Serious Games
GAME ELEMENTS
CRITIQUES AND RESEARCH
AESTHETICS
AESTHETICS
Style and skill, not beauty
 Harmony

 coherence

and consistency
Harmony isn’t something that you can fake. … It’s a
sensual, intuitive experience. It’s something you feel. … it
doesn’t come from design committees ,,, And it never
happens by accident or by luck. … Games with harmony
emerge from a fundamental note of clear intention.
Brian Moriarty
EMERGENT PLAY
ACTIONS (EMERGENT PLAY)
Operative and resultant
 Number of actions
 What you can act on
 Ways to reach a goal
 Number of objects
 Side effects: changing constraints

ACTIONS (EMERGENT PLAY): THE VERBS

Two types:
 Operative
(movements)
 Resultant (intents): capture strategy
Interesting games are defined by resultant
actions
KEYS:
 Probably the key to innovative games
 How to make the player feel they have
unlimited options with limited actions

HOW TO IMPROVE EMERGENT PLAY
 Add
more actions
 Let actions act on more objects
 Multiple ways to reach a goal
Avoid
 Many
dominant strategies
subjects (active objects)
 Side effects changing constraints
SKILL AND CHANCE
SKILL
 Types
 Physical
(sports, controllers)
 Mental (problem solving)
 Social (reading opponents, psyching
opponents)
 Goal
is improvement
 Real vs. virtual
 Balance!
CHANCE: LITTLE BIT OF PROBABILITY





Probability =
looked for
possible outcomes
OR = add probabilities
AND = multiply probabilities
Probability distributions
Expected values
CHANCE: HOW IT PLAYS
Probability
 Skill of understanding chance
 Human element

 NOT
just expected value
 Risks and regrets
RULES AND GOALS
RULES
Foundational
(abstraction)
Operational
(how you play)
Behavioral
(how you act)
Conceptual
Written
Unwritten
Sniderman
RULES

Different for Different Modes
 Full
game
 Within game
 Minimize

time spent there or lose the bigger game
Enforcement
 Players
 Referees
 Computer
(architecture)
GOAL

Simply stated and understood


Between a tag line and a tweet!
Must be
Concrete
 Achievable
 Rewarding (both in gaining and seeking)


Choices:
Series or single
 Short or long term
 But if more than one, MUST be related
