Journal of Game Studies

This paper bridges phenomenological theory with practical game design by examining how players of ASCII Roguelikes develop unconscious mastery through mental simulation—a process with implications for interface design, player onboarding, and cognitive load management in games. While the framework is philosophical, its applications extend to empirical player experience research, particularly in understanding how minimalistic or abstract interfaces can leverage embodied learning. Employing a postphenomenological framework, I take ‘Roguelike’ video games, which use ASCII graphics, as a case study for examining ‘mental simulation’, which is described in neuroscience as an automatic, unconscious process by which the mind readies us for performing tasks that we have learned from previous experience. The experience of playing ASCII Roguelikes is analyzed phenomenologically using the concepts of ‘intentionality’ and Heidegger’s ‘ready-to-hand’, and through this analysis the connection of these concepts to mental simulation is explored. I argue that the development of the capacity for mental simulation runs concurrently with the different stages of intentional disclosure and the development of what Heidegger calls ‘readiness-to-hand’, in which our intentional relationship and level of conscious engagement with an object changes as we become more familiar with it.

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