Conclusion

Through the metaphoric power of symbolic structure and imagery, game levels illustrate character fantasies, ambitions, biases, and flaws. Thus, they expand the player’s perspective of the hero, villain, or the relationship between them. Furthermore, the psycho-symbolic nature of game terrain can be employed to satirize society or deconstruct reality. Game environments designed to embrace one or several of these aspects demand ongoing revisitation, reinterpretation, and reevaluation, leading to games that players not only enjoy many times through, but ponder after playing. Beyond the immediate satisfaction of violence, lies the excitement of discovery, rediscovery, and self-discovery. As Jencks summarizes:

…one of the pleasures of experiencing symbolic design is to learn and perceive simultaneously – to discover intended, and dissonant, meanings, as one sees. In this sense, knowledge, writing, stenciled labels, metaphorical images, hints, and cues are neither reductive nor superfluous but an essential ingredient of style. (228)

Game worlds, in the end, could move beyond the sensory flood, manipulation of mood, direction of game play, and blossom into pseudo-spiritual experiences.