Creating Emotion in Games, Part 2 -- Finishing the Intro

Last time in Part 1, I covered the first part of the introduction to Creating Emotion in Games, which sets up a sales pitch for "why invest in games storytelling?", introduces the author's concept of Emotioneering™, and explains some of the difficulties that professional writers from other media have when transitioning to games writing. Today, we're going to wrap up that introduction with a few miscellaneous sections that make their way in, completing the pitch and setting the stage for the actual techniques to come.

Creating Emotion in Games, Part 1 -- The Intro

Let's turn the clock back about 15 years. I was in college, I was pursuing a Communication Arts -- Multimedia degree, and I was taking a course (in my woefully underprepped department) on writing for games. It was pretty barebones, and I don't even know where my class project wound up, but I did keep the textbook from that class, David Freeman's Creating Emotion in Games. I had some misgivings about it, I had some opinions about it, but I still kept it around. I just decided to crack it back open, and do a cover-to-cover reread. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to find, but let's have a look together.

Blood At the Witching Hour

The day was ticking onwards. I had been slowly working to earn the trust of the villagers, working to seem helpful while I divulged information that I had supposedly gleaned from my abilities. Of course, I was actually a Demon who had been slowly killing them off, one at a time, and in actuality I was scrambling to make sure my cover story was accurate. Unfortunately, my alleged ability only gave me information about people who were sitting next to me, and I had unluckily been seated near my devoted minion, who I was forced to implicate early in the game. Even worse, unbeknownst to me, a mastermind had been piecing together information to great effect...soon after, I was executed by the town, and they celebrated victory. While it wasn't a fully unfamiliar experience, my first game of Blood on the Clocktower contained some intriguing surprises.

Card Counterplay: Interacting With Your Opponent

I get post ideas from some interesting places. Case in point, I was watching a gameplay video from Hearthstone streamer Firebat, which opened with some spicy takes on card design. You don't have to watch the video before you read this post (although Firebat is always fun to watch); I'll lay it out for you here. In a nutshell, he talked about cards that didn't allow for interaction, and how they reduce the game to hoping that you draw into your powerhouse cards that can't be countered. It's tied to a larger idea about "interactive cards" in card games, and while I think he has a point, hearing that bit got me thinking about where, exactly, I disagreed with him, and what you can learn about card games from it.

Loops, Journeys, and Single-Player Gaming

So, I've been thinking lately about "loops" in gaming. Not in terms of the "core loop" of a game, but in another sense. I've been looking at my gameplay habits, thinking about what it means to "complete" a game, thinking about my large backlog of games that I own but haven't finished, and thinking about where the bulk of my playtime goes. I pour a lot of hours into multiplayer games. A lot of hours. Hundreds of hours. It's got me thinking about how I spend my time, and about what I get out of that time. So, I've been thinking lately about "loops" in gaming.

Origins 2019 Recap: Roleplaying Games Edition

Well, it's just about a full month later, but I'm finally getting the second half of my Origins 2019 recap online! While I got to demo a few boardgames, where the core of my time went was the Games on Demand room, where I played a potpourri of tabletop RPGs for hours. If you're unfamiliar with the event, it features a large number of GMs and facilitators who run various tabletop RPGs that they want to see played. Players sign up, show up for a slot, and pick a game off of a menu offered by the GMs. It's a great way to try out some games you've heard of, but never gotten to the table, and I took full advantage of that. From Inception-esque therapy to a zombie drama that felt straight out of The Walking Dead, here's the adventures I had at this Origins...

My Star-Crossed Moments at Origins 2019

The Sunday of Origins 2019 was winding to a close, and I was making my way through the dealers' hall, seeing what was on sale. There I was, catching up with friends at the Bully Pulpit booth, seeing what the company had on offer. And there it was, one last copy of Alex Roberts' Star-Crossed. The final copy, almost as if it were destined. I told myself that I wanted to make a sweep of the hall, that I wanted to be sure that there wasn't anything else I wanted to buy at Origins. I made my way through the rest of the hall, but it wasn't long before an unassailable feeling took root in me.

I knew. Not two minutes after walking away from the booth, I knew. There could be nothing else, there was nothing else. But to explain this, I'm going to have to back up a couple of days...