Game mechanics
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In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics are the rules or ludemes that govern and guide the player's actions, as well as the game's response to them. A rule is an instruction on how to play, a ludeme is an element of play like the L-shaped move of the knight in chess. A game's mechanics thus effectively specify how the game will work for the people who play it.[1]
There are no accepted definitions of game mechanics.[2] Some competing definitions include the opinion that game mechanics are "systems of interactions between the player and the game", that they "are more than what the player may recognize, they are only those things that impact the play experience", and "In tabletop games and video games, 'game mechanics' are the rules and procedures that guide the player and the game response to the player's moves or actions".[3][4]
All games use mechanics; however, there are different theories as to their ultimate importance to the game. In general, the process and study of
Game mechanics vs. gameplay
Gameplay could be defined as the combination and interaction of many elements of a game.[5] However, there is some confusion as to the difference between game mechanics and gameplay. For some, gameplay is nothing more than a set of game mechanics. For others, gameplay—especially when referenced in the term of "basic gameplay"—refers to certain core game mechanics which determine the overall characteristics of the game itself.[6]
For example, the basic gameplay of a shooting or fighting video game is to hit while not being hit. In a
The
In video games, gamers have a well-defined notion of what is considered gameplay. This is:
- What the player can do
- What other entities can do, in response to player's actions[8]
What a player and other entities can do within a game would also fall under the mechanics of a game.
However, from a programming or overall design perspective, basic gameplay can be deconstructed further to reveal constituent game mechanics. For example, the basic gameplay of fighting game can be deconstructed to attack and defense, or punch, kick, block, dodge and throw; which can be further deconstructed to strong/weak punch/kick. For this reason, game mechanics is more of an engineering concept while gameplay is more of a design concept.
Game mechanics vs. theme
Some games are 'abstract'—that is, the action is not intended to represent anything;
Games that are mechanically similar can vary widely in theme.
Some
Key game mechanics categories
Game mechanics fall into several more or less well-defined categories, which (along with basic gameplay and theme) are sometimes used as a basis to classify games. Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev in their book, Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design, classify game mechanisms into categories as they relate to game structure, turn order, actions, resolution, victory conditions, uncertainty, economics, auctions, worker placement, movement, area control, set collection, and card mechanisms.[9]
Game Structure
Game modes
A game mode is a distinct configuration that varies gameplay and affects how other game mechanics behave. A game with several modes will present different settings in each one, changing how a particular element of the game is played. One of the most common examples of game mode is the
Common game modes include a
Changing modes while the game is ongoing can be used as a means to increase difficulty and provide additional challenge, or as a reward for player success. Power-ups are modes that last for a few moments or that change only one or a few game rules; for example power pellets in Pac-Man give the temporary ability to eat the enemies for a few seconds.
Other examples include the availability of a
A game mode may restrict or change the behavior of the available tools ( e.g. play with limited/unlimited
Turns
can be used to measure and limit the time taken by each player in a turn-based game.A game turn is an important fundamental concept to almost all non-computer games, and many video games as well (although in video games, various real-time genres have become much more popular). In general, a turn is a segment of the game set aside for certain actions to happen before moving on to the next turn, where the sequence of events can largely repeat. In a truly abstract game (
Some games use player turns where one player gets to perform their actions before another player can perform any on their turn (Monopoly and chess would be classic examples). Some use game turns, where all players contribute to the actions of a single turn (board-game simulations of American football tend to have both players pick plays and then determine the outcome; each 'play' or 'down' can be considered a turn). Some games have 'game turns' that consist of a round of player turns, possibly with other actions added in (Civilization plays with a series of player turns followed by a trading round in which all players participate).
In games that are meant to be some sort of simulation, the on/off nature of player turns can cause problems and has led to a few extra variations on the theme. The semi-simultaneous turn allows for some reactions to be done during the other player's turn. The impulse-based turn divides the turn into smaller segments or impulses where everyone does some of their actions at one time, and then reacts to the current situation before moving on to the next impulse (as seen in Star Fleet Battles or Car Wars).
In some games, not all turns are alike. Usually, this is a difference in what phases (or different portions of the turn) happen.
Even in real-time computer games, there are often certain periodic effects. For instance, a wounded character in World of Warcraft will gradually recover health while out of combat. The rate of recovery is calculated from the character's statistics and applied per "tick" as a lump sum, so a character would gain ten health per tick, instead of one every tenth of a tick. These periodic effects can be considered the vestigial remnants of the concept of turns.
