The Structure of Games: Understanding the Core Elements

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi
The Structure of Games
Videogame Design and Programming

Readings
• Jesse Schell. The Art of Game Design
(2nd Edition) Morgan Kaufmann 2015
• Tracy Fullerton. Game Design Workshop,
Third Edition. Morgan Kaufmann 2014
Chapter 2.
2

video game = video + game
what does “video” stand for?
“board game”
“card game”

The Elements of Games: Players
• All the descriptions describe experiences designed for players
• In contrast, music is a form of entertainment that does not
require an active participation by the consumers
• Players voluntarily participate, they partake in and consume the
entertainment. To become a player, one must voluntarily accept
the rules and constraints of a game (the lusory attitude)
• This attitude is part of the psychological and emotional states of
players that we need to consider as part of the playcentric
approach to game design
6

The Elements of Games: Objectives
• Both descriptions lay out specific goals for the players
• When watching a movie or reading a book there is no
clear-cut objective presented
• In games, objectives are a key element without which the
experience loses its structure
• Our need to work toward the objective is a measure of our
involvement
7

Exercise
List five games and in one sentence per
game describe the objective in each game

Protheus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWs_RKXkyu0

The Elements of Games: Procedures
• Both descriptions give detailed
instructions on what the player
can do to achieve the objectives
• “the dealer deals five cards to each player”
• “your character can walk, run, jump, …”
• They guide player behavior and creating interactions that would
never take place outside the authority of the game
11

The Elements of Games: Rules
• Both descriptions spend a great deal of time explaining exactly
what objectives the game consists and what the player can and
cannot do
• Clarify what happens in various situations that might arise
• Define game objects and concepts, limit the player behavior
• Imply authority and yet there is no person named in either
description with whom to associate that authority
12

Exercise
Can you think of a game that has no rules?
What about just one rule?

Objectives + Rules = Conflict

The Elements of Games: Conflict
• Procedures and rules tend to deter players from accomplish goals
directly (think about golf)
• The relationship between the objectives, the rules, the
procedures limiting/guiding behavior create conflict
• Players work to resolve conflict in their own favor
17

The Elements of Games: Resources
• Certain objects hold a rather high value for the players in reaching
their objectives
• These objects are made valuable because they can help players
achieve their goal. At the same time, they are made scarce by the
designer. These are what we call resources
• Finding and managing resources is a key part of many games
18

Dark Room
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRryeImj4pc

Button
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAOplz5ri5k

The Element of Games: Boundaries
• All descriptions imply that rules and goals apply
only within the game not in real life
• Playing experience is somehow set apart from other experiences
by boundaries, and this is another distinctive element of games
• Johan Huizinga in “Homo Ludens” describes this temporary
world where the rules of the game apply as the “magic circle”
21

Colleen Lachowicz is a social worker, foster parent and passionate democrat who’s
running for State Senate in Maine. She’s also an orc assassin rogue named Santiaga within
the massive multiplayer online role playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) – a fact that
her Republican opponents say makes her unfit to be in office.
In a recent mailer sent out by Maine GOP communications director David Sorensen,
Lachowicz is condemned for “living a time-consuming double life as a member of the
World of Warcraft community.”
“Her character’s impressive Level 85 distinction – the highest that can be achieved in the
massive online role playing game,” he wrote.“Studies have found that the average World of
Warcraft gamer is 28 and spends 22.7 hours per week playing.”
“In Colleen’s online fantasy world, she gets away with crude, vicious and violent comments
like the ones below,” reads the website’s header.“Maine needs a State Senator that lives in
the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world.”
Dozens of screencapped messages from forums and website comments populate the
website’s blog.These messages were written by Lachowiz in discussion of the game over a
span of at least seven years.

The Element of Games: Outcome
• In both games, the outcome needs to be uncertain
• The uncertainty of the outcome is an important aspect of the
playcentric process because it is a key motivator for the player
• If players can anticipate the outcome, they won’t play; for
example, in chess players agree to end a match if outcome is
certain
• Movies, concerts, books can remain entertaining even
when the outcome is already known
25

Formal Elements
the elements that all games share,
that make up the essence of games
the developers goal is to go beyond the basic elements
of games, by exploring new forms of interactivity, etc.
yet, it is important to understand the role of formal
elements in traditional game systems

Ian Bogost on things that are unique to games
http://youtu.be/uTK2oIJx8Po?t=6m58s

Engaging the Player
• The formal elements provide structure to the experience of
games, but what gives these elements meaning for the players?
• What makes one game capture the imagination of players and
another one fall flat?
• What allows players to emotionally connect with a game?
• The sense of engagement comes from different things for
different players, and not all the games require elaborate means
to create it
28

Unfinished Swan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9YaFY8S75M

character story
premise challenge
engaging the player

Character © Nintendo

Characters
• Agents through which stories are told with whom players can empathize
• By identifying with the characters and the outcome of their goals, the audience
internalizes the story’s events and empathizes with its movements toward
resolution
• Several ways to understand fictional characters in stories
§ Psychological – the character is a mirror of the audience’s fears and desire
§ Symbolic – the character stands for a larger idea (Christianity, the
American Dream, etc.)
§ Historic – depicting real-world figures
§ Stereotypical – representing cultural cliches
• The main character’s engagement with the problem creates the conflict that
drives the story. It is faced by the antagonist.

