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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7537436" data-attributes="member: 6775031">There are two basic approaches to immersion, when you're designing game mechanics:1) You can try to design a bespoke mechanic for every situation, which best approximates how that specific situation would resolve in the real world. The idea is that the player can just forget the game mechanics, imagine themself to really be in that situation, and do what &quot;makes sense&quot; to them. The danger with this approach is that, what makes sense to the player, may not be what makes sense to the designer; the player may be left feeling helpless, or grasping at straws, because they don't understand how the world is supposed to work in any given situation.2) You can design a universal mechanic, which applies in a consistent manner across a great deal of situations, even if it doesn't model any one situation with tremendous accuracy. The idea is that the player understands how the game mechanics work, in much the same way that the character understands how the game world works, so you're both making your decisions based on the same degree of information.Which is more immersive? Personally, I'd say that the latter approach is more comfortable. Too often, the former approach has left me struggling to guess what was supposed to make sense for my character, and that's about as far away from immersion as you can get (short of introducing player-authorship mechanics).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7537436, member: 6775031"] There are two basic approaches to immersion, when you're designing game mechanics: 1) You can try to design a bespoke mechanic for every situation, which best approximates how that specific situation would resolve in the real world. The idea is that the player can just forget the game mechanics, imagine themself to really be in that situation, and do what "makes sense" to them. The danger with this approach is that, what makes sense to the player, may not be what makes sense to the designer; the player may be left feeling helpless, or grasping at straws, because they don't understand how the world is supposed to work in any given situation. 2) You can design a universal mechanic, which applies in a consistent manner across a great deal of situations, even if it doesn't model any one situation with tremendous accuracy. The idea is that the player understands how the game mechanics work, in much the same way that the character understands how the game world works, so you're both making your decisions based on the same degree of information. Which is more immersive? Personally, I'd say that the latter approach is more comfortable. Too often, the former approach has left me struggling to guess what was supposed to make sense for my character, and that's about as far away from immersion as you can get (short of introducing player-authorship mechanics). [/QUOTE]

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