Disrupting the Player's Schematised Knowledge of Game Components

The document proposes a framework for "disruptive game design" intended to elevate player cognitive engagement beyond mere achievement and mastery towards higher-level self-actualization. It posits that conventional player-centric design often reinforces existing player schemata, leading to a conservative play experience. The core thesis is that by intentionally challenging players' pre-existing knowledge of game components, designers can stimulate active re-learning and deeper cognitive processing.

The framework draws heavily on cognitive psychology, particularly schema theory and models of long-term memory (procedural, semantic, episodic). It explains how semantic memory organizes abstract concepts and specific instances, illustrating this with a "Firearm" schema where instance-specific properties can override inherited abstract ones. A player learning model is introduced, featuring a Central Executive for decision-making and a Multimodal Situational Schema Instantiation (MSSI) that integrates various memory types to interpret and respond to game situations. Disruptive design is categorized into three modalities—encoding, recall, and action plan disruption—each targeting specific memory processes to challenge player expectations and promote re-learning.

Case studies, such as Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, demonstrate how altering established game mechanics or environmental properties can force players into more complex knowledge construction processes like tuning and restructuring, rather than simple accretion. The impact of these disruptions is analyzed based on implementation effort and player experience, ranging from low-workload, high-impact changes to high-workload, high-impact alterations that fundamentally shift player understanding of the game world. The scope of the analysis is conceptual, focusing on theoretical models of player cognition and game design principles, supported by examples from specific video game titles.