Has a video game ever made you release serotonin where you could really feel it?

We all have are favorite video games and great memories that comes along with them but have you ever been down and a video game really lifted you up where you could literally feel your brain tingling? This is probably something people that suffer from depression like myself can really notice. I just had one of those moments playing in VR I been feeling shitty alot lately and I haven't touch my Oculus in a while and I replayed some F.E.A.R. in VR tonight and I got really immersed in it just staring at the lighting on the wall in game and listening to ambient music play in the background it put my mind in a peaceful place. I started feeling my brain tingling it was a awesome feeling has anyone ever experience this before from gaming?

Journey, Shadow of the Colossus.

The sheer beauty of those games along with the emotions they were making me feel. Shadow in particular because...at the time, it was an absolute marvel to behold. There's STILL nothing like it.

I don't quite know what this means. If you mean have I ever used video games to regulate my mood the answer is yes, all the time. Gaming is one of my main ways of blowing off steam and calming myself down. Not to get too morose, but I'm pretty sure I would have killed myself if not for video games. There were times when I was a teen (after some really messed up stuff in my life) where I would get so upset and anguished that literally the only thing that could calm me down and regulate my mood was getting lost in a video game. Movies and TV didn't work because they weren't engaging enough; it was too easy to just tune them out. But you can't tune out Tekken or Goldeneye. You need to focus. And that focus let me release my bad emotions and relax.

If you mean "have video games ever given you a warm fuzzy happy feeling" the answer is also yes. I've definitely felt an endorphin buzz and just a feeling of well-being while playing a great game. Zelda had this effect recently.

Don't know if I have ever felt my "brain" tingle though. I'm more prone to find myself grinning like a maniac and maybe feel a little tingle in face and hands.

Yes, especially stealth / survival horror type games. Very immersive.

I guess during the ending of Final Fantasy VIII when I was an angsty teen and some parts of The Witcher 3. I rarely get into a game enough nowadays for one to elicit any emotional reaction besides annoyance.

Gone Home was the first to come to mind. Also, Life is Strange.

Yeah that's the feeling great response thanks for sharing.

I played through Ori and the Blind Forest recently and the moment where you first burst out of the water tree was a moment of pure amazement for me. It's the first time that that game shows how variable and beautiful it's art style can really be. Going from the dark, claustrophobic and narrow hollow tree to the fresh, bright new look of the general forest was wonderful. I remember pausing the game and literally applauding the TV without really thinking about it first. It was my favourite gaming moment of this year. Of course the game didn't come out this year, but I just played it for the first time recently.

Awesome!

When I beat Ornstein and Smough in Dark Souls 1. What a high that was.

From gaming? No. I am ASMR sensitive, which I know is a popular thing to make light of here, but that's generally where I get that tingly brain feeling from. I will admit there is a creepy element to some ASMR communities, though I think it comes down to whether or not you'd let someone of the same sex give you a massage. It's an intimate experience, and some people are uncomfortable with intimacy with people of the same sex, which leads to a female lead community. Then there's those that conflate intimacy with sexuality, and you can see where things can go wrong.

And then there's me over here watching at stuff like this: https://youtu.be/7aF0RYpkVTQ

Anyway, I do get moments of awe and open mouth amazement from video games. It's rare, but it does happen. The ending of Bioshock & Bioshock Infinite were definitely moments like that. Or just the sheer amazement of the world that I am playing in in games like Dark Souls II or The Witcher III. I remember stopping at the dragon bridge in Dark Souls II and just watching the view for a long time. Oh, and when I was a kid, I had to go sit down and process how great of a game Final Fantasy VI was when I finished it. So stuff like that.

I second this. That game was so amazing, from the music to the art direction to the tight controls. Can't wait for the second one!

I really had an emotional reaction to Bioshock 1 when the revelation of what was going on dawned on me. I then just started thinking about Bioshock for the next few days and the story it told and how immersed I was in Rapture.

Journey literally made me cry first time I played through the sliding down the sand part. That moment when the camera swoops to the side and the music swells as you are sliding on the sun reflected on the sand.
When I was young and thought I had finished the game when I got to the Master Sword in OoT, but it turned out the game was kind of just starting.

I don't anything else comes close to those two moments.

I been thinking about VR and depression alot and how it could help those who have really bad depression and how it would be really amazing if for example. Lets say there was a sun in a game that looked really good graphically and if it would be possible to trick your brain into thinking it's the real sun without the heat of course and then your brain would release serotonin if you had low amounts of it. This would be really beneficial with people that have seasonal effective disorder.

Edit: I should add I actually tried this last winter with the original Mirror's Edge in VR there is alot of nice looking sun in that game but I didn't get any major mood boost from it just a small touch of it.

