Immersion in gaming is the ability to simply lose oneself in the game. Become immersed. Just like Altered States, but hopefully not transforming into a subhuman monkey man at the time, unless that’s the game you’re playing.
As a player, it is up to you to commit to a game. At the top levels, Go players and chess players enter a meditative state where the game is all encompassing to them. That’s definitely immersion, but not the concept here. The concept here is to give the players enough touchstones of perception in the game that they connect to it on an emotional level.
For Board Games there is always a further sense of detachment than in Role Playing Games. In role playing games, there are players who method act their characters, truly caring and gaining emotional investment into aspects of the game which may not be for the maximal benefit of play.
As a Game Master, or in the case of board gaming, usually the game night host, if you wish to create a sense of immersion, there are many ways to do it, to get the players more “in to” the game. Now you need willing players first. Many gamers are there for the sheer intellectual enjoyment of maximizing their moves, calculating odds and out maneuvering opponents. I’m referring to a different style of play here. The desire to alter your feelings and become attached to a game or character.
For the ease of discussion, this tends to work better with role playing games. Again, if you want to play Stone Age, serve a Paleo diet meal while playing by fire light, more power to you and by all means go for it.
For role playing games, let’s go for stimulating all the senses and really try to create a “sense memory”. Sense memory is when you experience a smell or sound and are suddenly transported to a memory or a mindset. It’s why many forms of worship and meditation use incense. It gets you into a specific mindset.
There’s more than 5 senses. Depending on who you ask, there’s somewhere between 9 and 21. Senses like equilibrioception, the ability to detect balance and gravity, are generally accepted to be a variant of Touch. So for the sake of keeping things reasonable and not altering gravity for zero-G game play, let’s just stick with the good old five senses that you learn in grade school. Sight. Sound. Taste. Touch. Smell. The more of these you can manipulate for the players, the more immersed they will become in the experience.
Continue Reading About Each Sense:
Sight
Sound
Taste
Touch
Smell
