This has led me to consider that the emotional power of nostalgia may come from an endorphin release, with a greater surge when buried memories (i.e. chunks and collections which were strongly formed, but nowadays are infrequently accessed) are accessed. There seems to be a stronger reaction when people see something they had totally forgotten about, as opposed to the relatively familiar.
With this in mind I feel it's a good idea to delve lightly into the psychology associated with nostalgia, before moving to a more phenomenological approach.
Nostalgia: Content, trigger and functions
I stumbled upon this paper written by Tim Wildschut (et al) from the University of Southampton (2006), published in the (American) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.They carried out three groups of studies, each focused on a different aspect of the effect of nostalgia. The authors state that "These findings demarcate key landmarks in the hitherto uncharted research domain of nostalgia" -- a pretty hefty claim!
They begin by distinguishing nostalgia from homesickness, which was the original meaning of the word. In line with what I witnessed in a Nigel Slater documentary, nostalgia can trigger positive or negative affect (with some theorists suggesting that it is always a mixed reaction). Interestingly, the results did not appear to differ by gender.
(The majority of the paper addresses the negative effects, and how they fit with loneliness. This is of no interest to me in my particular research, so I have omitted this from the review.)
One study focused on the triggers for nostalgic thinking. These were categorised (by experts in qualitative analysis) as follows:
Of specific interest to me in my research is the statistic that 31% of the triggers are controllable (sensory, tanglible & similar events) within the context of a game.
24% of the triggers rely upon social interaction, which suggests that we join in the experience when we hear other people reminisce about shared nostalgic memories. This suggests that team play would enhance the likelihood of an in-game nostalgia trigger generating a stronger response from the individual players.
These statistics also highlight that there are many triggers which are external to a video game, and cannot be easily controlled by a game designer. Therefore I need to focus on the sensory, tangible & 'similar event' aspect, with a mind to team play.