Amnesia: Immersion

2. Discuss the immersion created by elements of audiovisual, art or diegetic design in your chosen game and their effect on your experience of the game's narrative.

"Amnesia's" art, audiovisuals, and diegetic design immersed me in its narrative, and made my experience as a player curious about the narrative and scared of  the gameplay.
The audiovisuals in "Amnesia" immersed me in the narrative as I felt a moment of affect, as when I played through the "Wine Cellar" I heard footsteps and saw something standing in my peripheral vision. I quickly hid and turned off my lamp so the monster wouldn't see me. As I stood in the darkness the sanity level began to rise: the throbbing audio gets louder and the vision of the player becomes more blurry. This all built up to my emotion of fear, as the sanity level gave a sense of tension. The emotions I felt throughout the game helped me immerse in its narrative as I felt like after frightful moments, the player was rewarded with story nodes.
The diegetic design combined with its audiovisuals immersed me in the narrative as I felt curious about finding out more about the narrative. As I played through the game I eventually progressed to the "Entrance Hall" where the player enters a story node playing in the background while they approach a door in the middle of of the "Entrance Hall". The view of the player became dark red and the character's movement became slow with faint sounds of people talking; all building up to the tension of finding out what is behind the door. Once the player enters through the door, a large skin-like mass blocks the player's way. This created an emotion of curiosity as I was eager to find out what had happened for this to be there, why it was blocking my way and who made this, all of this immersed me into its narrative as I was eager to get to the next story node to find out.
"Amnesia's" audiovisuals and diegetic design immersed me in its narrative through the emotions of fear and curiosity I experienced as a player.

Gone Home: Micro-narrative

1.Was the use of micro-narrative objects in your chosen game(s) engaging? Explain your answer.

The use of micro-narrative objectives in “Gone Home” did not engage me in the game as a player.
Most of the micro-narrative objects supported the diegesis but didn't add anything new or interesting to the narrative.

As the player searches through the house they can find a “cassette” that one of the story nodes explained was a gift from Lonnie to Sam containing her favorite music. Once the player puts the cassette into a cassette player it plays the music which makes the diegesis feel realistic but makes the micro-narrative feel meaningless as it doesn't add anything more to the narrative.

The story nodes the player finds by searching throughout the house are in a particular order and if the player finds them in the wrong order can make the narrative feel jarring and makes the player lose their agency.

Throughout the game the micro-objects the player finds seem to be building up for a believable horror narrative; when the player finds the “basement”, they find a table with a pentagram drawn on it and candles sitting on top and some of the letters the player finds mention an Uncle who had died inside the house. All of these micro-narrative objects give the player the impression that the diegesis is setting up for a convincing “horror”, but once the player reaches the end and finds the final story node all of this built up becomes meaningless as the story was more about Sam running away.

"Gone Home's" micro-objectives did not engage me as they didn't add to the story, they just supported the diegesis. The objects make the game believable but not engaging.

Grand Theft Auto: Avatar

2. Does your chosen game's design of the avatar character help immerse you in the story? Explain your answer.

Niko Bellic's character design in Grand Theft Auto 4 felt very vague and unconvincing which made it hard to immerse me in the story.
Niko's appearance make him look like a gangster; shaved head, un-shaved facials and baggy clothes but if we put him in the context of the game, he is just fresh off the boat and wants to live the "american dream". This all made me believe that Niko was coming to america to look for trouble when he is just seeing his rich cousin.
When I played Red Dead Redemption, John Marston immersed me in the game as his intentions were clear from the start and his appearance supported this which made his character immerse me in the story. I found that in GTA4, Niko was too "mysterious" at the start of the game as Roman's character was clear from the start: he stated openly to Niko that he was just keen for America for "boobs" and "money", which gave the player a sense of what kind of character he was. Throughout the game, the player finds out more about Roman than Niko which made me empathize more with the non-player characters than with Niko as their motivations were clear and Niko's were not.
When the player goes on the date with "Michelle", all of the questions are ignored by Niko which doesn't add anything to the character; the player assumes that progressing through the game would reward you with more exposition of the protagonist,which didn't happen, instead the player is left with the vague and uninteresting character they started with.
Niko Bellic's  intentions, appearance and dialogue were vague and unconvincing. His intentions were unclear, his appearance didn't support his personality and his dialogue was one-sided making immersion difficult.