EMOTIONS as Game Mechanics

[@LeoAngora]

You have an incredible point on Super Princess Peach. If the character were some kind of performer (instead of platformer), the sudden emulation of emotions would have more sense in the context of the game.

[@LeoAngora]

Total respect for the localization teams of Japanese games. Their words for certain emotions cannot be easily translated, maybe that's the reason for the "eager" and "vibe" choice of words in the games you described.

[@jaewho]

The original word is 興味 (kyoumi), which can be translated to something like "interest" or "curiosity". I imagine the localization team needed a shorter word to fit the emotion box, so "eager" is a pretty good choice for that. Like, you pique the demon's curiosity enough that they'll be eager to help you out with their cards or whatever, haha.

[@m4ye104]

I absolutely love omori emotions chart. Not only does it look good, but it also tells you what character uses what emotion best. You make Aubrey mad so she can hit like a truck. You make Hero sad to make him even more of a tank and you make kel happy for the kel nuke. Major Spoilers: Not only that, but the chart also perfectly represents how each of the three characters respond to her death, Hero is sad about it. Aubrey gets mad and Kel, moves on well enough to stay his normal happy self.

[@Sakura-Army]

There's a bunch of refrencing before the reveal of Mari's death in the dreamscape. See for example Basil's Flowers and who they are assigned to (Kel is a cactus because he can survive in the most impossible of conditions - foreshadowing how Kel is later the one who seems to have dealt with her death the most healthy!)

[@m4ye104]

@Sakura-Army didn't even think of that. Omori is one of those games where the creator really poured all of their soul into it.

[@greenhydra10]

11:19 Someone's angry because Kel won't *shut up.* HS Kel in a sentence.

[@jurtheorc8117]

There's an upcoming turn-based RPG by name of Pillory where the battling is done by way of picking and discarding thoughts. From what i understand there's not really health as such, but you try to put the enemies into an emotional state where they stop fighting. Discarding too many thoughts lower's the protagonist's mood, until it puts the protagonist in a kind of depression. Meanwhile accepting the first thought you have will improve your mood, but picking the first thought too often will put the protagonist in a kind of mania. There's a demo out. Worth checking out. It won't be everyone's cup of tea but it's very interesting.

[@luminamentischannel]

Your content has been so refreshing and inspiring! It makes me want to jump into my own video creating and do better. I appreciate the inspiration!

[@existentialcrisisactor]

Hell yeah! I haven't clicked so fast all week! This channel is way underrated.

[@EvanH2000]

Sad to see not one comment so far about the brilliant visual storytelling you put into your videos, dot. Hand-drawn little sprites and illustrations, interesting and dynamic backgrounds, and those animations and transitions! Not to mention the banger thumbnails. It's not just what you say, but how you illustrate everything too. Everything is just so high effort. Really appreciate the subtitles as well. Looking forward to whatever you decide to do next, you're def a priority watch for me

[@SandVessel]

Stoked that you brought up Super Princess Peach cause that's the first game that came to mind when I read this title. Also I'm glad you made a point to mention the issue with it conceptually, while still acknowledging other positives the game had to offer. Just another great one all around, Dot.

[@jaewho]

Ahhh man, as soon as you mentioned Persona 1, I knew I had to get my head ready to bop to the battle theme lol. I still enjoy it, even after all the frequent random encounters... I started playing through the series a while back and I'm currently on Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. It's interesting how Persona 2 (either game) expands on the Contact system by allowing 2 or 3 party members to do a single unique Contact action (e.g. Lisa hides behind the protagonist and blushes, or Eikichi wants an interview and Maya asks him a silly question) and those combinations can change because party members will disappear and reappear throughout the story and also because their relationships will change over time. So, in a way, you kinda have to think about your party's feelings at the same time as the demon's.

[@felipe2557]

Another game that does some really interesting stuff with feelings is samurai shodown V, it's a fighting game that has a rage bar, that increases everytime you take damage, the higher the bar is the more damage you do and when it fills up completely you can use your super as many times as you want, but if you don't hit the super in a amount of time, the rage bar returns to zero, since the character can't mantain anger forever, but you can also, before your bar fills up completely, you can meditate, turning your bar into a part on your life bar, that you can use when you're close to death once per match, to enter a "concentration state" where your opponent moves slowly and you can do a single slash that does a lot of damage, the more you meditate, the earlier you can access the concentration state and the more damage that single slash will do. The part that makes it interesting is that different characters get rage in different ways, some characters that are more hot headed get furious in 2 hits but they stay with max rage for less time and barely get concentration bar when they meditate, while some other characters get very little rage when they get hit, but can convert the rage better when they meditate, letting them get very dangerous when they use the concentration mode, it's really interesting, and it also helps characters that don't have the best supers to have some use for their meter, since the concentration mode is at least good on every character.

[@qew_Nemo]

This video made me feel like this: ███████████░░░░

[@241Cookies__]

this is a really cool analysis of concepts to game mechanics! I loved the conclusion to the video the most, sums up the experience of playing a game perfectly

[@bivcbmtgstgtssscqcrddgtrsm2257]

I never knew that the "old age" Persona games had that mechanic! You learn something new everyday.

[@GamerRoman]

A bit disappointed that limbus company isn't here.

