Game Design Fundamentals: The Formal Elements

CHRISTINA WODTKE @cwodtke
Game Design
Fundamentals
@cwodtke | cwodtke@eleganthack.com
www.eleganthack.com
CHRISTINA WODTKE
Formal Elements
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Let’s make a game
Exercise via Brenda Romero

Draw a path

Create a way
to move
• Dice roll
• Answer a trivia question
• Everyone moves
• Person behind moves
• Roshambo
• Card draw
• Pass, but gain currency
• Physical skill

Design
Conflict
• Speed people up
• Slow people down
• Extra turn
• Lose a turn
• Swap places
• Block
Hold on to these, we’ll
come back to them.

What is a game?
A closed, formal
system
That engages players in
a structured conflict
And resolves to an
unequal outcome.
A dynamic system that
supports interaction
for an aesthetic goal.
Tracy Fullerton

"the voluntary
attempt to
overcome
unnecessary
obstacles".
Bernard Suits

Mechanics,
Dynamics,
Aesthetics
How games create emergent experiences

What is a game mechanic?

What is a game mechanic?
Game mechanics are rule based systems / simulations that facilitate and encourage a user to explore and learn the properties
of their possibility space through the use of feedback mechanisms.
Raph Koster
http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/218077

The 7
Formal
Elements
(Mechanic
s)
• Players
• Objectives
• Outcomes
• Rules
• Procedures
• Resources
• Boundaries
Fullerton, T. Game Design Workshop. 2008

1.Players
Interaction Patterns
Fullerton, T. Game Design Workshop. 2008

Player vs Game

Player vs Player

Multilateral Competition

Unilateral competition

Team vs Team

Multi-player co-op

Multiplayer player co-op

How
many
players
will you
have?
What
relation-
ship?

2. Objective(s)

Goals in
games
Outwit
Solution
Exploration
Construction
Forbidden act
Rescue or Escape
Alignment
Race
Chase
Capture

Capture
Strategery: Capture enemy
Territory

Race
Tiny Wings: Go
farther faster

Alignment: Dots
& Bejeweled
Match three or
more

Forbidden Action: Fruit Ninja. Don’t hit the bomb.

Exploration:
Lego Harry Potter
Wander rooms collecting things

Construction
Farmville: Make
Beautiful things

Solution
World of Goo
How high can you go without toppling.

Outwit: Carcassonne Board game
(also territory)

Objective(s)
Sometimes many stacked goals that evolve with game progression…

Objective(s)
Sometimes the
goals are less
clear…

3. Outcomes

Zero-Sum &
Non Zero-sum

Hide &
Seek vs
Sardines
How does the player relationship, objective and
outcome change the game?

What are your objectives and
outcomes?

4.
Resources

Resources: Minecraft

Resources:
Kingdom Rush

Resources:
Hopscotch

Resource Types
Lives Units Health Currency
Actions Power-ups Inventory
Special
Terrain
Time

5. Rules &
6. Procedures
• Rules
• Requirements that must be
followed.
• Procedures
• How the game flows from
state to state.

Procedures of
Solitaire
• Setup: 28 cards dealt into 7 tableau
piles with the number of cards
increasing from one to seven, left to
right. Top is face up, rest are face down.
• The rest of the cards are the draw pile.
• Cards are laid out in descending order,
alternating red and black.
• Aces can be removed to the
foundation.

Rules of
Solitaire
• Move any aces up to the
foundation.
• You can place a card on
the aces pile if it’s the
same suit
• You can place any card in
your hand on the preceding
card if it’s a different color
(red 8 on a black 9)
• Then go to the draw pile.

Boundaries

The Magic
Circle
“All play moves and has its being within a play-
ground marked off beforehand either materially
or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course…
The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the
temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court,
the court of justice, etc. are all in form and
function play-grounds… within which special
rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within
the ordinary world, dedicated to performance
of an act apart.”
Johan Huizinga
Homo Ludens, 1938

Magic Circle
• “To play a game means entering into a
magic circle, or perhaps creating one as a
game begins.”
• -- Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman,
Rules of Play

Magic Circle
• “Games are a context from which meaning
can emerge.”
• -- Eric Zimmerman,“Jerked Around by the
Magic Circle.”
• https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/13
5063/jerked_around_by_the_magic_circle_.p
hp

The 4 Dramatic
Elements
Challenge
Premise
Character
Story

Conflict & Challenge

A good walk spoiled

What makes games engaging?

Ravaja, Niklas, et al.
The Psychophysiology of Video Gaming: Phasic Emotional
Responses
to Game Events.
Digital Games
Research Association International Conference 2005.
http://tinyurl.com/7rsfz
• More pleasure and excitement in
active failure than in success
• However: passive experience of
failure makes players disengage.
• Attaining a goal DECREASES player
arousal and interest.

“Flappy Bird is a perversely,
oppressively difficult game.
Scoring even a single point takes
most players a considerable
number of runs. After an hour, I’d
managed a high score of two.”
- Ian Bogost

Challenges
• Obstacles
• Opponents
• Dilemmas

Premise

Story

Story Time

Characters

What do we mean
by Dynamics?
Get your games out

Dynamics
(Ludemes)
Mechanics of mechanics

Harvest
Mechanics
Wait longer for more valuable crops

Collection
Mechanic
“Gotta catch ‘em all”

Dynamics
are
emergent

Dynamic
System
• “The designer and the
player are both active
– if not equal – parts
of the entire creative
expressive experience
which is mediated by
the machine.” – Clint
Hocking (GDC 2006)

A game is
unknowable
until it is played

Aesthetics?

8 Kinds of fun
• Sensation
Game as sense-pleasure (For
example, skiing or driving the
92 way too fast. Any ios game
that leverages the
accelerometer. Arguably
Monument Valley.)
• Fantasy
Game as make-believe (I am a
hobbit! or a fashion designer!)
• Narrative
Game as unfolding story (What
will happen next???)
• Challenge
Game as obstacle course (This
game is so hard—said while
grinning maniacally)
Via Matt LeBlanc

8 Kinds of Fun
• Fellowship
Game as social framework (playing with others. Apples
to Apples, and most board games.)
• Discovery
Game as uncharted territory (What is over that
mountain? Bastion.)
• Expression
Game as soap box (Making stuff- Minecraft, Farmville.)

Last of the 8
Submission/
Abnegation
Game as mindless pastime (Games that let you
tune out. Solitaire. Candy Crush.)

The Player
decides the
Aesthetics
And if it’s actually fun.
Playtesting helps you get to your goal.
Games are unknowable until you play
them.
Are other kinds of software really that
different?

Playtest
Next Week’s Exciting Topic!

Game Design Fundamentals: The Formal Elements

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Game Design Fundamentals: The Formal Elements