Awe

Frame · Wonder & sublimity atmospheric · visual / auditory / haptic

Overwhelm through magnitude: the human becomes small before something immeasurably greater.

Design question – There is something overwhelming in your game. How do players feel the magnitude and how does being small feel?

Reference example – Elden Ring: the Erdtree on the horizon, unreachably vast. Football: standing in a sold-out stadium for the first time – the noise, the crowd, the feeling of your own smallness.

Atmosphere

Awe

Sensory field

Sight: extreme scale relations, cathedrals, mountain peaks, a starry sky, abysses. Sound: deep resonance, reverberation, one’s own small breath in a huge space. Touch: reverence, humility, a slight fear of the magnitude, a shift of meaning.

Coherence

Awe requires scale relations, the game must communicate magnitude (large play areas, many resources, wide spaces). Mechanisms: Exploration (endless expanse), Scale (progress changes the perspective), Escalation. Activities: Exploring, Ascending, Confronting. Ductus: a slow build-up of scale, the play space grows ever larger.