Eustress is defined as a beneficial form of psychological and physiological arousal. While stress can often be distracting, unpleasant, and malignant, eustress creates focused, enjoyable, and helpful experiences to accomplish goals. It often accompanies challenging gameplay to help elevate the player’s experience. If used in healthy doses with occasional breaks, eustress can make certain gameplay moments more memorable and engaging. As a result, it is worthwhile to recognize some of the many ways that games trigger eustress to better savor such excitement.
Time limits
Time limits are an easily programmable method to push the player. They quickly direct behavior toward a certain goal to avoid the punishment of missing that time limit. Well crafted time limits go beyond artificial restrictions by naturally pairing their inclusion with another game element, such as story. For example, Far Cry 5 features a recurring time sequence where the player must defeat several enemies in a similar setting within a set amount of time. The time limit is fairly restrictive, which energizes the player to quickly conquer. The enemies are placed in the same locations, so the player moves through the gauntlet faster each successive attempt. To combat this advantage, the gauntlet increases in length each time as the player enters. The time limit also decreases upon each subsequent entry. However, the time limit increases for each defeated enemy, which incentivizes players to engage the combat system. Fighting is crucial for the game’s story, as this gauntlet is subtly used to train the player to fight his/her allies in a brilliant moment of subversion. Thus, the time limit not only motivates moment-by-moment gameplay, but helps explain and intensify the narrative’s structure in a believable and logical way: the player must move quickly to avoid being killed by allies, even if they are presumed to be enemies. The time limit seamlessly assists that hidden agenda. Such organic blending of multiple game mechanics makes Far Cry 5’s use of a time limit in these sections produce meaningful and helpful eustress.
Other games execute their time limits less caringly, which produces less eustress to engage the player. One such example is Detroit: Become Human, which incorporates copious subtle time limits through its quick time events. Quick time events are blazingly fast moments where a button is displayed on the screen. The player must then quickly press that button within a limited timeframe to progress the game in a desired way. These mechanics are shallow because they require little thought, use no strategy, and are a poor substitute for intelligently crafted gameplay. Despite these issues, Detroit: Become Human relies upon them ad nauseum. Fights, chase senses, and even relaxed scenes of simple movement require arbitrary quick time events to progress the story. Behind each of these quick time events is an unseen timer ticking down. While the player’s successful execution of these quick time events progresses the narrative, it does so artificially. The player earns much less satisfaction by pressing a few buttons on demand as compared to the swift combat, speedy forthought, yet improvised progression that Far Cry 5’s maze gauntlet provides. The player wants to be intrinsically rewarded by his/her effort, and the more effort that is expended connects to a greater output of satisfaction. Because Detroit: Become Human’s time restricted quick time events do not require meaningful effort, they do not produce organic or engaging gameplay accentuated by eustress.
Competing demands
Another way to introduce eustress is to force the player to choose between competing demands. Oftentimes, games outline each goal in a clear, linear order, such that one goal enables the player to then work towards the next goal. Gameplay becomes more interesting, however, when the game forces the player to strategize which goal to pursue and when. Titanfall 2 does so through its time travel level. In it, the player finds a handy tool that quickly flips between a giant facility’s pristine past and dilapidated present. This mechanic is inherently thought provoking by prompting the player to wonder what destroyed the facility. It becomes even more interesting when applied to combat gameplay. At several points, the player will enter areas filled with combat in both the past and present. The player must continually flip between the past and present time to avoid death. After all, Titanfall 2’s main character does not have a surplus of heath. As a result, combat is focused on quick, evasive movement. The time mechanic assists this gameplay by encouraging the player to swap to an alternative combat scenario before being overwhelmed. This juggling act forces the player to be reactive and hyperalert. Two battles’ intensities paired with the thrill of zipping through time to engage such battles makes Titanfall 2’s time sequences filled with eustress.
While Titanfall 2 requires the player to engage competing demands through its combat, other games can merely offer competing demands to add eustress to gameplay. Celeste does so with its optional strawberry platforning challenges. Throughout its many levels, Celeste sprinkles in floating strawberry collectibles that challenge the player to complete a given platforming section. None of these hurdles are required; they only intrinsically reward the motivated player. As a result, the player is faced with a decision whenever he/she sees a strawberry: attempt the optional strawberry challenge and then pursue the required platforming challenge to progress, or just pursue the required platforming challenge to progress. Because these strawberries are optional, they allow the player to optimize his/her desired degree of eustress. Ambitious players can happily struggle through intense platforming challenges to gain the strawberries, while tired players can simply ignore them. Due to Celeste’s already difficult nature, the optionality of these strawberry challenges helps prevent eustress in gameplay from becoming stress.
Positive Cycles
Eustress heavily relies upon intensity. Such intensity can be reached organically through positive cycles. Positive cycles, also known as positive feedback loops, involve a series of inputs and outputs that escalate, rather than vacillate. For example, fighting weaker enemies in RPGs earns small amounts of experience that enables the player to become stronger and fight stronger enemies. Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Plus applies positive cycles to intensify its character movement. As a reimagination of the original Pac-Man, this game slowly and steadily eases the player into eustress. At the beginning of each 5-minute round, Pac-Man moves slowly; however his speed subtly increases upon clearing each level. Such gradual escalation adds just enough intensity to keep the player engaged, yet not enough to be overwhelming. The game also helps the player find his/her appropriate degree of eustress by choosing one of three difficulties. Each difficulty setting starts Pac-Man at varying base speeds. The beauty of this character movement mechanic is its simplicity. New and vereran players alike can notice, understand, and strategize with this speed increase in mind. As a result, its added intensity becomes manageable and exciting, thereby supporting multiple 5-minute runs with consistent eustress.
While slow and steady intensifications can assist extended gameplay, quick and unstable intensifications can assist short bursts of gameplay. Into The Breach does so with its final map. This board-based strategy roguelike pits the player’s three uniquely robots against a variety of enemies, all while protecting civilian buildings from being destroyed by enemies. Until this final map, the player is motivated to minimize damage to preserve their health. The player prioritizes their robots’ safety to ensure their abilities are carried through subsequent combat encounters. But the final board changes everything. Its environmental effects are more hazardous and temperamental than previously ones. Its enemies are stronger, more technical, and more numerous. And to cap it off, the player is tasked with protecting a bomb which is vulnerable to enemy attacks. From the environmental hazards, enemy hazards, and additional victory condition, the player is quickly taxed. This sudden spike in difficulty is likely to stress new players, but exhilarate returning players with eustress. By restricting this challenge to one board, Into the Breach offers a short burst of intense gameplay that satisfies most players. It should be noted, though, that it depends upone the game as to what sudden spike in intensity is too taxing on the player.
Conclusion
Stress almost always contributes to bad experiences, but eustress can help elevate a game’s enjoyment by engaging the player through intense gameplay. And while not every game requires intense gameplay, many games can benefit from making their gameplay more engaging through perceived intensity. The approaches discussed here outline only a few of the many ways in which games stimulate the player to think smarter, move faster, and work harder. But it is difficult to create mechanics that stimulate the player enough to produce eustress yet not too much to produce stress. Uneasy game designers can fortunately reassure themselves that creative planning, healthy curiosity, and continual playtesting help. The next big idea is out there, so don’t stress about it.
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