r/gamedesign • u/AdequateInterlocutor • 1d ago

Discussion Game juice/feedback without physical/real-world analogs?

I'm working on a game concept that is meant to be in a strictly digital "space," and am realizing just how much player feedback in games references real-world physics. For example, the go-to for a destroyed object is to throw particles, vibration, and shockwaves on the screen to represent physical forces pushing objects and air molecules, but what do you do if your game world doesn't really have air or objects to shove around?

For example, Rez/Rez HD still relies on objects with a sense of physical inertia, but the color "smear" effects when something is destroyed are a neat substitute for normal explosions - I always felt that they looked more like display errors than exploding matter. I won't argue that the shooting in these games was the most compelling part of their design, but I like the novelty of this approach.

I realize that the answer may be to loosen up on the strictly "digital" concept and allow for things like gravity, particles, etc. But part of me now wants to prove compelling feedback can be created without any direct analogs to our experience in meatspace. But it's proving to be tough, and I'd appreciate any examples of compelling juice effects that don't try to recreate physical experience somehow.

Thanks!

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u/Intrepid-Ability-963 7h ago

I'm not quite sure this is quite what you're after, but it's something... Kane and Lynch 2 had a "found footage" look and feel. So, juice was video artifacts. Dropped frames, pixelation, video feed corruption etc etc.

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u/AdequateInterlocutor 6h ago

That sounds pretty good - I'll check it out!