Kaufman, Flanagan, and Seidman (2015) describe intermixing as “balancing ‘on-message’ and ‘off-message’ content to render the former less overt or threatening and more palatable and approachable” (Kaufman, Flanagan, & Seidman, 2015, p. 3).

Studies have found that persuasive games with intent-relevant content interspersed with and balanced by unrelated content were less likely to evoke negative psychological reactance, and more likely to successfully change players’ attitudes and motivations (Kaufman & Flanagan, 2015).

The design intent of obfuscation is “using framing devices or genres that divert expectations or focus away from the game’s persuasive intent” (Kaufman, Flanagan, & Seidman, 2015, p. 3). Stealthily incorporating the true purpose of the game helps players maintain immersion in the story and feel even more engaged with and convinced by the narrative (Kaufman, Flanagan, & Seidman, 2016).

The incorporation of “red-herring” elements has also been found to increase game enjoyment and impact (Kaufman, Flanagan, & Seidman, 2016) and to help users misattribute any anxiety they might experience from the persuasive content towards other elements in the game, such as a suspenseful horror atmosphere (To, Fath, Holmes, Hammer, & Kaufman, 2018).

Thus, obfuscation can be used to prevent the player’s defenses from coming up by diverting attention away from the pressing matter at hand. After Us incorporates several sub-plots found in hidden diary entries and newspaper clippings around the lab, such as a romantic relationship between two scientists or red-herring causes of the apocolypse.

Kaufman, Flanagan, and Seidman (2015) define distancing as “employing techniques, such as the use of fictional or metaphorical representations of key issues or themes, in order to increase the psychological gap between players’ identities and beliefs and the game’s characters and persuasive content” (Kaufman, Flanagan, & Seidman, 2015, p. 3). Using an openly fictional narrative or character gives a “safe” level of distance that allows players to confront topics that might otherwise be too threatening, controversial, or sensitive to consider in a game.

In order to create a sense of psychological distance from this apocolyptic world, we had our users play the game and identify with aliens rather than humans. By "experience-taking" as aliens, people could understand what happened from a detached psychological perspective and learn from it.

In addition, we designed our narrative timeline to begin in 2020 and end in 2150. By setting the apocolypse nearly a century from current day, we can create a false sense of the “calm after the storm”. An “in the moment” experience of the apocalypse could have been emotionally disturbing for many players, potentially causing psychological reactance and defensiveness. Yet by making the storyline begin in current day, we still allow players to visualize a future more vividly and in more detail, in accordance with the Construal Level Theory (CLT).

Narrative transportation refers to the situation where a reader or player is so deeply immersed or “lost” in a story that they begin to reflect the attitudes and intent of the author and story.

Studies have found that higher immersion in a narrative can increase users’ acceptance of factual or persuasive content presented therein (Green & Brock, 2000), even if those ideas or beliefs run counter to the user’s prior beliefs and attitudes (Wheeler, Green, & Brock, 1999).

For example, in order to really put the user "in the shoes" of an impartial alien observer, the entire game’s visuals are experience within the physical frame of their spacesuit’s dashboard interface.

Experience-taking is “the imaginative process of spontaneously assuming the identity of a character in a narrative and simulating that character's thoughts, emotions, behaviors, goals, and traits as if they were one's own” (Kaufman & Libby, 2012).

Immersive games that get users out of their own head and into a first-person main character’s, can result in the incorporation and mimicry of the character’s personality traits, values, and even behaviors after the user finishes playing the game.

The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance states that people experience negative arousal when they act or think inconsistently with their existing attitudes, and are strongly motivated to reduce this discomfort (Festinger, 1957).

Dickerson, Thibodeau, Aronson, and Miller (1992) found making people feel hypocritical about their past water usage, versus their public commitment to conserve water, resulted in subjects taking significantly shorter showers later.

It has even been found that sharing a strong social bond with another person or group who is acting hypocritically can lead to personal behavior change (Fernandez, Stone, Cooper, Casio, and Hogg, 2008).