#iast class
InDesigning Games: a Guide to Engineering Experience, Tynan Sylvester describes his 3 objectives, when he’s trying to immerse an audience into a video game. Here is my attempt to paraphrase them:
✅Design your game around an activity that engrosses the audience. Once they get caught up in the flow, they’ll forget their everyday concerns & and focus only on the game. This is a good place to show off for the audience, since they’re paying close attention!
✅ Design the activity to get the audience pumped. Use the game to stimulate their emotions. Get them excited! Scare them! Flatter them! Pique their curiosity! Piss ‘em off, until they’re ready to fight back! Whatever’s right for your game. It’ll get the audience loosened up!
✅ Use the game’s “fiction layer” to help the audience process the experience they’re having. Treat them as if they are characters in a story, and they may start to play the part!
Back when Tiffins opened, Joe Rohde posted an Instagram about how ordering the whole-fried sustainable fish is actually an Experiential Story that represents the very soul of Animal Kingdom
Because eating a fish who still has a head is the sort of broadening experience that you might have while traveling
And it gives you a greater respect for the animal who died for your sustenance
I wish I could find the post, because I swear he also said that the tastiest part of the whole-fried sustainable fish is its cheeks
It’s like a bonus for anyone who’s brave enough to dig into their dinner’s face
Well
Let me tell you
Tonight I ate the whole-fried sustainable fish
It tasted excellent, and it was a broadening experience
But it had no cheeks
Its head was hollow
I’m not sure what to make of that
Maybe I imagined that very specific and Rohde-esque recommendation
Or maybe they change the fish based on availability (although the waitress said they don’t)
My best guess is that it’s true, but Joe Rohde hoards it all for himself
There’s just a big barrel of fish cheek meat in the back
And the only way to open it is with a key that’s disguised as a Bhutanese earring
Despite the disappointment – or maybe because of it – Rohde & his team told me an effective Experiential Story.
It prompted me to arc, as a character. “A believer, who gets disappointed by his rabbi. He learned – at Disney’s Animal Kingdom – that life wouldn’t be as happy as Joe Rohde had promised. One glance into those hollow fried jaws, and Ian gave up on becoming an Imagineer.”
That’s a lot of nuance to fit in a fish’s mouth! That’s a hell of an Experiential Story! And I am grateful to Rabbi Rohde, for teaching me how to process life-changing moments like this.
For the record: I haven’t given upcompletely on theme park design.
Because I’ve been researching how to tell an interactive story since 2007… and I’m finally ready to teach it, as a class!
So I’m making it! It’ll be an online class – with an interesting curriculum & a ton of creative prompts – all (taught / spieled) by me.
Which means I’m gonna be using this blog more often, as I design the class. Tumblr helps me get into the teaching mindset.
TL;DR? To the 4 people who read my long posts: hello! I’m back now. I hope you’re prospering!
