The first FP game (Score 2, Interesting)

The author is basically correct. It's how you "feel" in a game which causes the immersion.

He had me when he asked "when was the first time you cared" about a character in a game, and then brought up Ico, which was exactly what I was thinking.

In Ico, I not only cared about the boy, but the girl also. When you held her hand and started running, there would be an uncomfortable "tug" on her arm as you started to drag her along. I quickly started using the controls in a more delicate way so I would work up to a run, rather than drag her off. The game didn't care, and she wasn't even real, but I stared becoming concerned for how "she" felt about my demands.

Now. Immersion is more than about graphics and sound. A really, really, good book can immerse you without any special effects altogether. (Neverwhere comes to mind..) In fact, Infocom had a tag line stating they had the best graphics of any computer games out there. They were just in your head.

The first, first person game I experienced that had true immersion was Myst. [I notice that myst was one of the tag words used in this thread, though it has not been mentioned yet.]

Many gamers deride Myst as "not a game", after a wit wrote a review calling it "a sideshow".

The real reason why most players don't like it is its pace..

In Myst, when you materialized, you were suddenly slapped with the view, the sounds of the wind, the waves, the water slapping the underside of the dock, the sounds creaking wood; and a small seagull circling overhead up in the clouds.

These techniques nowadays I recognize from some of the more sophisticated anime.

Later on you found Messages to Catherine, which were rushed, urgent.. Later still you found burned books in a library [Why?] in which you found some amazing journals written in pen, with beautiful and often enigmatic drawings. While you were reading the books it was just you and the image of the book, complete with the rustling of paper when you turned the pages (yes it was a simple wipe), and just the sound of the wind blowing through the open library door.

This was true immersion. I fell into the world. I can see it still. 10 years after I was there, despite the fact that the graphics were static, had dithering in some places due to the color pallet, the movies where the size of postage stamps and had to play in small areas, and the music quality was a bit scratchy in places due to audio compression.

However, the overall effect was magical. You didn't notice the small movies, because of where they were, they had no frames, but were part of the environment. Everything was seamless.

[In fact, playing the old Myst games in a PC environment nowadays, I DO notice these bits. Mostly because the movies play and you can see the rectangular areas where the boundaries don't match up... Progress I guess.]

Interestingly, just a few years ago, I read a review of the original Myst where the author talked about the waves crashing into the dock. I actually had to play the game again as my memory told me that the waves were moving (a later innovation for distant water in the sequel "Riven",) to ensure that, "yes", they were actually static.

Now, immersion is being discussed here as being tricks of sound and light to make you feel you are actually walking the halls. One person talked about the creaking of the floorboards as you moved about, and the shrieking sounds as something jumped out at you. However you can only transmit shallow emotions- unease, fear, alarm, excitement, hate, with these little tricks borrowed from the movies.

It is much harder to transmit other emotions, such as disgust, loneliness, loss, sadness, love, happiness, wonder- you know; the other emotions which are largely left out of movies now a days as there is no time to do them due to the pace.

As an example. Try watching the films; 2001, Solaris (with George Clooney), Lost in Translation, and Gandhi. There are others, but the common thread is that their pace is slow. This generally makes them "bad films" for most moviegoers, but they are the only types of films which can make you care.

When I played Riven, the sequel to Myst, it was much more photo-realistic than the original. The immersion of the game started immediately upon arrival by having the opening movie, then the title credits, then your arrival, all being one seamless whole.

In fact, Riven was the first time I *forgot* I was in a game. Near the end, when I had finally found and freed the mysterious Catherine, she gave me some instructions and raced out of sight down a hall. And I was suddenly again left completely alone again. As I retraced my steps, I found machines I had repaired inoperative, doors previously opened, locked; and my areas of movement circumscribed to a tiny part of the world which I had just spent several weeks opening up. My feeling was unease, then growing panic as I worried that I was now trapped in the world which Catherine had been previously been held and I had been betrayed..

Oh.

That.. Is.. *True* immersion in a game.

Now barring a holodeck (it is much easier to provide direct neruo stimulation BTW.) When you forget that you are *playing* a game and are *IN* a game, that is truly remarkable and an achievement by the creators.

By the way, I should mention that TV has already created a virtual reality which people think is real. The fact that we might have something like "Real Life" from Red Dwarf is rather horrifying seeing how addictive interactive media (or even non-interactive TV,) already is.

I fear the majority of humanity would immediately volunteer for a Matrix style existence where they would never have to think again. [But that's another rant.]

And yes. Major props to 7th Guest, Amber Journey's Beyond, and Obsidian also.