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It theorizes an “interaction-image” that blends game action with controller options, relating it to Deleuze’s categories of cinema images and their ties to space and time, strengthening identification with the characters.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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focus on in Heavy Rain?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"It focuses on how the game’s interaction schema enables immersion and character identification, especially through diegetic quick time events.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"How does player action influence character identification according to the document?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"The match between player actions and corresponding character actions is presented as a mechanism that makes choices feel more real and drives identification.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What theoretical concept is introduced to explain the interaction experience?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"The document theorizes a new “interaction-image” as a hybrid of game action and controller options, linked to Deleuze’s cinema image categories and space-time 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Bizzocchi  \nSchool of Interactive Arts & Technology, Simon Fraser University  \n250-13450 102 Avenue  \nSurrey, BC V3T 0A3 CANADA  \n+1 778.782.7474  \n[michael_nixon@sfu.ca](michael_nixon@sfu.ca), [j](jimbiz@sfu.ca)[imbiz@sfu.ca](jimbiz@sfu.ca)  \nABSTRACT  \nOur phenomenological study of Heavy Rain reveals the pleasure found in the discovery of the game’s interaction schema and the immersion into each character that this somewhat paradoxically enables. This schema is presented through diegetic quick time events presented in a way that is faithful to the conditions the game characters find themselves in. The match between player action and character action contributes to the process of identification and serves to make the choices feel more real to the player. Anew type of “interaction-image” is theorized as a hybrid of game action and controller options that invites the contemplation of the virtual, further reinforcing the process of identification with the game’s characters. The interaction-image evolves from Deleuze’s categorization of cinema images and their relationship to space and time.  \nKeywords  \nInteraction scheme, phenomenology, Heavy Rain, Deleuze, character identification  \nINTRODUCTION  \n“How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love?” That is the question posed to Ethan Mars by his son’s kidnapper in the game Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream 2010) . It turns out that this question is more heavily loaded than its surface interpretation entails, due to its deeper implications for the player controlling him. Heavy Rain, produced by Quantic Dream and released for the PlayStation 3 in 2010, immerses players in a film noir-styled interactive narrative videogame with a plot that centers on investigating the“Origami Killer”, and the difficult trials that the kidnapper forces upon Ethan to save his son. Players control the actions of four protagonists through the use of context sensitive commands during “quick time events”(QTE) with intricate controller combinations that represent a rich motion vocabulary. Besides Ethan, these characters are Scott Shelby, a private investigator making his own inquiries, Norman Jayden, an FBI profiler who arrives to assist the local police, and Madison Paige, an investigative journalist. The game is broken into scenes in which the player directs a pre-designated character. Player choices have lasting repercussions in this intricately branching plot, including meaningful character death (Wei and Calvert 2010) . The richness of the interaction scheme and its tight coupling with the characters’ actions leads this to become the site of interactive pleasure for players. In fact, the controller maneuvers required of players replicates the on-screen action in a kind of physical mimesis that contributes to players experiencing identificatory fusion (Waggoner 2009, 37) with the characters. We found that Heavy Rain  \nuses cinematic, narrative, and interactive interface techniques to support this process of identification.  \nStyled as the next generation of “interactive movie” (Chester 2009), Heavy Rain’s cinematic qualities lend themselves to analysis by cinematic theory that explains how audiences respond to certain phenomena. Our analysis of Heavy Rain is grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty 2002) and the research methodology derived from his work. It proceeds through three phases: phenomenological description, where we find a reflective distance to focus our attention on our conscious experience of a phenomena; phenomenological reduction, where we come to an understanding of the qualified essence of the phenomena; and phenomenological interpretation, where we attempt to understand how the phenomena is connected with our consciousness (Sobchack 1992) . After progressing through these phases, we found the core themes that characterized interaction within Heavy Rain to be: “int","cbCaiukPzgK5Vg3T","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiukPzgK5Vg3T","pdf",437217,14,"English","# Abstract\n# Introduction\n## Game premise and protagonists\n## Interaction pleasure and identificatory fusion\n# Phenomenological framework\n## Methodological phases\n# Interaction design and diegetic interface\n## Camera perspective and editing-like framing\n## UI glyphs and dialogue/button prompts\n# Scene example","[{\"question\":\"What does the study focus on in Heavy Rain?\",\"answer\":\"It focuses on how the game’s interaction schema enables immersion and character identification, especially through diegetic quick time events.\"},{\"question\":\"How does player action influence character identification according to the document?\",\"answer\":\"The match between player actions and corresponding character actions is presented as a mechanism that makes choices feel more real and drives identification.\"},{\"question\":\"What theoretical concept is introduced to explain the interaction experience?\",\"answer\":\"The document theorizes a new “interaction-image” as a hybrid of game action and controller options, linked to Deleuze’s cinema image categories and space-time relations.\"}]","Press X for Meaning - Interaction Leads to Identification in Heavy Rain | PDF",35]