Visual:
Colour psychology: Colour psychology is the colours we as player associate with certain things, a few examples of this happening in video games is normally how red more or less usually represents health but at the same time we also recognize the colour red as a sign of danger, or how green is normally stamina and blue can be mana or exp. You can see below how the game Oblivion uses colours to represent it's Stamina (green) Health (red) and Mana (blue).
Inference: Inference is where the game/ things will have to take a chance and act based on what it thinks you’re going to do, this doesn’t appear very much in video games and examples are hard to come by, but one is something like in fifa where the goal keeper has to jump in a direction based on where it thinks you’re going to kick the ball, as seen below.
Player viewpoint: The player view point is the visual point the player gets to look at, every game ever has this, but most games nowadays are from a first person point of view to give a more immersed feeling, but another common feature for viewpoints is 3rd person which is more used to follow a characters story rather than feel as if it’s your story. But most often a game will have the option to switch between both, Such as the game alone in the dark (below)
Iconic: This term refers to when a game prefers to use icons rather than text to explain their things, like how instead of listing items (which some games do indeed do) they just present their items and things such as save as little pictures and icons ( save will appear as a floppy disk ). This is in most games nowadays.
Camera techniques: Camera techniques are an incredibly important part of creating atmosphere and mood in a game, the direction a camera is facing can completely change the feel of how a certain part of a game is played out ( like how in resident evil 2 the camera is fixed in certain locations to not allow you to see certain things and to create a cautious feel ). Camera techniques can also help the player focus of different things, such as if they are stuck and have been that way for a while, the camera may change to the direction of the objective, this type of function is used in the uncharted games. You can see the fixed camera being used below in resident evil 2.
Lighting effects: Lighting effects are used in the same way camera techniques are used, in some aspects at-least. Lighting is also a very good mood setter and can hold up to (and in some cases can be better than) camera techniques to create mood, because wandering into a dark area with no light is sometimes worse then not being able to see that area on screen at-all. Lights can also point you in the right way without breaking the immersion of a game, like how in Left 4 dead 1 and 2 lights are very subtly pointing the player in the right direction without them noticing, but in a game like Alan wake they’re used as straight up point A point B things and you must look for them and get to them at all cost as you can see below.
Physical:
Vibration: vibration is a physical action the player’s controller will do when the game wants to grab their attention to inform them of a specific event or cinematic thing. Vibration is nowadays very common and is probably in every form of handheld controller, but it didn’t always be that way, it started with the purchase of the rumble pack for the N64, the first controller for a console to have a vibration function. The gameboy colour also had a rumble feature, as well as many sticks for PC games for simulators. Vibration is commonly used to inform the user of either the fact that they are taking damage, or that an explosion or some form of other earth shaking incident has happened, these uses are very commonly/ if not in all, current first person shooter games, where the player will feel a vibration when taking damage or killed. A device called a ‘gaming vest’ has currently been tested on games such as these, it works by have the player wear a vest in real life and will vibrate very fiercely when the in-game character is shot in real time, letting the player know they just got shot and where the shot came from judging by what point on the vest vibrated. Games that include the vibrate function as a main part of game play are things like FPS's such as the battle field or call of duty series that use vibration to alert the player of explosions and being shot, as seen in the screenshot below.
Haptic: Haptic devices are a type of controller used for simulators, such as driving games for the PC and such (Some wheel controllers are Haptic devices) and arcade racing games (where sometimes the whole rig and seat is moving against you). This style of control is designed to make you more immersed in a simulators experience, making it feel as if you; the player, are piloting or manning a real vehicle with all the kinks, in the case of the Haptic controllers, they give you a push back if you’re going fairly quick, like in reality. A game that uses the control-stick and a helmet for it's main form of gameplay is IL-2 Sturmovi, a world war two flight simulator game which the controller is used for flying the plane and helmet is used to look around the cockpit and out the windows.
Audio:
Ambient: Ambient music and sounds are designed to immerse you into a game as much as physically and mentally possible. Ambient music and noises are a very good and necessary part of any game with horror or any form meaningful scene, as they create mood and draws you in, especially in horror titles where it’s extremely important to constantly be immersed otherwise the game may fall flat.Amnesia: the dark decent uses ambient sound well, immersing the player into the game and then scaring them.