I'm not sure if it was serotonin, dopamine, or something else, but I have experienced a high playing a game before. It was early last year while playing a World of Warcraft Vanilla server for the first time. I've played WoW since 2005, so it's a game that's very special to me, and carries a lot of heave memories and nostalgia. I didn't get the rush right away, but it was visiting Orgrimmar (a big faction city) that really set me off. Just seeing the old version of the city before they remodeled it in 2011 as well as all the people running around in their level 60 gear. It was like jumping in a time machine to over a decade ago. Walking out of the city back to my questing area with my friends, the music was playing and it just hit me really hard, unlike anything else I've ever felt from playing a video game. Considering my history with WoW and the circumstances, I don't think I could ever obtain that kind feeling again. I suppose it was a dopamine rush or something else, but whatever it was, it was very overwhelming.

WoW, CS, CoD, LoL. Some single player moments give me the goosebumps but nothing compared to being 2-3 kills off from a nuke in MW2 or a really tense League of Legends match. That adrenaline rush of being on your own in the moment and outplaying your opponents is like nothing else, if I played sports I imagine it would be similar

@viking_funeral: I'm trying to think if I've ever gotten big time ASMR from a game before and I can't think of anything major. Probably because a lot of games are loud and obnoxious. The closest thing I can think of is very recently while playing Wolfenstein (New Order). Anya reads you those diary passages from the woman who kills Nazis, and it's a bit ASMRish.

I've been giggling like an idiot a lot while playing Elite:Dangerous lately, does that count? :D The sights&sounds are often enough to get an involuntary "hihi" from me once in a while haha. Its so immersive !

I JUST had this feeling last night. I wasn't necessarily "depressed", but rather felt ambivalent about playing video games. I'm sure some know the feeling, where you want to play a game, but none of them seem interesting enough to motivate you to actually do so. Then I remembered I had stalled on The Talos Principle's DLC Road to Gehenna and suddenly really wanted to play that.

The feeling of quiet concentration - which turned briefly into mild frustration - while slowly working out a well made puzzle is calming in its own right. But when those feelings are capped by a sudden, long awaited (I had been working one puzzle for 2 hours) eureka moment, man, you couldn't find a drug that feels as good as that.

What makes the feeling extra potent is that, in The Talos Principle, a lot of the time you'll work out a possible solution in your head before implementing it in-game, as opposed to some other puzzle games where blind fiddling is possible. Furthermore, testing your hypothesis isn't as easy as a few seconds of button presses. A lot of the time, testing a solution requires a re-working of the puzzle from step one, all the while you're getting increasingly excited about having solved the puzzle. Meaning, there are a lot of false-positive "Eureka, I've got it!" moments while playing, which happen usually when you're at your most hopeful. That can get discouraging, and I had already experienced a half dozen in this puzzle. So, when I actually mapped the true solution in my head, I was afraid to get my hopes up in fear of them being dashed when I tested it. This was a unique feeling as I genuinely didn't believe up-at-1-in-the-morning me had solved the puzzle. But, as I mentioned earlier, this just made the feeling that much more real.

No but I got this game called House Party, I hear it's pretty easy to release in that game

The opening strains of Area 5 in Rez. I'd seen it for years but actually gearing up to play it gave me goosebumps. I want to say beating Dark Souls gave me the shivers.

I think I know what you mean. I find that feeling most after super fast, intense games. Burnout 3 always blasted my brain with chemicals everytime. And more recently Doom and Titanfall 2 have had similar effects.

@jec03:

Is F.E.A.R. Available in VR?

This is essentially why I play video games a whole lot. The best example for me (though there are many) would be WoW. Something about that game, just.. It's constantly rewarding and it's pretty and cheerful and the gameplay is fun when you get into it. I love it. I fucking LOVE that place especially.

Being in a world is essential to my mood balancing. Immersion is where it's at. Just having a mix of being engaged enough to be drawn out of your own spiraling shit tornado of negativety.. I'm Bipolar, I have some rooooough days.. and months.. Sometimes years.. If it wasn't for games, I doubt I would have survived my 20s. I love games so much more than what is reasonable..

Too much WoW made my hands crappy enough to the point where that's no longer a game I can play. Luckily VR started bubbling up a few years back, and holy balls was it worth the wait. Being totally immersed is like a pause button for my gloom generator - even more than WoW ever was. Sadly, most of the VR games out there lack the infinite replayability of an MMO or something like CS (aside from pavlov, onward, special forces)

If we ever get a Warcraft based VRMMORPG.. I will seriously cry out loud with just tears and snot and everything.

I could go on forever about this..

Not officially but yes it works in VR quite well I use a third party program that uses 3d drivers that gives alot of old games VR support the program is called Vorpx.