[@timmygilbert4102]

The nice trick in this essay us that everything in game is if-then... That's programming 😂

[@AlyssaJ14]

While it definitely doesn't have the level of depth/detail as Omori or Persona, an example of emotion being turned into a game mechanic I know and love is Grandia 2. There is exactly one character out of the playable cast of 6 who has an extra feature unique to her - a rage bar (or rather a rage frame? It's initially a small moving colored line around her battle portrait that grows bigger and faster and changes color until she snaps) that slowly fills up every time she takes damage or misses an attack. The character in question is definitely quick to anger and also... slightly evil because she is literally connected to (or rather, a piece of) an evil godly being. When her rage caps, you immediately lose control of her but the rate at which her turn comes around in battle spikes DRAMATICALLY and she'll autonomously use all her strongest spells and abilities to attack until either her rage wears off (after about 7-ish turns), she gets KO'd, or the battle ends. All of which resets her rage back to zero. It's very fitting for her character for her to fly into a rage like that, and from a gameplay standpoint I really enjoy the risk vs reward of it. Because she can act so much faster it's theoretically a good idea to try to have her near the breaking point before going into a boss battle, but it's risky to lose control of her in those circumstances, especially since while she typically uses powerful offensive abilities, sometimes she randomly goes for much less helpful spells like debuffs or just single-target attacks when an AOE would be preferred (nearly every boss fight she's part of involves a multi-part enemy or an enemy with minions. Or both). You have to decide whether you WANT her snap during the boss fight or whether you'd rather not risk it. And depending on your goal, the entire way you handle the dungeon preceding the boss might change since you have to carefully manage her rage meter. Either prevent it from filling too much too early by canceling the actions of (or defeating outright) enemies who would target her, or let her get beat up enough that she uses up that rage beforehand and definitely won't go off again during the boss fight.

[@ewoklord-726]

That's such a cool way to implement anger as a game system!

[@EggyEggtoast]

DOT vid Omori thumbnail I will be sitting down 🛐

[@benni4202]

this was written really well! keep up the good work :)

[@riggedupgaming]

NEW VIDEO LETS GOO

[@TheDoomSlayerButPettingaCat]

Excelent editing.

[@ithinkthereforeislampodcast]

Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus did some interesting things with the various emotions of the Modokons (Angry, Sad, Wired, Drunk) affecting how you would approach each puzzle and rescue scenario.

[@megascopsasio2015]

Cute cat animations!! Well done!

[@flikkie72]

20:36 Nier automata music has come to the point that I feel my gut wrenched because I just long to see more of Yoko Taro's beautiful video game world. It used to make me eager, but now it makes me sad.

[@ahmh1000]

Using Nier Automata amusement park theme when talking about Disney is a nice touch.

[@Sapphire-c9f]

hell yeah new video!

[@Treasure_hunter_21]

Nice video. BTW. Cats are natural counter to snakes.

[@syster9700]

oh my god the Rollercoaster tycoon nostalgia though-

[@ICountFrom0]

You will NEVER get off of Mr. Bones's Wild Ride.

[@Marina-kb9hi]

quick guide on demon negotiation in megaten: pretty much you have to know roughly where each demon falls in the chaos-law alignment. Does the demon believe in a world that the strong can shape as they see fit? freedom over everything else? Or is abiding by the law to ensure order the most important thing? As opposed to persona's negotiation mechanics, it's more about ideology than actual emotion (which fits the difference between typical megaten and persona pretty well) The questions that can come up are basically random although some are specific to the race the demon belongs to (jirae beast vile fairy etc.) Also they do ask you for money and items and hp and sp quite a lot usually you want to give them everything. Luck is still a big component ESPECIALLY in smt 4. Sometimes it will just play out like this: I want a life stone. I want big chunk of your spirit. I want 2500 macca. Thanks! (Demon runs away without even asking alignment questions)

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

I wish there was Super Princess Peach 2.

[@Nyperold018]

Come to think... MySims Kingdom (Wii) has a place for emotions, and that is in the Chat interaction. Each Chat has a target emotion that you want to elicit in a character. Each emotional state for a character has a different set of actions you can perform to get to another state. You could very easily view it as a flowchart, with each node and the beginning and ends as an emotional state, and the arrows as your actions. And again, you create ifs that will lead to specific thens: if an action causes an emotion in that character for that chat, you can count on that same thing having the same outcome in a future playthrough, should you play again. Here's a possibly-obscure game: Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (SNES, Genesis). Gone is the maze and its dots, replaced with a more realistic setting. Also gone is the ability to control Pac-Man directly. Instead, you have a slingshot, which you use in hopes of conveying what you want him to do. You might think you're being quite clear, but he might not see it that way. And there's another factor that plays into how cooperative he'll be: his emotions. He can be sad and mope around, be too happy (and cocky!) and ignore your commands for that reason, or be angry and unwilling to do stuff over that. A bunch of thens and a bunch of ifs.

[@parkerdude5682]

Another dot banger call him kenny

[@yappingScramble]

true

[@alexniccah]

6:04 Super mario bros 2, was the first game to star a woman, as you could play as peach, and get invincibility stars 😏

[@RedshirtAfficionado]

I want to eat the muppets

[@Soooooooooooonicable]

i omor

[@geraldineyorarou2221]

I am dot viewer

[@KaedeTan23]

The sims 😂

[@espelhodasconstelacoes]

Good stuff man, glad to be early! Jesus loves ya!

[@KaedeTan23]

:0

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

6:00 ...it's a mood disorder for Peach to have MANUAL CONTROL of her emotions. Really. That just feels like a bad faith reading of things honestly. Doesn't exactlt encourage me to keep watching this video about emotions as mechanics to see such a misread of an example of.

[@megascopsasio2015]

They said “stereotype of” which I think is key to include, in the context of a larger thought/paragraph as well. I don’t think they were saying it flippantly