David Freeman brings you the inside scoop on how to apply the Emotioneering™ techniques he’s so well known for. These powerful techniques create a breadth and depth of emotion in a game, and induce a player to identify with the role he or she is playing. Mr. Freeman’s techniques are so highly sought after because they’re the key to mass market success in today’s competitive game market. The over 300 distinct Emotioneering techniques in this book include (to name but a few): ways to give emotional depth to an NPC (non-player character), even if the NPC has just one line of dialogue; techniques to bond a player to a game’s NPCs; and techniques to transform a game into an intense emotional journey. In a warm and crystal-clear style, Mr. Freeman provides examples which demonstrate exactly how to apply the techniques. He also shows how some of these techniques were utilized in, and contributed greatly to the success of such games as “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City”; “Deus Ex”; and “Thief” I & II, among others. The book is packed with striking art by some of today’s top concept artists and illustrators, including an eight-page color section and a four-color, fold-out cover. When you’ve finished this book, you’ll be equipped to apply Mr. Freeman’s powerful Emotioneering techniques to artfully create emotion in the games you design, build, or produce.
Customer Reviews
A decent read:
It does tell you a lot of techniques, but it doesn’t tell proper practice. Its ok for game design since the (western) industry isn’t very sentimental when it comes to games. Mostly the Japanese are coming out with RPGs with a lot of sentiment. I think its good that someone is trying to help with dry gaming. I do like games like unreal, tetris, street fighter, which have little to no plot, but I don’t like to be a weapon of mass destruction without a cause.
The book can be comparable to a core paper-pencil rpg book for storytellers.
As far as “emotioneering,” I think its a catch phrase. And many of the dimensions used for creating characters you could get out of a white-wolf book.
Overall, the book is good at telling you how to use techniques for characters and story/plot. Its cheaper than taking a scriptwriting class or a creative writing class.
Mostly Useless:
I’m surprised by the reviews from people claiming to be game industry veterans who say they’ve found this book to be useful. Either they’re not really in the game industry (possibly PR flaks?) or they haven’t learned much in their time here.
General comment on content: Between the massive amounts of interior artwork, the big body type, the big (and frequent) headers, unusually wide margins, and lots of white space, there’s probably only about 75 pages of actual information in this “500-page” book. Think of it as more of a booklet.
Mr. Freeman’s credits are hard for me to verify. Web searches turn up some titles he’s gotten credit for contributing to, but none of them were AAA titles. And there’s no way to know for sure how much he actually contributed to them. Having been both a freelancer and internal writer/designer, I know outside writers who’ve been completely useless to games’ development, so a claim of credit doesn’t mean much, IMO. I have no clue what expertise he has with movies or other media, but I’m not too hopeful after reading his book on game writing.
One big problem I have with his book is the jargon he insists on excreting everywhere. This isn’t game industry jargon, movie jargon, or any sensible jargon that I know of. It’s jargon he seems to have made up to try to claim writing techniques and mechanics as his own. And he really, really likes to capitalize the (sometimes excruciatingly long) names of “his” techniques. A sense of impending doom approaches when you first see the word “Emotioneering” (capitalized, of course), looms high overhead when you see such phrases as “Plot Deepening Technique” and “Dialogue Interesting Technique,” and crashes down with skull-crushing force upon reading the phrase “Player Toward NPC Relationship Deepening Technique.” Ouch. Lack brilliance? Try BS!
How can anyone read a sentence such as “A Character Being Genuine is an NPC Rooting Interest Technique, but not a Character Deepening Technique” without laughing? (And, yes, the capitalization and comma fault are the author’s.)
The bottom line is that this book doesn’t seem (to me) to have much of value to offer anyone who’s been in the industry for any length of time. If you’re trying to break into the industry, however, you could be deluded into thinking that you’re learning something useful here. FWIW, that’s the opinion of someone who’s actually been in the games industry since 1984. I keep trying to read this book, hoping to get something out of it, but can’t get more than 20% into it before giving up.
If anyone knows emotioneering, it’s Dave “Emo” Freeman:
“Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering” is clearly a guide every video game designer could read as long as they weren’t dyslexic or something. And if they are dyslexic, maybe they could get someone to read it to them. Come to think of it, that would be a great pick-up line: “Excuse me… I know we’ve never met, but would you mind reading this book, ‘Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering’ to me? I seem to be dyslexic.” In the midst of an everchanging world, it’s nice to see that, throughout the centuries, one thing rings true: Games still can be emotional as long they are emotioneered properly with appropriate use of craft and art and creation.
Fake Reviews?:
Did you notice most of the glowing, 5-star reviews are all written by people who put their job title as their name? “Video Game Designer,” “Film Producer,” etc. Who does that legitimately? I can’t help but think the author wrote most of the glowing reviews himself, but apparently couldn’t “emotioneer” enough creativity to think that normal people don’t use their job description as their name.
Good book for anyone in the craft:
Basically, Creating Emotion in Games is a collection of techniques that you can use in your games to help make the player become emotionally attached to the characters in the game. These aren’t necessarily shortcuts, but ways of looking at characters and plot that are common in the screenwriting world, but aren’t common in the world of videogames. He goes into ways of making the player care about the main character, about the side characters, about the actions they choose, about the world, etc. Nearly all of the techniques are valuable depending upon the context, and can be applied readily to games that are currently under development. They also focus on the part of game development that, sadly, most developers are unfamiliar with.
Unfortunately, like many other game development authors, he has a self-aggrandizing tone that is difficult to get past. Occasionally he’ll tell you the “greatest game idea ever” and all you can think is “Wow. That doesn’t sound like fun at all.” The example games he gives for his techniques are completely generic video-game ideas without a lot of originality.
Overall, though, this book succeeds in opening up avenues of exploration for game designers to improve their craft. It certainly added depth to the way that I think about the games I design, and did so in spades. I can’t think of any more glowing endorsement.
