In a fun little survey about writing I did recently, this was one of the questions and my response:

I Write Books That Make People Feel: Empathetic: pitying lonely characters, cheering on nervous ones, reflecting with characters on the wry humor of life, and feeling joy along with happy characters.

I also thought it was interesting how much people disagreed about what they wanted their stories to make people feel.

Quote: Original post by caffiene
Thanks for the hint on Laurie Hutzler, Tom.
Do you know if its worth tracking down her commercial books, or is most of her advice covered on the website and the free e-book?

"Worth" is subjective. I cannot know what is "worth it" for you.
But I recommend you track down her other works.

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
I Write Books That Make People Feel: Empathetic

ha, that's a rather technical answer. I like it

Someone mentioned that the high of adrenaline laced gameplay helps stop up the otherwise emotional queues that are placed in the game.

Now I'll refer to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. There is one particularly moving scene I found in that game. About halfway through the game there is a part where a nuclear bomb is ticking to go off. As an American soldier named Paul Jackson, you quickly board a helicopter to get the heck out of that city... And then one of your fellow soldiers, a pilot in a second helicopter is shot down. You and your squadmates land and go in after her, sixty seconds or so until that bomb goes off. You race in and grab the woman while under heavy fire, and get back to the helicopter. It lifts off, but its too late your helicopter is caught in the explosion and the level ends. You ask yourself if your character is dead... The action is over though. Adrenaline fades.

The next level is what I consider to be genius. The American soldier wakes up in the middle of the city, surrounded by the corpses of your teammates... Everyone else is dead, rescuing the downed pilot was futile and probably cost the lives of everyone else. You assume control and crawl out of the wreckage that was once a helicopter. Your have no weapon on you, you move slow, obviously greatly injured. Stumbling out of the helicopter, you make your way in a random direction. Until at last you trip and fall to the ground, all goes black. Sergeant Paul Jackson KIA.

That expertly crafted level where you get to experience the very last moments of a soldier who gave his life to try and save another. It wasn't played out on a battlefield where bullets are flying and rockets are going off. But in the decimated ruins of a city maimed and injured, one last attempt at escape before expiring.

Quote: Original post by Funkymunky

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
I Write Books That Make People Feel: Empathetic

ha, that's a rather technical answer. I like it

It's also the answer of a character-focused writer; a plot or atmosphere focused writer would probably be more interested on directly making the audience feel a particular emotion.

Quote: Original post by jwbowyer
Someone mentioned that the high of adrenaline laced gameplay helps stop up the otherwise emotional queues that are placed in the game.

Now I'll refer to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. There is one particularly moving scene I found in that game. About halfway through the game there is a part where a nuclear bomb is ticking to go off. As an American soldier named Paul Jackson, you quickly board a helicopter to get the heck out of that city... And then one of your fellow soldiers, a pilot in a second helicopter is shot down. You and your squadmates land and go in after her, sixty seconds or so until that bomb goes off. You race in and grab the woman while under heavy fire, and get back to the helicopter. It lifts off, but its too late your helicopter is caught in the explosion and the level ends. You ask yourself if your character is dead... The action is over though. Adrenaline fades.

The next level is what I consider to be genius. The American soldier wakes up in the middle of the city, surrounded by the corpses of your teammates... Everyone else is dead, rescuing the downed pilot was futile and probably cost the lives of everyone else. You assume control and crawl out of the wreckage that was once a helicopter. Your have no weapon on you, you move slow, obviously greatly injured. Stumbling out of the helicopter, you make your way in a random direction. Until at last you trip and fall to the ground, all goes black. Sergeant Paul Jackson KIA.

That expertly crafted level where you get to experience the very last moments of a soldier who gave his life to try and save another. It wasn't played out on a battlefield where bullets are flying and rockets are going off. But in the decimated ruins of a city maimed and injured, one last attempt at escape before expiring.

Not adrenaline. Rather left brain verses right brain.

In a highly intense action game. Where you are tasking the player with lots of spatial logical left brain processing. Where is the enemy in relation to me, do I have enough time to pop up and shoot, is my cover compromised, can I make it to the next bunker? Suddenly directing them to switch to right brain processing can cause a disconnect.

They might reject the whole senario you wrote above, or just be apathetic to it. The last logical impulse they might dwell on is why am I being tasked with saveing these soldiers with so little time left? I made all the correct logical choices to get here, and now he goes and does something so obviously against what I think he should do...And thus they just cough the rest of the level up to the developers trying to preach or say some moral message. Or even throw the control in frustraition of being deliberately placed in a scenario that could not be beaten.

Not everyone reacts the same. Not everyone has the same level of emotional development. But inorder to best generate an emotional response, you need to excite the right brain. Not just in cutscenes at the end of levels, but through the levels as well as this is where players invest most of thier brain power and skills. You can do this by provideing emotional hooks, things to perk right brain intrest so we can have emotional ties to the scenario, and constantly reenforce them.

Its a biological emotional instict for a male to protect a female. In the military this has become a fairly large concern. Does the gameplay tie into any of this, and reinforce it often? Even during extended periods of move/shoot/move/shoot left brain centered activity? Is there any emotional bond between the characters to cause the player to logicaly conclude its important to risk saveing her at his own expense? Is there even a chance he could save her and himself? If the answer is yes to all of these then the chances of players haveing an emotional response increase.