A huge part of being a designer is understanding what gets people ticking. I feel like I have small natural understanding of this type of thing due to my experience in games in the past but I have a lot to learn about it, I know I'm not an expert in the slightest and this type of topic interests me greatly. I look forward to learning and researching more about it in the future. Below I'm going to list some of the things I've learned throughout this trimester through personal research and through experience.
Firstly I have realised that people feel far more immersed in a game when they feel like they have a sense of identity within the game. I tried to emulate this feeling in the first 2 games I created. I tried to word the text as if the player themselves were the actual character. Unfortunately this wasn't implemented very well due to time constraints, lack of motivation and also lack of forethought for the writing, but I am happy with the fact that I have recognized that and I am not the type of person to repeat the same mistakes more than once. (Twice sometimes.)
Something else I learned this term is that people really like to be in control. Humans, as a species, crave power. This can be seen in many of the game's playtest. People like to figure out all the controls before playing and people often get frustrated if they are forced to do something they don't want to. For example in Birdlife a lot of people were frustrated that they weren't able to exit the game or restart it, they had to die in-game before they were allowed to restart. I feel this is a really good example.
I learned this next one through research, but people really like to feel like they belong in a game. Of all playtests we did, around two thirds of people kept the bird alive if they were aware it was part of the game. This is to say we did not count playtests where the person didn't realise that the bird could be fed / kept alive. I feel like this shows that people, once they had found their "place" in the game, really grew fond of it and decided to play it as if they cared about it. Not many people simply led the bird onto a road or left it behind.
This final one I learned through research also and it makes a lot of sense. People react very well when they are excited about the game or given positive feedback. For example, in the third when we implemented the increase in saturation and colour when you eat. People seemed to really react well to that and I feel if we'd added more particle effects and other positive feedback, the game could have really hooked people's attentions.
Overall I've learned a lot about psychological principles this term through trial, error and online research and I will take and use most if not all of this in future projects.
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