“Game Feel” Designers: the unsung heroes keeping unreality a reality

What is a Game Feel Designer? Well, what is “game feel”? This post not only answers those questions, it explains how these professionals delve into the mind of the players and sculpt experiences based on sensory phenomenon, cognitive processes, cultural expectations, and more!

The field of game design is quite huge, and there are even corners of it that are simply overlooked. In fact, people may not even be aware that some of these areas exist at all. For example, that of the “Game Feel” Designer! But what is “game feel”?

In terms of game design, game feel concerns the contribution of the sensory feelings to the overall impression of a game.

I’m Igor Zhuravlev, and I’m a Game Feel Designer at MY.GAMES. In this article, we’ll examine how “feeling” comes about from the game, and the role of this phenomenon within game design itself.

Basic concepts: game and gameplay

In order to effectively talk about game feel, we first need to define what exactly we mean by “game”, and how game feel arises from a game. Of course, “game” can have many definitions, but I like this one:

A game can be defined as a set of rules and criteria used to evaluate the outcome or result of some action.

This is a general definition, but crucially, it effectively separates the concept of a toy from a game. For instance, on its own, a ball is merely a toy. But, when this ball is coupled with rules and criteria, we might end up with something like basketball or football. Actually, in the world of video games, something without a clear set of win conditions might also fall outside of our definition of a game, like The Sims, but likewise, it can still readily meet our definition by applying some constraints, like making your sim a billionaire by the age of 15.

In any case, from these rules and criteria, the concept of gameplay then emerges:

Gameplay concerns the actions taken to achieve a particular result within the framework of the rules.

This is also a very general definition, but we can further narrow this down to engaging gameplay, that is, gameplay which actively encourages the player to achieve a result.

On this basis, gameplay arises from choice. Should I peek out from the corner to shoot now — or wait half a second more? Is it best to spend resources on inventing the wheel or developing writing?

Here, whether we’re talking about such decisions in a shooter or you’re pondering how to maximize your profits selling iron ores in your favorite MMORPG, we’re really talking about a process that takes place inside a player’s mind.

So, let’s complete the circle: we have a game, and then gameplay takes place in our head as a result of some cognitive processes. These processes then give rise to certain emotions (which may or may not make us happy). Game feel describes the direct contribution of our sensory impressions as to whether or not these emotions will please us.

The world on the screen and the world in the player’s mind

So, we receive information about the state of the game world, perform some cognitive action based on that, and then the result of our decision-making, some action, is transmitted through the controller and we can observe how the state of the game world changes as a result. We experience a set of sensory impressions and emotions, and if those emotions are pleasant, we believe that the developers are clever cookies.

There are many elements that make up this process and which can affect the player’s final impression. This includes the game feel, which is the contribution of sensory impressions to the overall result.

Now, it might be taken for granted that the ultimate goal here is for a player to experience positive emotions. But players who identify as a Champion of Nurgle within the world of Warhammer might enjoy different things than those who’d rather adventure as The Legend of Zelda’s Link.

So, how can we quantify if the game feel is good or bad? That’s actually a slightly complex question. To do so, we need to determine an emotion that can help us assess this “good/bad” criteria. Well, there is such an emotion, which I simply call, “something’s off”. So, when does this “something’s off” emotion occur — and is it “good” or “bad”?

Humans aren’t good at making absolute estimates. That is, we don’t have any built-in benchmarks for every occasion. But we are able to perform comparisons quite well. We might consider ourselves to be experiencing joy, not when we feel good, but in situations where we feel better than we previously did, or we feel better than expected.

…something’s off

The emotion of “something’s off” is also the result of a comparison. This happens when we compare some expected sensory impressions with the actual experiences. So, to illustrate, let’s say we see (a somehow obviously iron) cube with lengths of about half a meter each. We’d expect this cube to be quite solid and heavy, no?

Now, let’s imagine two intrepid (or foolish) Hobbits running into this at regular speed. Instead of them going “splat” into the side, they crash into it at running speed and yet, we see it suddenly bounces off and flies over the horizon. Hey — something’s off!

Let’s disassemble that process. We start with a sensory impression: we see a cube. From there, an instantaneous cognitive process tells us that that cube looks a certain way, and it’s made from iron. We pull out the properties of iron from memory and past sensory experiences. No action has taken place, but we immediately imagine a certain result. In other words, this cognitive process forms an expectation. After our expectation is defined, if we perform an action, we’ll compare the actual result with our expectation, and this will help us understand whether or not the cube developers did due diligence with their work.

In that previous case, the thought process was obvious. However, recognizing an object in a medieval-fantasy tavern, and expecting certain impressions from visiting that place and interacting with that object, follows approximately the same comparison algorithm: expected result versus actual result.

The result of this comparison is either harmony or dissonance between the cognitive component of the gameplay and the sensory experience. This sense of harmony can be achieved universally whether we’re dealing with a warp demon or a cartoon bear. Game feel is, by and large, about achieving this harmony.

