An Introduction - Let's Talk About Feelings

Have you ever read a book series that was so well written, engrossing and amazing that when you finished it you felt like you couldn't move?

You just had to sit there for awhile while your mind felt both startlingly empty and intensely full, with what you'd just witnessed on the pages in front of you washing over you again and again and again.

At the same time you became aware of the world around you again, after what seemed like a really long time, and you were unable to understand how the world continued to spin onward and function around you the same way it always had. Because for you this intense and wonderful journey had just come to an end and your brain wasn't sure yet if you were still the same person who'd started that book, or if you were someone else now. 

An all new you who's been transformed through a book, and the experiences you witnessed within its world, so that now you'll live your life looking at the world in a slightly different way.

...

So have you experienced this? Of cause you have, I'd say almost everyone who's read Harry Potter to the end would have experienced this to some degree or another at least.

Perhaps the more important question though, is what does any of this has to do with Game Design? 

In my opinion; everything.

This feeling is maybe the most important part of all creative works; Books, Films, TV shows and Games. It matters because it's this feeling that gives a creative work a clear signifier of worth. You can point to this feeling and say: "that book/TV show/Movie/Game changed my entire world, thats why it was important".

Or put another way, I think its what makes something into art. 

This feeling we all experience is the reason I know video games matter and why Video Games can be art. Because the feeling you had when you finished the last Harry Potter can be, and is, caused by games too.

Not all games, not even most games can make you feel like this. 

But some games can. 

Games like Spec Ops: The Line, the Mass Effect series, The Last of Us, The Walking Dead and the Bioshock series all have that spark that makes you feel like everything has changed just a little bit once its over. All from merely pressing buttons and twiddling little sticks for hours.

This feeling is why I'm a Game Designer. Its why I'm going to throw years into something that takes you a few hours to play. Its what makes me want to make games. 
Because I want to tell stories that you don't just read or watch but that you actively experience and interact with in a way only games can allow.

Because I want to put that spark into a game and then to see that game change someone's entire world.