Designing Games for Anticipated Future Memories. A Zelda Story?
“We actually don’t choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences. And even when we think about the future, we don’t think of our future normally as experiences. We think of our future as anticipated memories.” — Daniel Kahneman
Dive more into his Ted Talk below if that hooked your imagination. You may know him from his fantastic book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ which I have used to explain to devs why the motivation to play is in friction with the cognitive load being put on the player. But this is not what we are getting into today.
Let’s play with the idea of designing games for anticipated future memories.
This Ted Talk was focused on happiness but for the sake of discovery we will focus on the player experience. The player experience, at least for me, has always been critical to lock down. But based on Daniel’s research he forces us to dig deeper when thinking about experience. Here is the crux of what Daniel explains.
There are two selves: the experiencing self, which lives in the present, and the remembering self, which keeps score and maintains the story of our lives. Confusing these two selves contributes to the tension about how we interpret our lives.
Zelda time. How does this apply to designing games?
Let’s use “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” as an analogy to explain the roles of the experiencing-self and the remembering-self in game design.
“Experiencing Self-Focused” Design
In “Breath of the Wild,” the experiencing-self represents the player’s immediate interactions and engagement with the game world. Encompassing moments of excitement, exploration, combat, puzzle-solving, and discovery. The experiencing-self focuses on the present joy of navigating the vast landscapes, engaging in battles, solving intricate puzzles, and encountering moment-to-moment characters or creatures. The experiencing-self is akin to the player’s real-time engagement and enjoyment while playing the game.
Application — Core gameplay mechanics (actions the player does).
Note: I define core gameplay mechanics as anything required for the player to progress in the game. In short, it can’t get cut from the game without blocking player progress.
In Zelda we have…
- Running: This mechanic serves as a means of traversal, allowing the player to explore the vast open world efficiently. The smooth movement feel, responsive controls, and visually pleasing animations contribute to the experiencing-self’s enjoyment of the act of running.
- Swordplay: The responsiveness of sword swings, parrying mechanics, and the visual and audio feedback of successful attacks contribute to the immediate enjoyment of engaging enemies and overcoming challenges.
- Picking up loot: Finding valuable items or equipment, can evoke a sense of excitement and immediate reward for the experiencing-self. Visual feedback like sparkling effects or distinct sounds can enhance the experience of acquiring loot, providing a tangible sensation of accomplishment.
Prediction: This kind of experiencing-self design enhances player engagement through actions that are fun to do because the sense of accomplishment feedback is signaled well.
Question to ask — What is the moment-to-moment value I am offering to the player with the core mechanics?
“Remembering Self-Focused” Design
The remembering-self in “Breath of the Wild” corresponds to the player’s overall perception and memory of their gameplay experience. It involves the accumulation of notable events, achievements, and emotional highs and lows throughout the game. The remembering self looks at the overall story arc, character development, and significant moments like defeating major bosses, uncovering secrets, completing challenging quests, or witnessing the game’s climactic ending. It is the remembering self that constructs the narrative of the player’s journey and determines how they perceive the game as a whole.
Application — Investment of the player actions.
Back to Zelda…running, combat and loot!
- Running: Attaching a meaningful context to running, such as saving someone you love or racing against time to prevent a catastrophe, adds depth and significance to the act. It gives purpose to the player’s actions, making it more memorable and emotionally impactful for the remembering-self.
- Combat: Can be made meaningful by tying it to the player’s progression and sense of achievement. By providing challenging variable encounters, boss battles, or opportunities to showcase new abilities, the game reinforces the player’s growth and skills, creating a sense of accomplishment and pride for the remembering-self.
- Picking up loot: Offering a sense of progression, customization, or enhancing the player’s capabilities can make acquiring loot feel valuable and significant for the remembering-self. It adds depth to the player’s investment in the game and provides long-term goals giving the player new future memories to predict.
Prediction: The remembering-self design enhances retention because the probability a player will return to the game is higher due to the memories they are building which provide emotional investment that if done well capture the players attention throughout.
Question to ask — What memories are we offering the player that they will truly feel are remarkable?
The Last Level. Summing it up!
In game design, understanding the roles of the experiencing-self and the remembering-self can help us create impactful engaging and retaining experiences.
- Experiencing self-focused design: Game designers can prioritize the quality of individual gameplay moments, ensuring that the mechanics, controls, and feedback systems create immersive and enjoyable experiences. This involves refining combat mechanics, designing challenging puzzles, crafting visually stunning environments, and providing responsive gameplay to keep players engaged in the present moment.
- Remembering self-focused design: Game designers can also consider the overall narrative structure, character development, and significant milestones to create a memorable and satisfying journey. This includes creating compelling storylines, designing memorable characters, incorporating meaningful choices and consequences, and crafting memorable endings or plot twists that leave a lasting impact on the player’s memory.
By balancing the needs of the experiencing-self and the remembering-self, game creators can create an engaging gameplay experience that provides both immediate enjoyment and a retaining sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” exemplifies this balance by offering a vast open world for exploration and thrilling gameplay moments while also delivering a rich narrative and memorable quests that resonate with players long after they finish playing.
A great tool when making and planning your game at a high level is to start with the end in mind so you can work backwards and break the game down into manageable chunks. What if you worked backwards with everything, even your core mechanics? What if you thought about the unmet memories the player’s want to have when designing your core mechanics? Here are some questions to play with.
Questions to ask
- What are the core memories I want the player to have?
- Do these core memories retain in your audience?
- What are the core mechanics that help the player collect those memories?
- Do these core mechanics engage your audience?
This is just scratching the surface on how we can use both “selves” as tools to make games that players can see themselves in. Aligning your design with player motivations, genre and ultimately your audience takes tuning between art and science.
I deep dive into new thoughts and share freely because I believe their are no rules, just tools and we ultimately are on one team!
Thanks for playing...I mean reading!
P.S. from Mondo
One of the biggest problems I run into when helping a studio or dev team with a game is lack of a clear vision. Because a fuzzy vision gives development false starts. I can create a clear game vision. The nutshell version is that we nail down who the audience is, their motivations, and a sample of games or media that are going to inspire this experience. It brings clarity to who the game is for, what drives them to action, and lets us develop a concept defining all key elements for your game. We all know we only get so much time to lock down a vision. But once we do, scaling this with a dev team is much easier because they know what they are making from the start.
Let’s chat to see if my company Internal Trigger can help you create the games you want to make.
