Vernacademia Season 1: Episode 20: Games as a Composite Experience

In this cast, we go over the concepts of visceral and cerebral engagement when it comes to video games (dipping frequently into cinema) and the implications of managing the ratios of these engagement styles in games. Note that we use the terms Emotional and Visceral interchangeably in this cast.

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Cliff Notes

00:16 Introduction
01:16 Defining the Composite Experience
02:08 Mechanical Identity and Narvisaud
02:58 Explaining Narvisaud
03:58 Defining the individual aspects
04:40 Defining Narrative
05:37 Environment Design vs. Level Design
06:41 The Narvisaud appears in other mediums
07:12 Why separate out Narvisaud
08:11 The Mechanical Identity
08:44 Layers of Mechanical Identity (as a house)
09:25 The Foundation
09:51 The Framing
10:10 The Refining Elements
10:42 The Composite Game As A Fountain
12:33 Overall Theming
13:47 Guild Wars example of Mechanical Dissonance
16:07 Magic the Gathering and Mechanical Dissonance
18:23 The Integration and Influence
19:30 Highway to the Moon and Mechanical Influence
20:44 Returning to the fountain analogy
21:26 Make sure your game elements are fully integrated
22:10 Sign Off