Action selection
Action points
These control what players may do on their turns in the game by allocating each player a budget of "action points" each turn. These points may be spent on various actions according to the game rules, such as moving pieces, drawing cards, collecting money, etc. This type of mechanism is common in many "
Worker placement
Worker placement is a game mechanism where players allocate a limited number of tokens ("workers") to multiple stations that provide various defined actions.: 307
Economics
Resource management
Many games involve the
Auction or bidding
Some games use an auction or bidding system in which the players make competitive bids to determine which player gets the right to perform particular actions. Such an auction can be based on different forms of "payment":
- The winning bidder must pay for the won privilege with some form of game resource (game money, points, etc.) (e.g.: Ra).
- The winning bidder does not pay upon winning the auction, but an auction is a form of a promise that the winner will achieve some outcome in the near future. If this outcome is not achieved, the bidder pays some form of penalty. Such a system is used in many trick-taking games, such as contract bridge.
In some games the auction determines a unique player who gains the privilege; in others, the auction orders all players into a sequence, often the sequence in which they take turns during the current round of gameplay.
Movement
Many board games involve the movement of playing tokens. How these tokens are allowed to move, and when, is governed by movement mechanics.
Some game boards are divided into more or less equally-sized areas, each of which can be occupied by one or more game tokens. (Often such areas are called
Other games, particularly
Set Collection
Engine building
Engine building is a mechanism that involves building and optimizing a system to create a flow of resources.
Tile-laying
Many games use tiles - flat, rigid pieces of a regular shape - that can be laid down on a flat surface to form a tessellation. Usually, such tiles have patterns or symbols on their surfaces, that combine when tessellated to form game-mechanically significant combinations.
The tiles themselves are often drawn at random by the players, either immediately before placing them on the playing surface, or in groups to form a pool or hand of tiles from which the player may select one to play.
Tiles can be used in two distinct ways:
- The playing of a tile itself is directly significant to the outcome of the game, in that where and when it is played contributes points or resources to the player.
- Tiles are used to build a board upon which other game tokens are placed, and the interaction of those tokens with the tiles provides game points or resources.
Examples of tile mechanics include: Scrabble, in which tiles are letters and players lay them down to form words and score points; and Tikal, in which players lay tiles representing newly explored areas of jungle, through which archaeologists (represented by tokens) must move to score game points.
Resolution
Capture/eliminate
In some games, the number of tokens a player has on the playing surface is related to their current strength in the game. In such games, it can be an important goal to capture opponent's tokens, meaning to remove them from the playing surface.
Captures can be achieved in a number of ways:
- Moving one of one's own tokens into a space occupied by an opposing token (e.g. parchisi), also known as a replacement capture or displacement capture.[13]
- When there is an additional condition where the space immediately opposite has to be either off the board or a marked trap space, it is known as a push capture.[14]
- Jumping a token over the space immediately occupied by an opposing token (e.g. draughts), known as a jump or leap.[13]
- When the opposing token can be any distance along an unobstructed line, it is known as a flying capture.[14]
- Occupying the adjacent squares of an opposing token (e.g.
- Occupying one immediately adjacent square to an opposing token, also known as approach.[13]
- The reverse of approach: capturing an adjacent opposing token by moving away from it in a straight line (e.g. fanorona), also known as withdrawal.[13]
- Capturing two opposing tokens by occupying the single square separating them, also known as intervention.[13]
- Declaring an "attack" on an opposing token, and then determining the outcome of the attack, either in a deterministic way by the game rules (e.g. Stratego, Illuminati), or by using a randomising method (e.g. Illuminati: New World Order).
- Surrounding a token or region with one's own tokens in some manner (e.g. go), also known as enclosure.[13]
- Playing cards or other resources that the game allows to be used to capture tokens.
- Other specialized mechanisms that do not fall neatly into any of the above categories.
In some games, captured tokens are simply removed and play no further part in the game (e.g. chess). In others, captured tokens are removed but can return to play later in the game under various rules (e.g. backgammon, pachisi). Less common is the case in which the capturing player takes possession of the captured tokens and can use them himself later in the game (e.g. shogi, Reversi, Illuminati), also known as conversion.[13]
Many video games express the capture mechanism in the form of a kill count, (sometimes referred to as "frags"), reflecting the number of opposing pawns eliminated during the game.
