“Conversations with pigeons”: Capturing Players’ Lived Experience of Perspective Challenging Games
summary
Uses systematic self-observation diaries and micro-phenomenological interviews with n=15 players to record 52 perspective-challenging experiences across 21 games (Hatoful Boyfriend, The Stanley Parable, Papers, Please). Presents a trigger → reflection → transformation sequence that maps to Mezirow; most triggers are endo-game (mechanics) rather than external. Emotions shift rapidly and include many epistemic feelings; only 19 experiences report any transformation and just 4 meet broad HCI standards of true transformation. Delivers a granular model of triggers, reflections, and rare transformations.
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