Game Decisions

For this week's reading, it was about what productivity applications we can learn from games. The article focused on cozy games and how to design them. Coziness is a state or quality of being in control but still being engaged during times of rest.

Coziness itself refers to how strongly a game evokes the fantasy of:
Safety: A cozy game has an absence of danger and risk.
Abundance: A cozy game has a sense of abundance. 
Softness: Cozy games use strong aesthetic signals that tell players they are in a low stress environment full of abundance and safety. 

Factors that negate coziness include:

• Extrinsic reward: 
• Danger, fear, threat: 
• Responsibility: 
• Unpleasant distractions: 
• Intense stimulus: 
• Distance
• Confinement:
• Deception, betrayal, lies, insincerity 

Cozy games can fulfill player needs. They can create spaces for higher order needs like mastery and self-reflection.

There are a number of highly specific design patterns for each domain of game design. 
Ingredients of cozy aesthetics:

• Abundance: a theme of plenty and generousness assists in player calm and security. 
• Smooth Transitions: Gentle gradients between states, colors, or environments within the cozy area.
• Protection & Support: Clear signals of strong safety and comfort, from the environment and characters around the player, signal that this is a safe place in which to explore higher-order needs.
• Focus: Elimination of interruptions, pressures or sources of unwanted distraction, allows the player to feel a place is knowable and thereby becomes familiar and comfortable.
• Refuge & Escape: if there is an “outside” to this space, it is contrasted in its discomfort or danger. 
• Human-centric: The comfort and ease of humans in this space or system is apparent.

Cozy visuals cam help give games a sense of safety and comfort. This be achieved with bright colors, bright lights, natural materials, open space and contrast.

Cozy locations are places without danger and the player can do what they want. It can also allow creative expression where players can design the location to what they want.

Two examples of cozy places are below:

• Places that fill basic needs, including food, rest, warmth, and opt-in sociability. They should include visible places to comfortably sit, eat, drink, and view beauty.
• Transition spaces without danger or obligation: trains, backseat of a car, slow-moving spacecraft

This was a very interesting article as I feel it gave a good look as to what can make a player enjoy a game they play. I never really thought about coziness when playing a game but this article has help me think more about it when playing video games.

Links of interest:
http://www.lostgarden.com/
This week's article

https://medium.com/@kitfoxgames/designing-for-coziness-d33d2519a59e
Similar article

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-11-05-how-to-design-for-coziness-and-kindness
Interesting perspective on how to design coziness in a game

                                       
                                              This would be a nice cozy place to relax in
                                                                  (Image Link)