Your tongue knows what everything tastes like.
Try to look at any object around you – a wall, a plate, a pillow – and imagine what it would feel like to lick it. You will be able to picture its taste and mouthfeel pretty well. They explain it by that infants mostly learn about the world by putting things into their mouths, so that the tongue is the primary source of training sensory data for the brain. I think this is plausible – one of my friends reports that he doesn’t have this effect, and he spent the first few years of his life bedridden and immobile due to birth trauma.
The real world has never been particularly real for me, so the next obvious idea is – what about the taste of virtual objects in video games? Plenty of ink has been spilt on arguing about what counts as “realistic” graphics. By now we understand that “like a photo” is a terrible metric, but what metric can be good?
The organoleptic method seems like an objective test. If it’s easy for you to clairtaste something in a video game, if you don’t need to force your imagination much, then it can only mean that your brain is immersed enough to take the thing for real. You don’t need to count polygons and wax poetic about what a realistic Hadouken should look like. You can just directly probe your brain for if it believes that what you are seeing is real.
Of course, different people will feel it differently. But as far as measurement goes, psychometrics is a step up from self-reporting. Let’s see what gets my brain to believe! And I’m waiting for your reports about your results.
Here are some random games at different levels of graphical realism. All tests were conducted either on the game itself, or on a video. Static screenshots don’t work that well, and I put them here only as a reference.
Skyrim
Now bad! Everything feels sort of muted, as if shrink-wrapped, but with a bit of focus I can even dip my tongue into the hearty Nordic soup.
4/5, I believe.
Morrowind
It’s pretty curious compared to Skyrim. People, items, weapons – none of it tastes like anything. But for some reason “natural” objects – rocks, trees, foliage – taste much more real than in Skyrim. I can even feel the petrichor when it rains! And the slight taste of rot. Everybody is hyping up nature in Skyrim, but even though it is admittedly pretty, it’s evidently too sterile and polished to befuddle my perception. But Morrowind is truly atmospheric!
2/5 – it’s not everything, but it’s something!
Baldur’s Gate III
Alas. During normal gameplay there’s too many highlights, special effects and other zen-disupting bells and whistles for me to feel anything, this picture evokes no more response than Morrowind. During cutscenes, with the camera being closer to the action and everything being clearer - I can at least taste people, even though they’re still kind of plasticy. This is where the dynamics are important – BGIII’s graphics look better on screenshots, but when I’m actually playing, Skyrim is more believable. And the food is much more delicious in Skyrim than in BGIII!
2/5 – sorry but no. Detailed doesn’t mean realistic.
Cuphead
No reaction. Nice art, but no claim to realism and immersion. It doesn’t mean the graphics isn’t good – it’s delightful and stylish – but my brain doesn’t take it as real.
1/5, as expected.
Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom
None. Cute, pretty, but the brain isn’t fooled, everything is clearly artificial and toy-like. Comparing to Morrowind, it’s clear that low-detail graphics that tries to be realistic will get you better immersion than high-res that doesn’t even try to look real. Obvious conclusion here is – if you aren’t aiming for a realistic art style, there’s no good reason to add stuff like cool sunlight shaders and volumetric fog.
1/5, yes, worse than Morrowind, at least that one had tasty pond scum.
Crysis 2
Was it Crysis who hyped up how realistic it can be? Let’s check it out…
This is the rare case where the static picture is tastier than the dynamic one. Motion blur makes it worse, turning thw world into soap. It’s hard to find a video where the PC isn’t moving around at high speeds, but in those rare moments – yes, I can taste it. The conclusion: there’s no reason to make hyper-detailed graphics if the player won’t even see it during the most important moments. It will look cool on screenshots and it might evoke an early wow-effect, but it won’t enhance the gaming experience one bit.
3/5, rarely, but yes.
Last of Us 2
This is the game that made me believe it the most. I specifically seeked out something that I could rate as 5/5, and this was it. Yes, the mouthfeel.
5/5.
Conclusions
- Style is more important than detail. Low-poly and low-res Morrowind got a much richer reaction than polished TOTK, because Morrowind is trying to immerse you, and TOTK is intentinally cartoony.
- If your graphics need to be blurred to be pretty and run on the hardware, then you should probably make it simpler but remove the blur. It would look worse on screenshots but better during gameplay.
- Tamriel cuisine is better than Faerun cuisine.