Emotional Attachment

The ability of agents to have noticeable emotional relations inside the game world to the diegetic phenomena in that world.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Note: The pattern related to players being emotionally attached to the game is named Emotional Engrossment.

Using the pattern

Emotional Attachment is a way to provide Agents with ways of showing that they care about what happens in Game Worlds.

The nature of designing Emotional Attachment differs greatly based on if the Agents considered are humans or Algorithmic Agents such as AI Players. In the first case the primary task of enabling displays of Emotional Attachment is an interface question (see the subsection below). While the presentation solutions to this is important for Algorithmic Agents to be able to show Emotional Attachment, they also need to have algorithms that ensure that Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences.

Interface Aspects

While it is Agents that have reactions which show Emotional Attachment, this may need to be expressed diegetically. Equipping Avatars with visual Emotes provides one way of doing this.

Consequences

Can Instantiate

Thematic Consistency

Relations

Storytelling Roleplaying Enactment

Can Instantiate

Thematic Consistency

Can Modulate

Agents, AI Players

Can Be Instantiated By

Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences together with Algorithmic Agents

Avatars together with Emotes

Can Be Modulated By

-

Possible Closure Effects

-

Potentially Conflicting With

-

History

A rewrite of a pattern that was part of the original collection in the paper Gameplay Design Patterns for Believable Non-Player Characters.