When I was a little kid, I was afraid of getting to adulthood and becoming homeless because of not being able to find a job. I thought that in that situation I would be alone, abandoned like a stray dog, without any possibility of financial recovery.
When I was a little kid, I tought that if I became homeless, nobody would care about me, neither my friends, nor my family.
As mortals, it’s natural that we like to have control over the things around us. Just having control over one aspect of our lives adds to the comforting illusion of safety. And with safety comes the survival of ourselves, and the survival of our species. Maybe that’s why cozy games are really popular.
Last week I came accross this definition by Gavin:
Entertainment is a zero risk shortcut that leads to gratification of one or more survival instincts. […]. At a fundamental level, entertainment is anything that makes a shortcut based on minimal input from your body (minimal energy expenditure) that gets you as quickly as possible towards instinctual gratification
Source: Scientia Ludos “What ACTUALLY is entertainment?”
I usually don’t like when videogames are just reduced to overcomplicated skinner-boxes. This strips them off their artistic component. Nevertheless, when talking about the gratification of playing games, I can’t just ignore that the satisfaction of a player’s inner primal needs might be the most important component in getting them to enjoy a game.
I reflected on this and thought on how I could consider this to upgrade the concept / elevator pitch of my game.
I think that the concept of a cold, isolating and silent environment would emphasize encounters with other users online.
I think that the limitation in how these users interact could emphasize the feelings I want them to experience while playing my game. Journey and Sky: Children of Light have no in-game chat system, just emotes.
A survival and management aspect could be added to the game by limiting fuel as a resource. This could triggers those primal instincts, and maybe cooperation by fuel-sharing could appear as a great creator of meaningful social interactions.
The concept of travel / travelling with others is an interesting concept to think about for this game. Like forming a motorcade with friends.
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