Recap from last lecture
Games are big business
Usability in games: same as usability elsewhere
Consistency, visibility, task, testing
Types of game interface
What Makes a Good Game?
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Control mapping: show don’t remember
3D games
RTS
Joypad
Mouse + keyboard
Dance Dance Revolution...
Ubicomp games
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Good things games do
Problems with movement in 3D
mouse+keyboard... but also new sensors now
Appearance
Open to new features
Develop new approaches
Deep customisability: modding
Community
Viewpoints
Side, isometric, 1st person, 3rd person
Multiplayer 3D games
Problems of ‘fragmented interaction’: pointing,
gaze, visibility of actions, tell hell
Key research problem: how to support multi
player interaction in 3D environments
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Lecture goal
Understand what the basic elements of games are
Conduct an analysis of a game in terms of its elements
Understand why games are fun
Describe the emergent features of games
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Understanding game elements
Formal elements
Formal elements describe what your game is
Identifiable parts of the game which work together
Players, objects, rules...
Dramatic elements describe why your game is fun
Dramatic elements
Emergent elements come from the interaction of
these
Parts of the game which make it enjoyable
Challenge, play, story...
Not dictated by the game designer, but come from
how the game is played (e.g. importance of the centre
square in Knots & Crosses, the economy in Monopoly)
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A tale of two games
Doom 3
Balance between weapons and monsters
Darkness - the unknown
Sound
Very scarey
Running around
Solving puzzles
Killing things
Killing more things
Did I mention the killing things bit?
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Tetris
The puzzle game par
excellence
Pieces fall down controlled by the user
Complete lines to keep alive
Written in 1985
Still played to this day
2nd best selling game of all time
Simple, low-res graphics
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Doom 3 vs. Tetris
Long history
Very different games
Why are they still games? What do they have
in common
Subject of a BBC documentary
Lots of variations
Multi-player variations
Played on side of buildings
‘tetris world’ rules - sliding
NP complete
“A closed formal system that engages players
in a structural conflict and resolves in an
unequal outcome”
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Formal elements of games
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Players
Players
Objective
Procedures/Rules
Resources
Boundaries
Outcome
Who plays against whom?
Multiplayer games are much more fun
Solitaire or Monopoly?
Not explored much in current video games
Tend to be player vs. game, or player vs. player?
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Objective
What’s the point in playing? 7 basic options:
Capture, Chase, Race, Escape, Construction,
Exploration, Solution
Tetris - Solution
Doom III - Escape (but also elements of chase,
solution, exploration)
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Procedures & Rules
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Resources
Procedures: how do you play the game
Rules: rules describing objects, restricting
actions, determining effects
The famous ‘lives’
Not real lives, of course...
Units, health, currency, blocks, time, terrain...
Doom III: moving around, shooting, power of
the weapons etc.
Tetris: moving shapes, new shapes come
automatically
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Boundaries
Outcome
The barrier between the real world and the
game
‘Zero sum games’
games where if one person wins, another loses
Huizinga’s notion of the magic circle
One world where the game rules apply, one
where they don’t
Do players have a problem here?
Alternative reality games: playing with the magic
circle, blurring the boundary with the ‘real world’
and with real life
Non-zero sum games
We can all win together (esp. if we cooperate)
Winners and end goals
Rewards
Respect of peers
Game currency... possibly exchangeable
e.g. 266 Linden Dollar / $1
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Formal elements: Doom III
Formal elements: Tetris
Player
Player v. game, or player
v. player
Player
Player v. game, or player
v. player
Objective
Escape
Objective
Stay alive
Procedures/Rules
Guns kill people
Procedures/Rules
Shapes fit into each other
(+slide?)
Resources
Bullets, health
Resources
Screen space
Boundaries
Game world
Boundaries
Sides of the screen
Outcome
Escape from Mars
Outcome
Play for ever - die - high
score
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Dramatic elements
Elements of a game that engage players in the
outcome
Games, films, comics, books etc. all have
dramatic elements
Not just the plot...
Challenge, play, character, premise/story
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Challenge
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Play
What keeps a player keep playing
Learning new skills, inability to do something
Constant reward
Control over own destiny
Compare with playing a musical instrument
The experience of enjoying play as a thing in
itself
Exploration
Learning and progress
Reward, community
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Character
Premise/Story
Attachment to a characters in a game
Mario, Sonic, Zelda, Rocketman...
Of increasing importance
One reason behind ‘franchises’
Dialogue-less characters?
Premise - why are you playing, the story origin
Story - the unfolding plot of the game
An increasing part of games but not traditionally a
big thing in games
e.g. Final Fantasy, Hitman
and particularly in MMoGs
e.g. The Corrupted Blood virus in World of Warcraft
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Dramatic elements: Doom III
Challenge
Tactics, shooting straight
Play
Beating new monsters,
new scenes
Character
Other characters in the
game
Premise/story
Not much
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Dramatic elements: Tetris
Challenge
Emergent elements
Game gets faster
System dynamics
Play
Fitting the blocks
together
Character
None
How the game flows
Linear - plot happens one scene after another (e.g. Doom 3)
Network - unfolding plot with multiple paths through
(Grand Theft Auto)
Agents - (Halo)
Economies
Premise/story
simple (Monopoly)
complex (Everquest)
None
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Conclusion and summary
Why are games fun?
Combination of formal game elements, dramatic
elements and emergent elements
Formal:
Players, objectives, procedures/rules, resources,
boundaries, outcomes
Dramatic:
Challenge, play, character premise/story
Emergent:
Game dynamic over time
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