Day 112 FotLC through the 113 lenses from The Art of Game Design

Day 112 - Lens 72: The Lens of Projection
One key indicator that someone is enjoying an experience is that they have projected their imaginations into it. To examine whether your game is well suited to induce projection for your players, ask yourself these questions:

What is there in my game that players can relate to? What else can I add?
Currently the tribe leaders that the players portray in the game are blank slates. I want to have back-story for them available to the players as a kickstarter stretch goal. But for the moment they are non-persons and thus canvas' for projection rather than something identifiable.

The character of the Teller is pretty relatable and charismatic.

What is there in my game that will capture the players' imagination? What else can I add?
I think that the theme is very engaging. The physical presentation of the game shows the theme and invites imagination in a way I like. Giving the players things that they can investigate in the packaging and rules to dig deeper into the world will appeal to a subset of players.

Are there places in the game the players have always wanted to visit?
I think that the idea of the 'Wasteland' of Mad Max or Blood of Heroes has a place in the psyche of most modern game players and appeals to a good chunk of my potential audience as a place they would like to imagine being in.

Are there other characters in the game that the players would be interested to meet (or spy on)?
I think that the teller would be interesting to meet. I want to make the tribe leaders into identifiable characters... but I need to not be the one to do that actual work, so it has to wait until I can pay more diverse developers to do it for me.

Do the players get to do things that they would like to do in real live, but can't?
I think that living out the fantasy of being a conqueror in the Wasteland and bringing order to that chaos, perhaps starting to build a better world is powerful as we often feel like we are sitting on the edge of a catastrophic future that could lead to the world that the game is played in.

Is there any activity in the game that once a player starts doing, it is hard to stop?
Hopefully most of the gameplay fits into this category from the building out your territory to the challenges with other players.