Dialog: One of the most powerful tools if not the most powerful tool for creating any form of immersion, help, warning and many other things in video games that plan to have a story. Dialog will be used to tell you information that you as the player may need to know about a certain area or thing in the game, Dialog is used to tell the story of the game and there are some games which are only the player walking through an environment listening to audio. But in games that are not like this but instead action, RPG or heavily story driven, sometimes hearing a characters voice that you know to be good (or bad) can change the entire feeling of a scene for better or worse. It can also help and reassure you, an example of this would be the codec feature in the metal gear solid games, where at anytime, even in the heat of battle, you can stop, go onto the codec screen without fear of being shot and hear all of the characters views on your current situation and how they think you should go about dealing with it (or if they think you might die unless you run they’ll let you know). This type of immersion and help, as well as reassurance and recognizable voices are one of the things a game with story truly needs to excel in to be a hit.Below is Metal gear solid codec screen as featured in game.
Foley effects: Foley effects are sound effects that are recorded in a studio to go with certain objects. Foley effects are everywhere in games, and for this to happen the people who make the effects have to find a way of making the noise in real life, a few examples would be how with gun noises they have to go out to a gun range and shoot the weapons they’re trying to get sounds for, or if it’s a noise that doesn’t yet exist, they have to find a way of making it exist, like how Godzilla’s roar was made by rubbing a leather glove down some chello’s strings, or how every gunshot you've ever heard in Call of duty came from a recording of the Foley department firing the gun.
Music: A fairly self explanatory thing, music is something that pretty much most games need (with the acceptation of a few) to really be an experience. Theme songs are among the most recognizable, with things like street fighters; Guile's theme and portals end song; Still alive being some of the most listened to and popular themes as of today’s standards. But mostly retro video games have the best and most recognizable soundtracks, themes and even sound effects for rewarding or warning you of all time, with things like Super Mario Brother’s level 1-1’s theme probably being the most recognizable theme in history. Repetitive sound effects are also a widely common thing, they can be very diverse with their individual meaning and are instantly recognizable without the use of dialog or text explaining them, like how in sonic a small “Ding” is heard upon picking up a ring as a reward tone and in Metal Gear Solid the alert noise is there to say you messed up without telling you that you messed up.
Mood: Mood is present wherever there is immersion to be had; mood is something that a good story needs in a video game and without it the story and events will no doubt be bland and most likely UN-impacting. Mood cannot be achieved on its own and requires the use of good audio, dialog, sound effects and many of the things we have talked about on this list. Horror games and fairly good at achieving mood as they have to have you immersed by having climatic scares and having moments of complete, nerve-racking silence in-between to try and keep you guessing. Mood is fairly hard for boring, runoff the mill first person shooter like Call of Duty to achieve, as the boring repetitive style of gameplay and story and most certainly forgettable, which is a shame seeing as every game nowadays wants to be just like it. The game below is pernumbra, a horror game that really knows what mood is, as you want to stop playing in fear of being killed but the mood makes you want to learn more about whats going on.
Emotion: Emotion can only ever be achieved if everything else is pin point perfect; the mood has to be exactly right, the audio and dialog have to be meaningful and likeable, the music, themes and even the sound effects have to be memorable. Then and only then can you truly feel for the characters you’re growing close to, a few examples of games that have truly achieved emotion based upon what I’ve seen are The emotional tornado; Heavy rain which if you mess up in the game one time, that can effect everything about the ending, which if you’ve played it, you already know is pretty emotionally hanging by a thread. Another game that has came out fairly recently that achieves this is telltales The Walking Dead, and if you, like me, have completed it up to its current status, you’ll know what I mean when I say you care for the characters. There are lots of other, older examples I could get into about how they hit the mark on the emotional ball, but it’s probably easier to have your own views and memories, because if a scene was perfect with its execution and emotion, you’ll always remember and get a nostalgic feel whenever you see it again.Below is Telltales emotion ride; The walking dead.
