Just wanted to get a discussion going.
So how do we all make a game that conveys a message. Something that you play that doesn’t exactly have to be in depth, but just makes you say, ''Oh, wow that meant something". Something that gives you a good feeling afterwards.
What do you think? What can us programmers do to make a game convey not just gameplay, but a message that may just stick with someone forever?
I’d say a good deal (the majority) of this resides in the art/sound/etc department. The aesthetics. Take Journey, for instance.
Alright then how do us as programmers use art & sound to our advantage to make an experience? Should the art be top notch, along with the sound? Is there a certain barrier? Perhaps having the player begin to lose consciousness of the outside world and focus completely on the game world could pass off as an experience? What do you think?
Ideally everything is top notch, however what “top notch” is depends entirely on the desired aesthetic.
This Ludum Dare entry from a while ago (LD28) was pretty amazing.
The graphics and gameplay aren’t that great but everything else about it is.
I think making something that’s unique and special will give you and the player a good feeling. This is like the difference between Super Mario world and Flappy Bird. For me, The Legends Of Zelda: Windwaker, the story made enough sense to understand you need to save the world, but the art and uniqueness of the game left me touched (probably why the remade it in HD).
You need to give the player something to relate to. Once they can relate to the game they start thinking of the characters as real, living creatures instead of little pixels on the screen. The player will start to sympathize with the character, maybe think about “Hey what if this happened to me?”. This gives them more of an in depth experience. Also, characters should not be linear in the least, and need to be as unique and dynamic as possible, changing throughout the game.
Take, for example, Thomas Was Alone. You’re playing with simple rectangles, but you hear their thoughts. The angry little red one (red, right? Or was it orange?), the somewhat confused but excited main characte, as well as all the others. The characters create opinions of each other and it changes over the course of the gameplay. This really sucks a player in.
When I played Bioshock:Infinite I got completely enveloped into the game. I wasn’t just the player on the other side of the screen; I was Booker. I cared for Elizabeth, and once the game ended I was actually sad that I wouldn’t be able to play more and interact with the world.
The Extra Creditz episode about Missile Command also demonstrates that. Another important facet.
It’s mainly writing.
Just good writing.
Good writing often invests in emotion or philosophy, or for a real kicker, both. (See Iain M Banks for example). In the context of games though it’s exceedingly hard to convey both of these aspects when you’re actually trying to involve a player in an actual game. Take the manshooter genre for example. Pretty good at one thing - the emotions of hatred and power and dominance, some fear here and there. Good player involvement from that perspective but nothing whatsoever on the philosophical level. Now try The Stanley Parable. Deeply, deeply philosophical game (with added recursion for proper mindf*ck). The emotions it causes you to experience are as a side effect of the philosophical exploration - frustration, rage, fear, hopelessness, calm. It’s very, very good. How many games are there like The Stanley Parable? Exactly one, unfortunately. But I think it’s the first of its kind - the dawn of the maturation of video games as an expressive medium.
Cas 
When I want my game to convey a message, I display it (explicit) or I would use the gameplay to make the player do something that makes her/him draw a conclusion related to my message. For example, some parts of a level could be almost impossible to get across alone but it would become doable with a few comrades. Some civilians could shout out “eat this” to make you spotted and/or throw some objects into your face if you were famous for your ill-treatments on others.
Papers, Please IMO is a pretty good example of how you can deliver a pretty good experience through a game without being too heavily focused on gameplay mechanics.
I was intrigued by Papers, Please because of the idea of how it messed with your emotions. At the time I was thinking of getting it though I didn’t want any extra negative emotions in my life though and passed on the opportunity at the time. As I understand it it makes you feel like something of a monster.
Cas
A great story is just one of many ways in which a game can convey a message. Take, for example, Defcon: Everybody Dies. The “happy” website does not do it justice. The graphics are simple but the atmosphere is highly immersive. I cannot help but feel as if I am in a bunker somewhere, in command of a nuclear arsenal and helplessly fighting a nuclear war that nobody can win.
It’s the subtle things that bring this message across extremely powerfully. Like the message whenever a nuke hits a city:
“Great! That was a good hit! But wait, did I just say hurray at killing 8 million people?”
The feeling is very much amplified by a simple monotonous humming sound in the background of machines in a bunker, and, sometimes, the sound of a woman softly crying.
The game creeps me out. And it makes me realise so strongly what an all-out nuclear war would mean as no other media has ever done (including documentaries about the horrors of the bombs on Japan in WW2). In a nuclear war, everybody dies.