We have a special word for the feelings that rise up from within us: emotions. I’m talking about those instant, unfiltered reactions, a jumpscare, a burst of laughter, the little eyebrow lift of surprise, or just leaning forward expecting something to pop up. Our logical mind can easily dismiss emotions as unimportant, but they are the foundation of all memorable experience. So that we never forget the importance of emotions for experience design, The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses made it their first lens: The Lens of Emotion.
“What emotions would I like my player to experience?”
“What emotions are players (including me) having when they play now?
“How can I bridge the gap between the emotions the players are having and the emotions I’d like them to have?”
These are questions every developer should ask themselves before absolutely anything else.
Game developers have been looking at these reactions for a long time, watching players, measuring emotions, hundreds of them. And all the game is doing, really, is asking you to push buttons. But why are we so excited about “just” pushing buttons? Well, it turns out games engage us through these four ways according to the research: novelty, challenge, friendship, and meaning. And each one takes you somewhere different, with completely different emotions.
For this, we can turn to the Wheel of Emotions, whether it’s Plutchik’s, Geoffrey Roberts’, or another version. Think of it as a painter’s palette. Each emotion is a color you can work with. Want the player to feel relief? Use moments of release after tension. Want anticipation? Build it slowly with tight spaces, pacing that stretches time, and sound cues that tell you something’s coming. And so on.
Think of a game like a bicycle. The rear wheel is all about usability, your basic user experience. Every player needs to know how to “find the pedals” and “hold the handlebars,” or the game’s going nowhere. If the controls, interface, or navigation don’t work, nothing else matters.
The front wheel is where the fun happens, that’s the player experience. This is the wheel that steers, deciding where the player goes and how they feel along the way. It’s not just about moving forward; it’s about making the ride exciting, surprising, or deeply satisfying.
Now, picture the spokes as your game’s activity loops (the repeated cycles of action and feedback that make up play). Every spoke generates emotion, or at least the anticipation of it, and that emotional pull is what keeps players engaged. Change the spokes, and you change the ride. Swap out a loop designed for tension with one designed for joy, and you’ve got a completely different experience, just like switching tires on a bike changes how it handles.
In other words: the rear wheel gets the game moving, the front wheel shapes the journey, and the spokes create the feelings that make players want to keep riding.
Nicole Lazzaro’s Four Keys to Fun are a design framework that breaks down the emotional engines behind player engagement. Every player’s reaction is the result of deliberate choices in design, which is why I found it very important to consider them alongside the Wheel of Emotions during development.
The Four Keys to Fun:
Designing for emotion in games isn’t something you can solve with a fixed checklist or a set of rigid rules. Instead, it’s an iterative, experimental process.
Swap a sound effect, add a pause before the reveal, and suddenly the same moment hits twice as hard. Because in the end, you’re building a feeling. And if you do it right? That’s the moment they’ll remember.
As Maya Angelou once said: “People may forget what you said, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.”
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