--- title: "I game for atmosphere" subtitle: "Why I play games" author: Seth Kenlon publish_date: 2024-01-02 08:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: game-dice.webp show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: blog tag: [ gaming ] --- I've been pondering lately why I enjoy games, and what kinds of games I tend to gravitate to. The more I thought about it, the more I found that it's probably ultimately an unsolvable riddle, but that in itself seems a little like a game. Either the gamer or the technical part of my brain has taken the bait, and this post is about one aspect of gaming I enjoy. This one's one of the more irrational aspects: atmosphere. Whether I'm playing a tabletop game or a video game, the game's world and lore and visual appearance is a persuasive factor. I'm a gamer who gladly surrenders to the illusion that playing a game is spending time in a storybook or a fantasy. I don't seem to care whether the game world is a dystopian cyberpunk city, an idyllic dreamworld untouched by time, a steampunk factory, or a wartorn wasteland, just so long as it intrigues me. If I enjoy spending time in the world, then I'm apt to play the game often. Annoyingly, I can't always quantify or qualify what intrigues me. Things I think I like sometimes fall flat, while things I never knew I liked somehow capture my imagination. The post-apocalyptic wasteland is a pretty reliable trope for me, as are zombies, and yet both **Dying Light** and **Walking Dead** have never managed to appeal to me the way **Dead Island** and **Left 4 Dead 2** do. Confusingly, I don't long for a tropical island setting in real life, but the strangely tranquil (aside from the zzombie infestation, I mean) Banoi of **Dead Island** never gets old. ## Pretending to like the world I think the way I engage with games is strongly influenced by roleplay. Whether or not I would like a setting in real life doesn't affect how my player character or avatar does. In other words, I can real-life enjoy a game world by imagining I enjoy it. And I do this for a variety of different reasons. Sometimes, it's because the game mechanics are really good. If I enjoy a game for how it plays, then I'm likely to grow some fondness for the game world. That doesn't always compel me to come back to the game once I feel I've beaten it, but it keeps me invested while I'm working on it. Other times, I like the game world despite the mechanics. Maybe the game mechanics are just average. Frankly, as much as I enjoy it, **Fallout the Board Game** probably qualifies here. The game design is impressive and accurately mimics the complexity of the video games, but it's no **Blackstone Fortress**. But [Fallout is a setting I love](http://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/culture_fallout-new-vegas), and the board game's atmosphere ensures that I continue to play it. When atmosphere is missing altogether, I often find myself enjoying a game but not developing fond memories of the game after playing it. There are some very good classic card games, like Texas Hold 'em and Blackjack, that I enjoy but don't "love" in part because there's no sense of immersion. They're fun to play, I enjoy the time I spend playing, but I don't lovingly look back at the experience or agonize the time until the next game. Of course there are exceptions to even this rule, if you can call Skip-Bo a classic card game. But generally, the world and lore and atmosphere of a game is important, whether it's a thin veil over a set of great mechanics, or an integral part of what makes the game work. ## Lore master Atmosphere is by no means all-powerful. Like most people, I won't play an otherwise unbearable game just because it has atmosphere. Like many a gamer, I've made purchases after judging a game by its cover art, and regretted it. Paired with an entertaining game, though, atmosphere is an important component that

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