How Game Gimmicks Break Immersion

The Moving Pixels blog has brief discussion of how gimmicky game mechanics often break a player's sense of immersion, making it painfully obvious that he's simply jumping through carefully planned hoops set up by the developers. The author takes an example from Singularity, which has a weapon that can time-shift objects between a pristine, functional state and a broken, decayed state. Quoting: "The core issue with this time control device is that it's just not grand and sweeping enough. It doesn't feel like it's part of a world gone mad. Instead it's just a gameplay tool. You can only use it on certain things in certain places. You can 'un-decay' this chalkboard but not that desk. You can dissolve that piece of cover but not most of the walls in the game. The ultimate failure of such cheap tricks is that they make the game world less immersive rather than more compelling. The world gets divided into those few things that I can time shift, that different set of things I can levitate, and that majority of things that I can't interact with at all. ... I'm painfully aware that all that I'm really doing is pushing the right button at the right place and time. Sure, that's what many games are when you get down to it, but part of the artistry of game design comes from trying to hide this fact."

Comments

Re:Listen up, Peter Pan...

[Hognoxious]

To me, a game mechanic is no different to a real life mechanic. If it happens on A, it should happen on B, C, D, through Z.

So if I can set paper alight, I should be able to do the same with sand? If I can bite an apple, I should be able to chew a rock?

Misuse of the term "immersion"

[bonch]

Is anyone else tired of the gaming press obsessing over their beloved immer-shun? They've latched onto this word as a rallying cry when they want to complain about something that reminds them they're not some unstoppable, auto-healing badass. Immersion doesn't mean "realism." It just means you're really absorbed into something. You can be immersed for hours in Tetris, but it doesn't mean you believe you're in a plausible world of randomly falling blocks. Stop whining about your beloved sense of immer-shun.