It is hard to not notice how far games have come in the last couple of yours. Games have grown from their baby steps to a mature way of telling emotionally engaging stories and provide enjoyable experiences while doing so. I am intrigued by the way games liked
To The Moon and
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons left a permanent impression on me. I am really not the type of guy that tears up at a book or movie at the first sign of drama, but
To The Moon made me cry... twice.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons not so much, but I was definitely touched by it, and even after several times, the story remains something I can't entirely let go.
For those people around here that are interested in narrative design in any way:
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a game you should play as research, because it is - according to a large group of people - the only game so far that is able to provoke emotional responses through gameplay. Sure, there are cutscenes, but the only spoken language is some sort of gibberish. The cutscenes are also unable to catch the journey the brothers are making. The fact that the main characters go through several perils to finish their quest only comes forward through playing it yourself. Throughout the game - which is only a mere two to three hours long - you see how the bond between the main characters grows, and you also develop a connection on your own. One could even argue that the control scheme is deliberately chosen to be somewhat uncomfortable, to make you as player go through a struggle in the same way the main characters are.
If you do not have the time (or money) to play the game yourself, I have condensed to story into a video that you can watch
. As I was so intrigued by the way this game affected me, I actually decided to do a research project for my master programme Game and Media Technology about how playing the game adds to the emotional experience. Like I said before: there are games that made me cry, this almost never happens to me for books or movies. Is the story of these games just more engaging, or is it the fact that I am actually playing the story, instead of acting as passive observer? If you have played to game, or if you watch the video I made (and again: I recommend doing at least one of them!), I would appreciate it if you'd spare five minutes of your time to fill in a questionnaire about that experience, so I can compare the different ways of experiencing the same story. Information about this can be found on my website:
http://tomrijnbeek.nl/smallproject.
Of course, I am also interested in discussing this topic in detail here, and I will obviously share any results I find through this study, as I find it important to help this medium grow even further, and hopefully contribute to more games like the ones discussed before in the future, by gaining more insight in how one can emotionally immerse your players.