent as more intimidating or imposing. This might
even all be subconscious. Probably is, in fact.”
(Madigan)
The Color Red and Achievements?

20.
“Back in the 1980s Mark Frank and Thomas Gilovich looked at the
number of penalties earned by teams in the National Football League
and National Hockey League that wore black uniforms.4
They found
that those wearing black –a color typically associated with the
wardrobes of the villainous– were found by referees to be more
guilty of infractions, fouls, and rule violations relative to those
wearing light colored jerseys.”
(Madigan)
The Color Black and Villains

21.
Colors can be used for directing the player’s attention!
“We see color coding all the time in video games, often to aid us in
navigation. The first person parkour game Mirror’s Edge offers an
obvious example given how it made use of red objects –doors,
ledges, pipes, tarps– to mark the ideal flow through an environment.
But even while playing the much more plodding The Last of Us, I
noticed how the designers subtly used the color yellow to direct me
through the level by marking pathways with yellow caution paint,
yellow lights, or yellow objects.”
(Madigan)
Color and Game Design Implications?

22.
Color Coding in Games
Mirror’s Edge - Red Objects The Last of Us - Outdoor Light

23.
Psychology of Sound and Games

24.
“Psychology of sound, also termed psychoacoustics, has
its own distinct elements of pitch, intensity and [timbre.]
Perception of sound and music is such that humans are
able under certain circumstances to distinguish the
harmonics of a complex periodic sound wave. The hearing
sense provides human beings with data concerning
their environment.”
(Iakovides et. al.)
Psychoacoustics

25.
“A classic (if rather cruel) experiment is to play a certain tone to a rat
just before it is given an electric shock. Before long, the rat gives a
fear response to the tone, as it has been conditioned to associate
the sound with pain.”
“LeDoux eventually pinpointed the amygdala as the region that is
crucial to a learned fear response. The central nucleus of the
amygdala has links to parts of the brainstem that control autonomic
functions such as breathing and heart rate. Neuroscientists believe
the amygdala may act as an 'alarm bell' for the brain, blasting out a
fear warning in response to certain sights and sounds - sometimes
before we are even fully aware they've happened.”
Sound and Fear Conditioning

26.
“In our own research (published 2010 and 2012), my colleagues John
Baxa and Matt Spackman and I found that people playing Twilight
Princess (Legend of Zelda) performed worst when playing with both
music and sound effects off. This game provides the player with rich
auditory cues that function as warnings, clues for access points,
feedback for correct moves such as successful attacks on enemies,
and more. Many of these don’t just “double” what you see on the
screen.”
(Tan)
Sound, Music, and Gameplay Performance

27.
In games, audio effects and music can provide cues that give player
information about the environment, such as information about whether a
forest is dangerous and calming. The player then move about the
environment accordingly (ex. walking normally vs. crutching and crawling in
stealth mode). Audio effects and music also can influence player’s emotions
and subsequent behaviors.
“The best players seemed to be better at paying attention to—and
meaningfully integrating—both audio and visual cues effectively—thus
benefitting from the richest warnings/clues/feedback. While the typical
player strongly favored one sense, the best players were truly playing an
audio-visual game from the beginning. “ (Tan)
Psychoacoustics and Game Design
Implications?

28.
Psychology of Flow and Games

29.
“Csikszentmihalyi also outlined four characteristics found in tasks that drive
an equilibrium between skill and difficulty, thus increasing the probability of
Flow states. Specifically, these are tasks that:
1. Have concrete goals with manageable rules.
2. Demand actions to achieve goals that fit within the person's
capabilities.
3. Have clear and timely feedback on performance and goal
accomplishment.
4. Diminish extraneous distraction, thus facilitating concentration.
It is these four task characteristics that game developers should consider if
they want to increase the likelihood of causing Flow states in gamers playing
their games. I will now go into more detail about each characteristic.” (Baron)
Game Design and Challenge + Skill

30.
(Baron)
The Flow Theory and Game Design

31.
Lecture By:
Sherry Jones
Philosophy | Rhetoric | Game Studies | Game Design & Psychology
@autnes
Writings & Webcasts
Link to Slides: http://bit.ly/gamepsych1