Concept

Player mental model

You might say: what the player thinks the system is

The player’s mental model is a working explanation of how the game works, built from perception, prior knowledge, expectations and interaction.

What it does
Lets the player predict, plan and make choices without seeing the implementation.
Ask
What does the player believe will happen before they commit?

Sources

  1. Michael Sellers, Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach, ch. 7, p. 225This model has to be built by the player as they experience the game (while still keeping them engaged), and it needs to match closely with the game’s internal model.
  2. Celia Hodent, Cognitive Psychology Applied to User Experience in Video Games, author article: designer/player mental models and learning through interactionthe game designers and end players may invoke different mental models.
  3. Daniel Cook, Loops and Arcs, Loops section: player model is updated by feedbackThe player ends up with a mental model that contains a thousand branches, successes, failures and nuances that lets them approach new situations with confidence.
  4. Daniel Cook, Building Tight Game Systems of Cause and Effect, opening: hypotheses, actions, feedback and refining mental modelsAt each stage of learning, you create a hypothesis, test it via your actions and refine your mental models
  5. Celia Hodent, Developing UX Practices at Epic Games, slides 3–7, 18–26, 43–45the users come with their own prior knowledge and expectations, and develop a mental model of how *they* think the system works through their interaction with it.
  6. Steve Swink, Game Feel: The Secret Ingredient, Metaphor; Input; ResponsePeople have these built-in, preconceived constructs, mental models about the way certain things move
  7. Steve Swink, Game Feel: The Secret Ingredient, Metaphor: preconceived constructs and mental models of controlled objectsPeople have these built-in, preconceived constructs, mental models about the way certain things move
  8. Tynan Sylvester, The Simulation Dream, Player Model Principle: Game Model and Player ModelThe whole value of a game is in the mental model of itself it projects into the player’s mind.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Player mental model" (mental-model) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/game-design/ against my project

Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.

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