Pulp Free: "Juicy" Video Game Design

James Paul Gee has some interesting things
to say about identity, empathy, and character
design in Ch. 3 of What Video Games Have
to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy.
I will probably do a post on it this week.

Three FAQ’s for Juicy Game Design

Josh Whitkin, Murdoch University

- Juicy design is about released energy from a design in a way that creates surprise, delight
- Juiciness is not logical but emotional.
- Appeals to subconscious feelings of fairness and reward/punishment. It encourages certain behavior endogenously.
- Creates an expectation from tiny player actions. You know, for example, that collecting a coin is a positive action because it rewards you with sound, an animation, or a score of some sort.
- Characters can serve in mirroring players’ internal, emotional states as a way to amplify that emotion.
- Minimal character emotion is, in a way, an intentional means of focusing the player specifically on gameplay. “[M]aking … character[s] more “juicy” could easily hurt the player’s overall satisfaction,” especially where the mirrored emotions (fiero at a headshot, for example) might be incongruous with the setting, theme, or psychological setting of the game.


This last point is one with which I take contest. While there is a certain value in focusing the player’s attention, and while excessive emotional response from characters who are largely non-empathetic would certainly be jarring, to suggest that our effort to humanize video game characters is somehow harmful is indeed folly. The fact that video game designers have not yet found a way of making empathetic or emotional characters does not in any way suggest that it cannot be done, and in fact, creating realistic characters will only help to immerse players more fully within compelling stories, settings, and emotional climates. Our aspirations, however, shouldn't be centered on creating “juicy” characters but rather on bringing to life living characters—ones possessed of the same fears, doubts, and aspirations as we have—or even better, ones who drive us to seek after higher ideals and more meaningful modes of connection with others. Video games are a powerful medium, but until we allow them to aspire to greater heights of emotional expression, they will be unable to reach their full potential as creative tools. See Jenova Chen's comments here or the video link here for further thoughts on limited emotional ranges within video games.