In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version. I also plan on offering some additional thoughts in separate posts—commentary on the episodes, if you will.
Ep 2 What is Immersion?
Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at some of the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we start learning how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about that ubiquitous term, immersion.
Gamers praise games for being immersive. Designers pitch their games as immersive. But do we all mean the same thing when we use the term? Turns out, we don’t. In his book, In Game: From Immersion to Incorporation, Gordon Calleja differentiates between two types of immersion: absorption and transportation.
Absorption has to do with a narrowed focus of attention. Any game can be absorbing, so this definition expands the number of games that could be considered immersive. Absorption is the framework for immersion that people use when they bring up flow theory. Flow theory is the psychological description of a phenomenon wherein people may enter higher performing states of consciousness due to focused attention. This state is more likely to occur in games where the challenge of play is only slightly higher than the player’s ability level.
Other terms that could stand in for absorption are engagement and resonance. Gordon Calleja refers to his model of immersion as the player engagement model. In his model, he examines different qualities of video games that can create player engagement. My definition of resonance is a combination of familiar elements and an unexpected twist minus any chaff or filler. I’ll delve more deeply into resonance in a future episode.
Immersion as absorption should be a familiar concept to you, but you probably recognize that this isn’t how many people use the word immersion. Let’s now turn to the topic of immersion as transportation.
What is transportation? The term transportation comes from the literary concept of narrative transportation. When you read a book and are mentally transported into the world of the story, that is narrative transportation. Similarly, board games can transport players thematically. I call this version of transportation thematic transportation, because games do not have to have a written narrative in order to be transportive.
For example, the hybrid party and video game, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, is highly transportive, without containing any story chapters like a narrative adventure game would. Games can make use of both traditional narrative transportation and non-narrative thematic transportation.
Games will be more transportive when their themes are well-integrated into the mechanics, which is a topic for another day. Games can also benefit from thematic resonance, which is to say familiar themes with unexpected twists. I should mention that in this case, familiarity doesn’t mean ‘common board game themes’ but rather subjects that are easily recognizable by your intended audience.
Last time, I mentioned inherently abstract mechanics, which have to be overcome for a game to feel thematic. Oftentimes, the most abstract mechanics are the ones required for upkeep of the game state but have no real interaction with the game world. When designing for transportation, only those mechanisms that interact with the game world will aid immersion.
When abstract mechanisms are interspersed with thematic mechanisms, the result can be prevent an immersive experience. My preferred method is to silo the abstract mechanisms away from the thematic ones. To explain why I do that, I must first mention Gil Hova’s model for thematic integration.
In his model, he defines three roles: the player, the avatar, and the agent. The avatar is the narrative representation of the player in the game. The player interfacing with the avatar is what creates transportation. The agent is the mechanical representation of the player in the game. When the avatar and the agent overlap, the mechanics are thematic.
However, abstract mechanics are almost always necessary in a game. I describe these mechanisms as purely agential in reference to Hova’s model. When possible, assigning agential mechanisms to their own separate phase or phases can help with immersion. Why does this work?
We have the innate ability tolerate brief pauses in a given state of emotion without leaving that state entirely. A common example is actors pausing for audience laughter, because for the audience no time seems to have passed while they are laughing. We can incorporate agential pauses into gameplay that allow the game to function but don’t materially damage immersion.
However, mixing agential mechanisms with thematic mechanisms can prevent players entirely from achieving a sense of transportation. Players must have a certain level of consistent contact with the game world in order to feel transported, which agential mechanisms can interrupt.
Transportation, when you look at it, is simply a very specific type of absorption. Fittingly, designing for transportation requires very specific considerations compared to designing for absorption more generally. Both are worthy goals of design. But they aren’t exactly the same thing.
One of my hobbies is to listen to board game folks talk about immersion and try to determine which type of immersion they mean. For instance, Gil Hova’s model is transportation-focused. More importantly, there is a tangible benefit to knowing which type of immersion you are trying to achieve in your own designs.
If you are trying to achieve absorption you will likely need to focus on creating interesting puzzles that will challenge your intended audience. If your goal is transportation, you will need to focus on integrating an interesting theme with your mechanics while paying attention to any agential mechanisms.
For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.