Gesture
The surface area of contact between player and videogame.
What Gesture Is
A Gesture is not a single action. It is not a fixed size or length. It is the sum of everything happening when a videogame is being played.
A Gesture can be a micro-moment: the split-second of pressing jump and feeling the character leave the ground. Or it can be the entire videogame: the full arc of playing through a 100-hour RPG.
Do not conflate Gesture with "action" or "mechanic." Gesture contains actions, but it is not reducible to them. Gesture is the whole experience at any scale.
The 4 A's
A Gesture is composed of four elements, experienced as one thing:
- Action: What the videogame has the player do, including absence of interaction
- Art: Art direction, lighting, staging, camera grammar, composition, sound design
- Arc: The amount of time. A micro-moment, a long moment, or an entire videogame
- Atmosphere: The feeling and vibe experienced from the videogame
When playing, these four are inseparable. You experience them as one thing. When analyzing, you pull them apart to understand how each contributes to the whole.
Analyzing Gesture
When you analyze a Gesture, ask:
- What is the Action? What is the videogame having me do (or not do)?
- What is the Art? What am I seeing, hearing? What traditions is it drawing from?
- What is the Arc? How long does this last? What is its shape over time?
- What is the Atmosphere? What does it feel like? What vibe does it create?
Then ask: Where does each of these come from? What is the Aesthetic Heritage?
Exercise
Play any videogame for 10 minutes. Pause. Identify one Gesture you just experienced. Write down each of the 4 A's. Don't worry about being "right." The goal is to practice seeing.
Why Start Here
Gesture is the entry point to VG101 because it centers player experience rather than designer abstractions. Most frameworks start with mechanics, systems, or rules. These are useful but miss what players actually feel.
By starting with "what did you experience?" rather than "what are the rules?", students develop the habit of attending to feel before structure. This prevents the common trap of designing systems that are logical but don't feel right.
Teaching Sequence
Introduce Gesture before the 4 A's. Let students sit with the holistic concept before giving them analytical tools. The sequence:
- Play a short videogame together (5-10 min)
- Ask: "Describe one moment that stuck with you"
- Introduce "Gesture" as a name for that moment
- Only then introduce the 4 A's as a way to analyze Gesture
Common Misconceptions
"Gesture = one button press"
Students often want to equate Gesture with a single input. Correct this early: Gesture is about experience, not input. A Gesture can span hours.
"The 4 A's are separate things"
Students may try to analyze each A in isolation. Emphasize that the 4 A's are experienced as one thing. Analysis separates what play unifies.
Assessment
For the Gesture concept, assess through writing and discussion, not tests. Look for: Can the student identify a Gesture? Can they articulate what makes it a Gesture rather than just "a mechanic" or "a moment"?
Why "Gesture"
The term "gesture" draws from André Bazin's film theory, where he identified gesture as an important unit and facet of painting, film, acting, and other creative forms. Gesture is a meaningful unit that communicates through form rather than (or in addition to) explicit content.
Videogame Gesture extends Bazin's insight: it's not just what's in the frame, but what the player does within and in response to that frame. The surface area of contact includes the player's action.
Relation to Other Frameworks
MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics): MDA moves from designer-facing (mechanics) to player-facing (aesthetics). Gesture inverts this: we start with player experience and work backward to understand what produced it.
Game Feel (Steve Swink): Swink's work on game feel is a major influence. Gesture extends game feel beyond moment-to-moment sensation to encompass longer arcs and atmospheric qualities.
Procedural Rhetoric (Ian Bogost): Bogost argues videogames make arguments through their rules. Gesture is compatible but broader: meaning emerges from the full sensory-temporal configuration, not just procedural logic.
Common Questions
Can there be nested gestures? (A gesture in a gesture?)
Yes, of course - you can multiply your analysis however you find useful and informative. But please, do not over-complicate things. Gestures and their interrelationships are essential to the reading of a videogame, however perceiving gestures inside of gestures is most commonly counter-productive.
Can Gestures fail?
Yes and no! There will always be a gap between the intended affect and materialized affect in any creative form.
Is an unintentional experience still a Gesture?
Absolutely! The experience a player has is the only experience they have at that moment. The systems and what contact looks like with the player to that player is the experience of the gesture.
References
- Swink, Steve. Game Feel (2009)
- Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games (2007)
- Keogh, Brendan. A Play of Bodies (2018)
- Anthropy, Anna & Clark, Naomi. A Game Design Vocabulary (2014)
- Koster, Raph. A Theory of Fun for Game Design (2004)