Kieran Hicks, Kathrin Gerling & Patrick Dickinson - ‘What makes a Game? Reflections on Juiciness and Player Experience’

“Juiciness” refers to the visual and auditory elements that are used in games to amplify feedback to the player in response to an in-game action (Schell 2014 ), and are intended to make the player feel satisfied and excited. Juicy elements are commonly employed as a way of improving the feedback loop of the game (e.g., visually showering the player with particle effects and sound effects upon picking up a collectible) and although common in games development, little academic work has empirically examined the impact they actually have on player experience. In this paper, we hypothesize that juicy elements may facilitate greater player autonomy and foster a higher sense of control, contributing to the perception that a piece of software is a game rather than a productive application. We analyse previous research that has explored the effects of visual feedback outside of the gaming context (e.g., Mahlke et al. 2008), work from other disciplines such as design (e.g., Donald Norman’s layers of interaction; Norman 2005) and psychology (e.g., self - determination theory exploring the autonomy and control factors (Ryan & Deci 2000)) to draft a better theoretical understanding of juiciness and its implications for play. Drawing from previous work, we present reflections on findings from an initial online survey, in which both players and developers were asked to discuss juiciness and game feel. Building on the survey, we offer an empirically - grounded definition of juiciness, and reflect on design implications which make our work actionable f or designers, developers, and researchers. We conclude by arguing that these design considerations may then be directly applied to serious games, such as educational or research focused, and help to make them more enjoyable and playable experiences, comparable to “real” games.