Spark Game Design

Often, you will hear that games need to be original. People will say that they are full of clichés. It is true or not? Think about how many games feature a male protagonist trying to save the world and at some point, a damsel in distress. I am sure many people have heard of the lists of game clichés and RPG clichés. While some of them are a bit ridiculous, many of them do hold true. Let’s face it. There are many clichés in games, and originality is greatly missing from many new games.

So, why is it that many times while I am thinking of game story ideas, I still want someone saving the world from total destruction and many of those lame character stereotypes? Why do I like some clichés? I believe some of this can be explained by a social psychological phenomenon known as the mere exposure effect.

The Mere Exposure Effect
First studied by Robert Zajonc, a social psychologist, the mere exposure effect is a phenomenon in which repeated exposure to a stimulus increases the likability of it merely because of the exposure. In other words, the more you are exposed to something, the more you tend to like it. Zajonc first showed this using an experiment in which people were shown Chinese characters and were asked to guess what they mean. The results showed that the more a person was exposed to a particular character, the more he or she assigned a positive meaning to it.What does this mean? Well, it means that the more you save Hyrule, the more you will want to keep saving Hyrule. So, should game designers cling on to clichés? Not necessarily.

It’s Still Good to be Original
In 1976, Researcher Miller showed that exposing people to a stimulus in excessive amounts would decrease their liking of the stimulus. So, there indeed exists a point where people will become irritated with clichés.

Originality should not be forgotten. Especially in regards to gameplay, it should be a high priority. Gameplay centers around pattern matching and when patterns are found, things begin to get boring. Even though we may like a certain gameplay, it will begin to bore us unless it becomes more challenging. Sadly, when it becomes more challenging, new customers are hard to find, and the game begins to enter into a niche.

Designers need to take both of these things into consideration when making games. We can design games that are both original and have familiarity. We can design games with new gameplay, and at the same time, allow players to explore that castle not unfamiliar to ones they have seen in many other games. Designers should not rely on reusing things, but they shouldn’t forget how important clichés can be.