Or is it? We’ve dealt with the conditions that must be true for the feeling of “something’s off” to arise, but is this feeling necessarily “good” or “bad”? Intuitively, it seems bad, right? Well, up until the point you recall Claudia from Silent Hill 3, a character who was deprived of eyebrows seemingly just for the sake of cultivating this feeling of “something’s off”.

This is a more complicated case, and these are not unusual. So, to clear up the situation, instead of colliding with a cubic meter of cast iron, we need to dive a little deeper into the notion of overall experience.

So, is there something “off” with Claudia? Undoubtedly — and perhaps this can make us feel anxious. But does this create the kind of dissonance that we were talking about before? No. This is because our entire experience, including our impression of the game itself before we ever played it, suggests that anxiety — and any other “negative” emotions involved in the game — are exactly why we made our third trek to Silent Hill in the first place.

Again, gameplay is primarily a cognitive process. Even a simple visit to the “Ale and Axe Tavern” is a complex process which takes into account all the previous experiences of the visit — both real, or within a game world.

So, what if we met that same Claudia at the Ale and Axe? Well, so what? The bartender there has horns and one eye in the center of the forehead — and he is a great guy. Nothing’s off here.

For a Game Feel Designer, the primary difficulty actually turns out to be correctly interpreting the player expectations that are created by a game. This has to also take into account the fact that the player isn’t a blank page — they’re a human being with whatever cultural and sensory baggage they’re bringing in from other games and real life.

In fact, the expectations that are formed based on real life are actually the most fundamental and difficult to change. Even someone who spends virtually all of their time gaming (they play an 8k MMR Pudge in Dota 2) has had most of their neural connections established based upon their interactions in the real world. Nevertheless, we have tools to work with them.

What does a Game Feel Designer do?

Working as a Game Feel Designer is quite cool because we can contribute in so many ways and easily obtain a sense of accomplishment. But, considering the variety of opportunities available and the blurred boundaries of this profession, it’s important not to get lost.

First, it’s useful to keep in mind how “feeling” is connected with the basic essence of the game and gameplay.

We can start by determining the qualities a game will definitely have, and then based on that, start thinking about other, less flexible pillars. Let’s look at a couple of example cases and approaches we might take.

For instance, does the character’s hit animation look rough? Let’s reduce the size of the weapon, increase the character’s size, or slow down the animation. This choice will be easier if we determine that the fighter is a mere mortal of twelve years old, and the weapon belongs to his legendary father, “Gunnar Big Axe”.

Is a car bouncing too much? Could we just slow it down? Ah, no. We need it to drive through a map of a specified size over a definite time period and fiddle around with the physics.

When determining things like this, it would be a good idea to come to the relevant meetings, so that later you won’t be tasked with implementing some strange crutch to get around the problem.

Second, you need to remember the essence of the feedback loop: sensory impressions form expectations. We then compare these expectations against new impressions, and then this creates new expectations… So, it’s useful to be a meticulous bore who’s always trying to explain any “something’s off” feeling. At the same time, you need to double check the correctness of your own explanations, even if it seems sound.

The point above is similar to bugs in software. Since everything is interconnected in a complex way, even a trivial thing can lead to some other minor issues, which may then grow into a big problem that can’t just be swept under the carpet.

I once had to spend an entire week researching some odd little thing related to how the lightest car drives up a mountain. In the end, this resulted in a reworking of the wheel physics. But, this work allowed us to solve a number of problems that weren’t originally connected to that issue.

Third, the same interconnectedness has two things worth considering (quantified with the classic “good” and “bad” again):

• Bad: there are many cases where one fix breaks something else.
• Good: but, there is almost always a third way. Instead of endlessly looking for the optimal compromise between a conflicting A and B, you can find a C where A and B are acceptable at the same time, and if you’re lucky, it won’t break some yet-to-be-understood D!

Takeaways

Sensory experience adjusts to our expectations, but we can also adjust the expectations to the sensory experience — and good feelings can come out of both sides. Sweeping, artsy, slow-motion gestures are not very realistic, but in the context of a hardcore action-RPG, these movements might look right when carried out by the living dead.

Dealing with feeling improperly can quickly throw a spanner in the works. We’re not necessarily trying to create a “wow” effect here. We want to maintain harmony, and this is very easy to mess up. If the matrix glitches just once, it will be impossible to suspect disbelief; the world on the other side of the screen will be unreal, and it might seem it’s worth plugging in to it. In other words, “something’s off” very easily turns it into “everything’s off.”

The sensory experience provided by the game becomes part of the game world and participates in the formation of expectations. The harmony of the feeling elements with each other is as important as their harmony with the rest of the environment.

Actually, good feelings often go unnoticed, and this is normal. The absence of “something’s off” means, generally speaking, that everything is fine. In fact, good feelings might just be the thing that allows us to appreciate the game itself — like a good bass part, humbly setting things up for the soaring violin melody to capture our hearts.