Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Theory5

Do you guys have any ideas on how to make it [a video game] less fightening?

If you had access to the game’s source code and the appropriate compiler and build info, you could replace the scarey elements with silly/unscarey ones (ie: happy clowns, fuzzy kitties, etc.) though you’d have to be cautious, as sometimes such edits can make a graphic more scarey, and certainly more creepy, as all the happy/fuzzy stuff will still be trying to kill you.

More practically, you might check a source for game cheat codes. Some games have cheats that add comic elements, such a “big-head mode”, while otherwise not affecting gameplay.

A non-software trick is to keep some real objects visible between you and the screen – eg: a (small, obviously) vase of flowers; an action figure or two. Such objects serve, I think, to remind you that the two-dimensional image you’re looking at in the screen is not real.

Frequent pausing can also reduce one’s level of emersion in a video game – though IMHO, it adversely affects the gameplay experience.