Emotion and how to represent it in a video game - 23/2/15

So for week 3, we are to devise a pitch about a game with the intent of creating emotion within the player. The idea of creating an emotion within a player is an interesting one and it got me thinking about a number of, (what I believe at least are,) interesting ideas for games. Upon further inspection of these ideas I realized that they would be extremely difficult to represent within an actual game.

Fortunately I've had a lot of inspiration to work with lately as I've been having a lot of extremely vivid dreams that invoked powerful emotions within me. On the unfortunate end of the spectrum, these dreams have all been particularly morbid. One of such alleged dreams involved me accepting my imminent death via 1000 foot tidal wave whilst another was finding out one of my family members had died, without knowing which one. Another particularly horrific dream I experienced last night involved me watching two very close friends die right before my eyes and then finding out that another 2 people I cared about were next to go, (whilst I slowly died myself.)

Tidal wave.

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Upon explaining these dreams to people I trust, I found that merely explaining these dreams to people with words was not enough to accurately convey the feelings I felt during the dream. This was interesting to me. If I may echo the words of a wise friend: "Dreams are always like that - they cause feelings too which add to the terror - you can't relive the way you felt during your dream just by [explaining] it."

This particular quote really got me thinking. If I am truly unable to accurately portray my emotions with words, (which I would say is one of the things I am best at,) then I am going to have to think very hard to articulate it in a way that does it justice in an interactive form. I am currently still brainstorming ideas for this game and even with the extensive pool of, (albeit negative,) inspiration, I am still having trouble thinking of an interesting concept for a game.

My next blog will hopefully be filled with all of the wonderful ideas I've come up with. Stay tuned.