Ever wondered how to build heart and social impact into a game without turning it into a ‘serious’ or educational game? This talk presents the findings from user-tested research into how to create empathy-building encounters in mainstream games.
With such starting points as: ‘Put Play First – Don’t let your social issue take over the game’ and explaining how through in-game choices we emotionally entangle the player with the game’s consequences, the talk presents a model which can be used by anyone in the game making pipeline (writers, producers, directors, designers, and devs).
Talk delivered in 2023 at the New Zealand Game Developer’s Conference