I remember Journey making me cry, which I had never experienced before with video games. I had the 'tingles' and just lost myself in the whole ending of that game, from the part in the snow to the transcendent ending. Same with The Last of Us, a lot of that game hit me hard and I weeped throughout the end of that game.

Playing Breath of the Wild this year was a different kind of feeling, I just enjoyed myself purely playing that game, it was a pleasure and made me incredibly happy in the 70 hours I spent with it.

Skellige in The Witcher 3 constantly had that feeling of beauty and awe for me, I really love Scandanavian culture, and taking some of that visual aesthetic with the landscape and the most beautiful ambient music made me stop and turn the camera in awe at some points. Same with Dark Souls 3 and coming upon Irithyll after the tomb area, I just looked at the city for a while.

I'm not really 100% sure what the feeling is you're talking about but I do chase a high almost every day of winning in Overwatch. There's nothing quite like it at the moment (or ever) in video games for me. Also a couple years ago I had a REALLY strong emotional reaction whilst playing the Nursery level in ZombiU, like nothing I've ever felt, goosebumps all over my body and a shiver right through my soul.

The first time playing The Last of Us

I pretty much exclusively play video games by myself, and the only other people I watch play video games are the GB crew; which isn't a "pure" experience since they are consciously trying to entertain their audience. So I don't have a good sense at all of if my experiences with games are similar to other people's.

I certainly play games to blow off steam and stress, and it does help me relax. I also feel elation and relief after defeating a particularly difficult section of a game. But I've never experienced the intense emotions that people sometimes describe with games; I've never cried, or been overwhelmed, or laughed uncontrollably. When there's solid writing and dialog I do feel a connection to the characters and want them to succeed, and I have smiled at particularly good moments and very occasionally chuckled at jokes (usually from Saints Row). Atmosphere alone often doesn't do much though. I'm finishing up Hollow Knight at the moment, and I haven't felt much of anything; except that happiness at beating tough sections of it and appreciation of what a well-designed game it is.

I can't remember for sure, but I don't think I've ever had a "tingle" from a game, but since I'm not totally sure what that means, its possible I'm picturing it wrong and it is something I've felt. The deepest feeling I know I've had from games is a kind of reflectiveness/introspection, where I need to just turn the game off, sit quietly, and process my thoughts/emotions (its hard to describe). Its very rare though (it also rarely will happen with other media as well), and the only times I can really think of are the end of Mass Effect 1 (and it might've been the ending credits song that did it), the end of Bioshock Infinite, and a few different points in The Talos Principle (mostly in the DLC). There may be a couple other times that I'm not thinking of right now.

bit.trip runner series- so much of that game is about muscle memory and performance, and the way the game rewards flawless performance with blissed-out music- the feeling of momentum and relief when you FINALLY nail that tough run is pretty fucking great.

and then off the top of my dome, probably the ending sequence to mass effect 2. from the ship attack through the final jump- the music and combat sequences were a climatic as fuuuuu-

N O B Y N O B Y B O Y

Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid definitely got me buzzed.

I suppose the SHODAN reveal in System Shock 2 did a bit of that for me. Mind you, I had only a little background understanding of the previous System Shock and it's antagonist, so it felt first time kind of wow, with the voice work, approach and all. Later, when she started calling me an insect and a worm, that didn't quite reach awe but rather humor. Sounded like a bad marriage.

Well, I wouldn't say that games trigger my autonomous sensory meridian response in the way that TDM does, but the social sim part of Persona 4 is something that I really get into, probably to a fault given some questionable purchases I've made over the years. Similar thing with HuniePop. Most of the characters are actually pretty amusing to talk to (at least until they start repeating their lines) because the dialogue dares to go where most of what I play doesn't, and I'm pretty sure that the voice actresses had a lot of fun working on it. So yeah; I can't help but chuckle when a game asks "Yo, straight up. You like fuckin' or what?" So props to that Insomniac programmer who wanted to say more than just Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal.

2 words... Dark Souls... that is all

@shindig: came in here to talk about Area 5 of Rez. Still love that particular version of Mind Killer, and the way the song builds through the level up to that last boss fight is really something special.

Can't wait to play it in VR.

Also, standing in front of a dormant Metal Gear Rex.

Dark Souls III and Nioh lately, though a lot of that feeling is paired with post-boss fight adrenaline. Same thing for Secret of Mana but no adrenaline unless the boss is a tiger with a mohawk that spins in a ball.

@rpjeff: Dude....it's fucking beautiful. Area X felt like I might actually have left my body at one point.

Rez VR is bliss.

Not sure about tingling in the head, though I have had that feeling. What I have felt before however is shortness of breath if you will when playing a game, like a game has a moment or moments of pure adrenaline mainly due to the situation as well as the music swelling.