Victory conditions
Victory conditions control how a player wins the game. Examples of victory conditions include the necessity of completing a
Catch-up
Some games include a mechanism designed to make progress towards victory more difficult the closer a player gets to it. The idea behind this is to allow trailing players a chance to catch up and potentially still win the game, rather than suffer an inevitable loss once they fall behind. This may be desirable in games such as racing games that have a fixed finish line.
An example is from
Another example, often seen in racing games, such as
Other games do the reverse, making the player in the lead more capable of winning, such as in
Uncertainty
Dice
These involve the use of dice, usually as randomisers. Most dice used in games are the standard cubical dice numbered from 1 to 6, though games with polyhedral dice or those marked with symbols other than numbers exist.
The most common use of dice is to randomly determine the outcome of an interaction in a game. An example is a player rolling a die or dice to determine how many board spaces to move a game token.
Dice often determine the outcomes of in-game conflict between players, with different outcomes of the die/dice roll of different benefit (or adverse effect) to each player involved. This is useful in games that simulate direct conflicts of interest.
Dice curves
Different dice formulas are used to generate different probability curves. A single die has equal probability of landing on any particular side, and consequently produces a linear probability distribution curve. The sum of two or more dice, however, results in a bell curve-shaped probability distribution, with the addition of further dice resulting in a steeper bell curve, decreasing the likelihood of an extreme result. A linear curve is generally perceived by players as being more "swingy", whereas a bell curve is perceived as being more "fair".[19][20]
Risk and reward
Some games include situations where players can "press their luck" in optional actions where the danger of a risk must be weighed against the chance of reward. For example, in Beowulf: The Legend, players may elect to take a "Risk", with success yielding cards and failure weakening the player's ultimate chance of victory.[21]
Card Mechanisms
These involve the use of cards similar to playing cards to act as a randomizer and/or to act as tokens to keep track of states in the game.
A common use is for a deck of cards to be shuffled and placed face down on or near the game playing area. When a random result is called for, a player draws a card and what is printed on the card determines the outcome of the result.
Another use of cards occurs when players draw cards and retain them for later use in the game, without revealing them to other players. When used in this fashion, cards form a game resource.
Role-playing
See also
- Ludology
- Game clock
- Kingmaker scenario
- Pie rule
- Gamification - adding a (sometimes very small) amount of game mechanics to a non-game website, piece of software or activity
- Dynamic game difficulty balancing, a technique to change game mechanics based on the player's ability
- Ludeme, an atomic piece of gameplay
References
- ^ Boller, Sharon (17 July 2013). "Learning Game Design: Game Mechanics". Knowledge Guru. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
- ISBN 9781466628489.
- ISBN 978-0-84003-103-7.
- ^ Boller, Sharon (17 July 2013). "Learning Game Design: Game Mechanics". The Knowledge Guru. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
- ISBN 1-59273-001-9.
One or more causally linked series of challenges in a simulated environment"; "Gameplay is the result of a large number of contributing elements. .. gameplay is not a singular entity. It is a combination of many elements, a synergy that emerges from the inclusion of certain factors. .. The gameplay emerges from the interaction among these elements, ..
- ^ "What are Video Game Mechanics? (Learn for Free)". 11 March 2017.
- ^ "Rewards in video games, why does it work?". 28 November 2017.
- ^ Fabricatore, Carlo (2007). "Gameplay and Game mechanics Design: A Key to Quality in Videogames" (PDF). OECD. Rome, Italy. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-03-29.
- ISBN 978-1-138-36552-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7864-6797-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-321-82027-3.
- ISBN 978-1-138-36549-0.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-212998-8.
- ^ a b "Geeklists of capture move types for Boardgames".
- ISBN 978-0486238555.
- ^ "Effective Quest Design in MMORPG Environment". Archived from the original on 2005-08-12., Game Developers Conference 2005, March 11, 2005
- S2CID 62597836.
- ^ "Pokémon Trading Card Game Rulebook 2012" (PDF). p. 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-09-11. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
- ^ "D&D and the Probability Curve". Awesome Dice. 2023-11-22. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
- ^ "Dice Probability Explained". Game Master Dice. 2019-09-03. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
- ^ "Beowulf: The Legend DESCRIPTION". Fantasy Flight Games. Archived from the original on 15 December 2010. Retrieved 20 May 2010. "the player who took the risk instead takes a "scratch," a minor wound that has the strong potential to ultimately undermine the player's chances of success. These frequent risks are remarkably nerve-racking"