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• 1 2023-12-08T17:13:55+00:00 Character and Player Knowledge 5 (Reid Jaeger) plain 2023-12-09T02:30:14+00:00

       One seemingly inescapable immersion breaking trap in video games is the knowledge of the player and their character not matching. This can exist in both directions. In the case of the player having more knowledge, this can be due to perspective switching and/or minimap/UI overlays. These issues are not going to be discussed on this page (though it is examined on the HUD and Overlays page).  The focus of this page is largely on the opposite relationship where the character knows more than the player. 

       A character is a person, with a life story and knowledge about their world. This is knowledge that would affect decision making, and this knowledge is something the player does not possess. There are two common lazy solutions to avoid the issue. The first is to exposition dump or have the character need to be reminded of things for the benefit of the player. The second is to make the background of the character insignificant/irrelevant. Fortunately, neither Tacoma, nor The Spectrum Retreat are a product of those design choices. Both games take place in an environment where the characters and players alike do not understand what is going on. This makes it seem more natural when there are large chunks of information that needs to be fed to the player, since the character is lacking it as well. 

  
       The Spectrum Retreat is a tad cliched in its execution of creating surroundings unfamiliar to the player. Game begins with the character waking up in a hotel run by robots with no memory of who they are or why they are here (see image above). The hotel turns out to be a matrix-esque simulation. The player discovers memories glitching into the crumbling simulation. (see image below). Pay atention to how the memory is breaking its way in. It reminds the layer that the events are not real. However, they are not real in the context of the game world, which is actually distracting from how nothing in the game is real. Though the amnesia plot point is cliche, it is used as much as it is for a reason. The backstory of the character is key to the game and the player and character discover who they are together. 

  
       Tacoma takes place on a space station the player has never been to and involves people their character has never met. This does rather effectively eliminate the exposition issue without resorting to amnesia. While it does seem to fall into the trap of making the player’s background irrelevant, it actually does not. [SPOILER WARNING AHEAD] Tacoma actually takes advantage of the disconnect in knowledge between the player and the character to execute a plot twist late in the game. The player’s motivations were not what they were represented to be earlier in the game. According to “The audience who knew too much: investigating the role of spontaneous theory of mind on the processing of dramatic irony scenes in film,” “...findings suggest that false-belief inducing scenarios prompt a richer cognitive mental state representation than true-belief inducing scenarios…” (Cynthia Cabañas, Et Al.). In other words, the impact of events is greater if the audience has been previously misled. By having the unnamed plot twist based on the character being better enforced than the player, the end of the game is made all the more significant to the player. It is essentially a reversed form of dramatic Irony. While this is very interesting and makes a great story, it does unfortunately result in a moment that utterly shatters the immersion the game held.