Guidance, Motivation, and Immersion : Architectural and Psychological Principles inEnvironment Art for Games

This thesis explores how principles from architecture, psychology, and game developmentcan inform and enhance the practice of environment art for narrative-driven, action-orientedgames with predominantly linear level design. Drawing on literature from these fields, thisthesis combines the architectural principles of order, enrichment, and expression withconcepts in perceptual psychology and neuroscience, namely salience, affordance, andprägnanz. Alongside the game development concept of environmental storytelling and theconcept of wienies from theme park design, to analyze how game environments guide,motivate, and immerse players. Alongside the literature review, the thesis also includes casestudies from Bioshock. Half-Life 2, Mirror’s Edge, and the Halo franchise. These gameswere selected based on their genre and critical acclaim. Through a qualitative analysis ofthese game environments, the thesis demonstrates the usefulness of the concepts included inthe guidance, motivation, and immersion framework for analysis of game environments.