One aspect of motivation that I have found throughout playing Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is the idea of the "Gap Theory" of curiosity. At the beginning of the game, a story line is developed. In this particular game, a disease called the blorbs has infected many of the people in Toad Kingdom. In order to get to the bottom of what/who was causing the sickness a meeting was held at Princess Peach's castle. In the end Mario and Luigi were chosen to investigate/solve the case. The creation of this storyline really brings the player into the game and fills them in on all of the background information they need to know before they start playing the game. This storyline also creates a gap in the players knowledge. I found myself wondering and asking myself questions what/who was causing the spread of the blorbs, how would we go about solving these problems, and wondering what was in store for the rest of the game. This tension and gap in my knowledge has caused me to feel a sense of motivation to find the answers to these questions and more. The game also did a very good job when setting up the storyline and beginning training levels to find a nice medium in between giving the player too much information (where they would be bored) and giving the player not enough information (where they would find it too challenging to continue playing). I think these are key concepts in how this game and other video games connect with the players and keep them coming back to play more.
Another concept of motivation that this game has is flow. By creating this idea of keeping the player in flow, the game captures my full attention and allows me to enjoy the game in its entirety. At the beginning of the game I was taught a few basic skills through tutorials on the early levels. As soon as I had mastered these basic skills, right when I was beginning to feel very comfortable with them, I entered new levels that created new challenges. Through these new challenges I was able to learn more and master more skills. Once again right as I was getting very comfortable with these new skills I was given new challenges again. It is this cycle that kept me in a state of flow and continuously felt a sense of intrinsic motivation to play the game. Through this concept of flow that the game created, I never have felt bored with the game or too challenged to not continue playing.
Finally, I have also experienced the idea of autonomy that I believe has added to my motivation to play the game. There are many points in the game where I am given choices on what to do. This allows me to feel a sense of control and the ability to decide my own destiny. For example, every time that Mario, Luigi, or Bowser gain enough points to level up, I am given a choice of which of several categories to add a certain number of points too. Where I add the points effects things such as their health, power, defense, etc. which all can affect later stages of the game.
