The Fundamentals of Game Design

• In some sense ,gameplay involves learning in an enjoyable form
• Compared to other media, games offer interactivity.

Meaningful Play §

• Play is a significant function-that is to say, there is some sense to it. In play there is something “at play” which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action. All play means something
• Play comes not just from the game itself, but from the way players interact with the game, other players, and the context.
• Meaningful Play pertains to creating experiences that have meaning and are meaningful for players.
  • Games are defined by player choices. Player choice gives meaning. The meaning of an action resides in the relationship between action and outcome.
  • Meaningful play occurs when actions and outcomes are discernable and integrated into the larger context of the game.
    • Discernable means that the result of the game action is communicated in a perceivable way.
    • Integrated means that an action not only has immediate significance, but affects the significance at a later point in the game.

Interactivity §

• Play implies interactivity. It is the explicit interaction of the player that allows the game to advance.

• Interaction takes place in a system. It is relational, allows for direct intervention within a representational context (i.e., clarifying messages), and is iterative.

  • An interaction becomes truly interactive only when the participant makes choices that have been designed into the actual structure of the experience.

• We may model interactivity as having the following modes:

  • Cognitive Interactivity / Interpretative Participation - This is the psychological, emotional, and intellectual participation between a person and a system.
  • Functional Interactivity / Utilitarian Participation - Functional, structural interactions with the material components of the system.
  • Explicit Interactivity / Participation with Designed Choices - Involves choice, random events, and procedures programmed into the interactive experience.
    • Interaction is designed when it occurs as part of a system and it is situated within a particular context.
  • Beyond-the-object interactivity / Participation within the Culture - interaction outside the experience of the design system (i.e. fan culture).

Player Choice §

• Make the outcomes of choices discernible and integrated for meaningful play.

• Choices must be meaningful. At the micro level, we have moment-to-moment choices. At the macro-level, these choices link together to form a larger trajectory of experience.

• The space of possibility of a game is the space of all possible actions and meanings that can emerge in the course of the game. This concept ties together meaning, design, systems, and interactivity.

• Internal Events are related to the systemic processing of the choice. External events are related to the representation of the choice to the player.

• We may look at choice as an action-outcome unit of experience that comprises of the following components:

  • What happened before the player was given the choice? (internal)
  • How is the possibility of the choice conveyed to the player? (external)
  • How did the player make the choice? (internal)
  • What is the result of the choice? How will it affect future choices? (internal)
  • How is the result of the choice conveyed to the player? (external)

• In this sense, a game is a state machine.

• If a game fails to be meaningful, there is likely a breakdown in the anatomy of choice.

• Much can be determined about a game’s interactivity by looking at the game from the player’s point of view.

What are Games? §

• Games are a subset of play in the sense that formalized play are often games, whereas looser forms are not games.

• Play is a component of games in the sense, Play is the experiential aspect to the whole system that constitute games.

• A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome. ¹

  • A game is a system,
  • Players interact with the system and make decisions.
  • A game is an instance of conflict
  • The conflict in games is artificial,
  • Rules limit player behavior and define the game, and
  • Every game has a quantifiable outcome or goal.

• All puzzles are games. Games, in turn, can be seen as lying in a spectrum of either being puzzle-like wherein there is a “correct” answer, or open-ended, where there is not.

• The goal of a game may be as simple as a player-set goal determined session to session. Players are free to construct their own goals—possibly even changing the game.

Entering the Game §

• The lusory attitude — pertains to a phenomenon where the rules of the game make play inefficient, but it also makes it more meaningful as players accept these inefficiencies.

  • To play a game is to act in faith that the game will imbue it with special meaning.

• Play can be interpreted as a make-believe activity that is “not-so-serious”, yet absorbs the player fully.

  • It can be seen as a safe way to experience reality — games are artificial simulations separate from ordinary life.

• Games are framed as being defined physically and temporally.

• Within the Magic Circle there is a new reality based on the game’s systems, the “real” reality is suspended, and special meanings and behaviors are defined.

• To play a game means to enter the Magic Circle.

• Within the Magic Circle, the rules of the game take authority.

Digital Games §

• Digital games are a subset of games, and so are subject to the same principles.
• They are characterized with the following:

1. They offer immediate but narrow interactivity.
   • A common misconception is that players have a broad range of interactions with the computer.
2. Computers feature information manipulation and storage. Compared to non-digital games, the amount of information is much larger, and they can even hide information from players.
3. They automate and abstract complicated procedures and facilitate play that would be too complicated in non-computerized contexts.
4. They can facilitate communication between players via a network.

Game Components §

• We may analyze games from the perspective of Semiotics:

  • Game components are treated as semiotic signs.
  • Every sign represents something more than itself. An X in Tic-Tac-Toe means represents than just an X.
  • Every sign stands for something to somebody. They gain value through context and convention.
  • The meaning of a sign results when it is interpreted.
  • The context in which a sign occurs influences its interpretation. Thus, the structure is important for combining and interpreting them.

• All games are systems - a group of interacting, interrelated or independent elements forming a complex whole.

  • Games can be framed as a formal system based on rules, as an experiential system based on play and as a cultural system
    • Formal systems are closed.
    • Experiential systems may be open or closed.
    • Cultural systems are open.
  • When you are designing a game you are not designing just a set of rules, but a set of rules that will always be experienced as play within a cultural context. Thus, when analyzing we may focus on one of them, but when designing we should focus on all of them.

• Rules mean that the game is a formal system — a system with essential, discernable structures that constitute a game.

• Play means that the game is an experiential system — play exists only to be experienced.

• Culture means that games are a contextual system. They overlap and interact with the real world.

Links §

• Salen and Zimmerman Ch. 3- 10

• Game Design

• Games as Rules

• Games as Play

• Games as Culture

Footnotes §

1. See more definitions in Salen and Zimmerman Ch. 7 ↩