2. Final Project – Awe, Prospect and Refuge

Although very difficult to define, awe can be considered, depending on the context, a positive or negative emotion. As evidenced in The Science of Awe (Allen, 2018), using Keltner and Haidt’s Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion (2003), it can be easily defined as an emotion that is composed from two main elements. The first one is called perceived vastness, in which the user finds himself in the presence of something that is, in a literal or figurative sense, vast – such as a great natural vista like the Niagara Fall, or being in the presence of a very prestigious person, such as the Dalai Lama. The second element is conceptualised as the need for accommodation, where the user’s current views of the world are being challenged, which leads to them attempting to change the mental structures that they use to understand the world. It can result in a diminished sense of self within the user, and it has been proven by numerous studies, including the above cited one, to encourage prosocial behavior (Piff et al, 2015).

Eliciting awe within a user is a useful skill, in the sense that every important piece of media, ranging from Hollywood movies to AAA Games, makes use of the emotion of awe to immerse users deeper into the creators’ virtual worlds, and, as games such as Shadow of The Colossus demonstrated, a game can use awe as the main emotion it triggers. What makes the game unique is the unexpected combination of threat and beauty that each colossus evokes. For instance, Hydrus (Fig.4), one of the game’s colossi, is threatening due to its sheer size and that it can evoke Thalassophobia, a fear of the deep sea (Hackett, 2018). But it can also be seen as beautiful due to its gracious moves and colorful display, triggering wonder within the player.

As suggested by Keltner and Haidt (2003), awe can be categorised into five distinct flavors: beauty, threat, ability, virtue, and supernatural causality. 

For instance, the critically acclaimed God of War, a 2018 reboot of the series with the same name, makes use of awe in different ways throughout the game, by utilizing it, on multiple different occasions, as a way to show the beauty of the world, thus eliciting beauty-based awe, as can be seen when visiting particular areas of the Lake of Nine, the game’s hub area for its open world (Fig. 5). 

Threat-based awe can be seen during the same game when the main character encounters some of the world’s largest creatures (Fig. 6), which create a sense of fear within the player. The game’s third-person view may be particularly useful in this scenario, by enhancing the experience through giving the player a direct way of comparing a human-sized character to the various creatures and environments presented in the game.

As stated by Keltner and Haidt, ability-based awe can be elicited when admiring a person’s “exceptional ability, talent and skill”.  For instance, God of War’s protagonist frequently performs actions that require immense strength, such as when he moves an entire bridge by using his bare hands (Fig.7)

Virtue-based awe can be described as the “awe one feels when in the presence of someone displaying virtue and strength of character”, such as when the protagonist encounters Thor, the widely-known God of Thunder (Fig. 8).

Lastly, the supernatural causality-based awe, the “flavor” of awe one would experience if they saw a floating object such as an angel or ghost, can be encountered in multiple places in the game, such as when the player encounters their first Valkyrie (Fig. 9), which is floating in the middle of a room, creating an uncanny feeling to players.

Although these “flavors” are only theoretical variations of awe and have not been properly tested by empirical studies, being able to categorise awe into multiple categories may help to better visualise and retain awe and different ways to use it.

Miriam Bellard’s GDC Talk, Environment Design as Spatial Cinematography: Theory and Practice (2019) explores environment design-related subjects: saliency, affordances, signifiers, prospect and refuge. With regards to player behaviour, prospect and refuge play a critical role and, moreover, may be critical to the intensity with which the awe emotion is elicited. Origins of Architectural Pleasure by Grant Hildebrand (1999) talks in detail about the connection between nature and the evolution of architecture, using an evolutionary approach, and analyses prospect and refuge in-depth. While, as Hildebrand states in the preface of the book, the main purpose of the book is “to explore the literature on the survival-based appeal of certain natural characteristics to see whether it has useful architectural application”, this book has useful application on my predominantly nature-oriented approach towards awe.

Refuge and Prospect are two opposite terms in meaning, but which are co-dependent. Refuge, best described as a place of concealment and protection, is a place that humans have always been most drawn to and which, evolutionarily speaking, gave us the best chances of survival (Hildebrand,1999). Interestingly, Hildebrand mentioned that “such settings – groves; or pocketed, contained spaces such as ravines; or in the extreme case caves, always in subdued light – such settings convey the possibility for hiding and therefore for safety. We seek them as we seek food and water.”  

On the other hand, prospect, best described as a brightly lit and open area, allowed us to hunt and forage and was also essential to our survival. As Hildebrand explains, they often come in the form of “open views over long distances and brightly lit, both to present a clear image of the landscape and to cast information-laden shadows – our fondness for sunlight may derive from its usefulness for this purpose.”

To better understand the way that these two essential pieces of design work together, the next section explores identifying such aspects of environment design. A game that makes use of prospect and refuge frequently in its level design in order to guide the player towards their next goal is Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes. The screenshot in Fig.10 shows the player currently watching the prospect – the enemy camp where the objective is – from a refuge – a dark hill with foliage where the protagonist is completely hidden. Being in refuge makes the player feel safe, protected and hidden. Applying this to the present study, prospect and refuge can be advantageous in a number of ways. For instance, with threat-based awe, the player would be placed in the prospect, in a plain, away from any kind of hiding place, in order to increase the tension and amplify their threat-based awe reaction. With beauty-based awe, the player should be in a refuge, which will make them feel safe and allow them to take in the particular features of a cinematic view point.

Conclusion

According to Allen (2018) “studies have found that natural scenes are frequent awe elicitors”. Therefore, the present study will involve a natural environment that is beauty-based awe eliciting. This will be accomplished in part by making use of free assets from the Epic Games marketplace, while using prospect and refuge theory as a way to make the player feel safe. The target of the project is to elicit awe within a player, so a “vocal burst” (Simon-Thomas, Keltner, Sauter, Sinicropi-Yao, & Abramson, 2009), such as “wow”, will be the primary expected outcome, as studies evidence that this is the most common beauty-based awe vocalization.

Reference List

• Allen, S. (2018) The Science of Awe. Available at: https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf (Accessed 04/02/2020)
• GDC (2019) Miriam Bellard – Environment Design as Spatial Cinematography: Theory and Practice [Online Video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L27Qb20AYmc&lc=Ugy4FWj3WoXKkpP2_Kp4AaABAg.91UeqnA7Wky91XGScfUrwl (Accessed 04/02/2020)
• Hackett, J., Harrington, S. (2018) Beasts of the Deep: Sea Creatures and Popular Culture , Indiana, IN: Indiana University Press
• Hildebrand, G. (1999) Origins of Architectural Pleasure, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA:University of California Press
• Keltner, D. J., & Haidt, J. (2003) ‘Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion’ Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297–314. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930302297 (Accessed 07/02/2020)
• Piff, P. K., Dietze, P., Feinberg, M., Stancato, D. M., & Keltner, D. (2015) ‘Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(6), 883–899. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000018 (Accessed 08/02/2020)
• Simon-Thomas, E. R., Keltner, D. J., Sauter, D., Sinicropi-Yao, L., & Abramson, A. (2009) ‘The Voice Conveys Specific Emotions: Evidence From Vocal Burst Displays’. Emotion, 9(6), pp.838–846. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017810 (Accessed 23/01/2020)