An Exploration into Liminal Spaces and Their Effects on Player Tension

This thesis explores how liminal spaces can be used in video games by analyzing their design and impact on player tension. How can designers create transitional or ambiguous environments that contribute to a sense of unease, anticipation, and tension? What are some of the common design elements that help build an effective liminal space, which the researcher calls distortions, and how do those distortions affect player tension? The researcher created a series of levels that explore the different elements of liminal spaces to test how they affect player tension while playing the level.