Isica's Blog

Week 9 focused on literature review structure and academic writing conventions. I reviewed key texts by Isbister, Bopp et al., and Depping & Mandryk, focusing on emotional experience and cooperation in games.

Rather than summarising individual studies, I began synthesising their arguments to position my research within existing academic discourse. I identified that while emotional engagement is widely discussed, emotional healing through cooperative design remains underexplored.

This week helped me clarify the academic contribution of my research and refine my critical voice.

During Week 8, I continued refining my case studies and analytical framework. I focused primarily on It Takes Two, with comparative references to Spiritfarer.

I analysed how mandatory cooperation, complementary abilities and shared responsibility reduce negative emotions such as frustration and blame. This design encourages emotional support and communication between players.

At this stage, I began structuring my essay around three core aspects: narrative design, cooperative mechanics and visual atmosphere. Week 8 was essential for organising my research into a coherent analytical structure.

Week 7 marked a turning point in my research process. The focus shifted to choosing a topic, forming a research question and developing an argument. I refined my research focus to examine how cooperative game design supports emotional healing.

I began to clearly define my research question: how narrative, cooperative mechanics and visual design work together to promote emotional healing in cooperative games.

This week also encouraged me to think critically about argumentation rather than description. I identified a gap in existing research, noting that many studies discuss emotional outcomes but rarely analyse specific design mechanisms in depth.

By the end of Week 7, my research direction was clearly established, providing a solid foundation for my final essay.

Week 6 focused on mise-en-scène, composition, staging and spatial organisation. These concepts highlighted how meaning is constructed visually through arrangement, movement and interaction within space.

Applying this to games, I analysed how player positioning, screen direction and spatial cooperation influence emotional experience. In cooperative games, players must coordinate actions within shared space, making spatial design a crucial emotional factor.

I observed that games like It Takes Two design spaces that require mutual awareness and coordination, reinforcing emotional connection between players. This spatial interdependence reduces individual pressure and supports emotional regulation.

This week significantly advanced my research by connecting film theory concepts to interactive and cooperative game design.

Week 5 introduced animated documentary and political animation, raising questions about authenticity, subjectivity and emotional truth. Although my research focuses on games rather than documentaries, the discussion was highly relevant.

The idea that animation can represent emotional and psychological realities more effectively than photographic realism directly connects to emotional healing. Games, like animated documentaries, often prioritise emotional truth over objective realism.

I began to consider cooperative games as a form of emotional representation rather than simulation of reality. Emotional healing in games does not depend on realistic depiction, but on the authenticity of emotional experience created through interaction.

This week helped me frame emotional healing as a valid research topic within broader academic discussions of representation, subjectivity and affect.

Week 4 explored auteur theory, abstraction and experimental animation. The discussion of authorship raised important questions about creative intention and emotional expression. In animation and games, emotional tone is often a deliberate result of design choices rather than spontaneous player interpretation.

The concept of abstraction was particularly useful for my research. Abstract forms, symbolic environments and non-realistic characters can allow players to project their own emotions onto the experience. This is especially relevant to emotional healing, where ambiguity and metaphor can be more effective than literal representation.

I reflected on how cooperative games often simplify or stylise characters to focus attention on emotional interaction rather than realism. This reinforced my belief that emotional healing in games relies on intentional abstraction, both visually and narratively.

Week 4 strengthened the theoretical grounding of my research by highlighting design intention and emotional authorship.

Week 3 introduced narrative structures, character development and film theory approaches to meaning-making. The lectures clarified that narrative is not simply a sequence of events, but a structured system designed to guide audience understanding and emotional response.

Through concepts such as equilibrium and disruption, character arcs, and implicit meaning, I began to analyse how emotional journeys are constructed over time. This was particularly relevant to cooperative games, where emotional development often parallels the progression of collaboration between players.

At this stage, I started analysing It Takes Two as a potential case study. The game’s narrative of relationship breakdown and repair closely mirrors real emotional processes, making it an ideal example for studying emotional healing. I observed how character conflict, gradual reconciliation and shared challenges function as narrative tools to encourage empathy and emotional engagement.

Week 3 helped me shift from visual analysis alone to a combined narrative and emotional perspective, reinforcing the importance of storytelling in emotional design.

Week 2 focused on the elements of art and formal visual analysis, including line, colour, space, form, texture and value. Through the lecture Animation, Art and Cinema, animation was positioned within avant-garde and experimental traditions, where form itself becomes a carrier of meaning. This shifted my attention from narrative content to visual language.

I began to understand that emotional responses are often triggered before a story unfolds, through visual atmosphere and compositional choices. Soft colour palettes, spatial openness, and rhythmic movement can all subtly regulate emotions. This perspective became highly relevant to my developing research interest in emotional healing within games.

During this week, I started observing cooperative games from a visual design perspective. I noticed that many emotionally driven games employ warm colours, stylised environments and gentle animation rhythms to reduce player tension. This helped me realise that emotional healing is not only embedded in narrative or mechanics, but also deeply connected to visual and animation design.

This week contributed to my research by providing a formal analytical framework that I later applied to visual atmosphere and animation language in my essay.

In the first week of this unit, the course introduced the overall framework of Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language. The lectures emphasized that animation, games and moving image should not be understood purely as entertainment products, but as cultural forms capable of conveying meaning, emotion and ideology. This perspective immediately shaped my approach to the unit, as it encouraged me to think critically about how design decisions influence audience or player experience.

At this early stage, my research interest was still broad. I was particularly drawn to the idea that interactive media, especially games, can influence emotional states and interpersonal relationships. I began to consider how collaboration, narrative and visual design might contribute to emotional engagement rather than focusing solely on technical or aesthetic aspects.

This week marked the beginning of my research journey. I started exploring the idea that emotional experience in games is not accidental, but designed. This initial reflection laid the foundation for my later focus on cooperative games and emotional healing, which gradually became the central theme of my research.