hi everyone, i am writing an essay about realistic graphic or sound doesn''t necessary means achieving greater immersive level. but i need a scientific way to measure the level of immersion in order to compare. please help me to locate any releavent research or if you are intersting in this subject, any ideas will be welcome too. thanks

ummmmm.... ummmmm.... hmmmmm... well... now... hmmmmm...

scientific means? i don''t think you can measure immersion in a game in terms of, say, picoliters. or grams, meters, etc. the way that i measure the immersion level of the game is in how believable the whole package is. graphics and sound are only two parts of this. gameplay and logic are the most important, in my opinion.

Do MRI scans of a game player. Compare a sitaution of real-life and one using games that will be considered more real/immersive.

thanks, i agree with you. but my stupid tutor need some way to measure it...he say that if i can''t measure it in any way, how do i know that realistic graphic(for example) is not more immersive than cartoon style?

my argument build on that realsitc approach of building a game(graphic, sound narritive ,characters, consistency) is not imporving immerisive level.
but then, it''s easy to think this way in case of graphic and sound but the rest three will be hard to argue since i don''t really know what is a REALISTIC narritive.......feeling kind of blue now

thanks for the help

Maybe testing how hard it is to distract someone from one game than another. I know that I''m much easier distracted from Solitaire than from Icewind Dale, for example...

You could look into the sorts of tests they do to see if a user interface is intuitive. Basically, take a bunch of people and have them use your user interface. Watch them as they use it and give a questionaire afterwards. This is basically using the scientific method, but maybe by "scientific" you mean "quantifiable". I think you''re out of luck, then.

Also, what genres are you talking about? If you''re going cross-genre, I can name some games without "realistic graphics" that I''d call immersive.

Tetris is a great one. I''ve met people who claim they used to dream about those falling blocks. Anyone else sit down for half-an-hour of Tetris and 2+ hours later find they were still playing it?

Fallout 1 and 2 are immersive, but I''d hardly say they had "realistic" graphics. This one might even be more what you''re talking about when you say "immersive". I could really get into the whole world.

I''d say (even though I have only very limited authority to do so) the key to an immersive game is to not give the player any reason to leave the game. Realistic environments can help with this because they require less suspension of disbelief, and breaking someone''s suspension of disbelief is almost a sure way to throw them out of your game world. However, they''re not necessary. As long as the world is consistent and interesting, I think you''re good.

Well maybe this little bit can help you in your "journey"

In order to really believe a 3D game the frames per second must be around 25-30 fps or it breaks the reality of fluid motion.

Another thing is netcode. If a lot (even any to some extent) of client side prediction occurs it can break realism too. So you can maybe talk about the difficulties of total game immersion being almost nonexistant in the multiplayer side of games

Maybe that can kinda help you out =p

~Graham

[edited by - gwihlidal on July 25, 2003 10:17:35 PM]

Animation style, little feedbacks, music and sound effects all combine and need to seem to go together fluidly as well.

Sometimes games have a certain attitude to them that every way the game expresses itself parallels with.

Some examples that come to mind:

Max Payne. Dark, comic book, tongue-in-cheek humor
Battlezone. Exploration, discovery, devotion, history
Freespace. War, alliance, technology