Characters
• Characters are defined within the story by what they say, what they do, what
they look like, or what they say about them. These are called methods of
characterization
• Characters with well-defined traits and realistic personalities who undergo a
significant change in personality during the story, can be thought as “round”
• Characters with few defined traits and a shallow personality are considered to
be flat. They are also usually recognizable as stereotypes (the lazy guard, the
evil stepmother, etc.)
• Characters must balance “agency” (their practical functionalities) and
“empathy”? (the potential for players to develop an emotional bound to or to
identify with the character)
• Sometimes, they are autonomous and controlled by the AI
35

Four Key Questions
• What does the character want?
• What does the character need?
• What does the audience/player hope?
• What does the audience/player fear?
36

Engaging the Player: Story
• Some games engage players emotionally
by using the power of the story within
or surrounding their formal elements
• How story can be integrated into
gameplay is an ongoing debate
• How much story is too much?
Or too little?
• Should the gameplay change the story?
40

The outcome of the story must be uncertain
Games involve storytelling and narratives that begin in
uncertainty and that are resolved over the course of time
In many games, story is actually limited to backstory,
sort of an elaborate version of premise.
An example is the trend of inserting story chapters at the
beginning of each level, creating a linear progression that
follows a narrative but does not affect how the story plays

S2 – Second Mission Intro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W5TspdcqfQ&feature=fvw

Storytelling
• There game designers who try to allow the actions
to change the underlying game story
• Several ways to accomplish this
§ The simplest is to create a
branching story line
§ A story that emerges from
the gameplay (The Sims,
Black & White, Half Life, Halo 2)
• It remains to be seen if these attempts to allow
emergent storytelling to arise out of formal game
structure, but game designers are still searching for
better ways to integrate story into their game
systems

The Dramatic Arc
Heavy Rain © Quantic Dream

The Dramatic Arc
• Conflict is the most important of the dramatic elements discussed so far
• Conflict occurs when the protagonist faces a problem or obstacle that keeps it
from accomplish its goal
• Traditional dramatic conflict can be broken down into categories such as
character vs character, character vs nature, character vs machine, character vs
self, character vs society, or character vs fate
• When the conflict is set in motion, it must escalate for the drama to be
effective. Escalating conflict creates tension, and in most stories the tension gets
worse before it gets better resulting in a classic dramatic arc
• This arc describes the amount of dramatic tension in the story as it progresses
in time

Campbell's 'Hero's Journey' Monomyth
• Joseph Campbell defined a classic sequence of actions that are found in many
stories. It is also known as the Monomyth, a term Campbell coined from James
Joyce's Finnigan's Wake
• Separation/departure
§ The first section of the story is about the separation of the hero from the
normal world. Separation has symbolic echo of infant transition away from
the mother and so has a scary feel to it.
• Initiation
§ In the main part of the story the hero is initiated into true heroic stature by
various trials and rites. Through daring and battle, the true character
emerges.
• Return
§ After initiation the hero can cleansed and return in triumph to deserved
recognition, although this in itself may not be without its trials and
tribulations.

Campbell's 'Hero's Journey' Monomyth
• Separation/departure
§ The Call to Adventure
§ Refusal of the Call
§ Acceptance of the Call
§ Supernatural Aid
§ Crossing of the First
Threshold
§ Entering the Belly of the
Whale
49
• Initiation
§ Road of Trials
§ The Meeting with the Goddess
§ Woman as Temptress
§ Atonement with the Father
§ Apotheosis
§ The Ultimate Boon
• Return
§ Refusal of the Return
§ Magic Flight
§ Rescue From Without
§ Crossing of the Return Threshold
§ Master of the Two Worlds
§ Freedom to Live

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttp://justinswapp.com/american-masters-george-lucas-and-the-heros-journey/

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttp://deliberatedonkey.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/the-monomyth-joseph-campbell-and-

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzihttp://jaced.com/2014/08/20/the-17-stages-of-joseph-campbells-monomyth/

Challenge

Engaging the Player: Challenge
• The conflict challenges the player and create tension as well as
creates varying level of achievement or frustration
• Increasing the challenge as the game goes on increase the tension,
but too much challenge causes frustration
• Too little challenge, players might get bored or might feel that
they mastered the game and move on
• Balancing these emotional responses to the amount of challenge
in a game is a key consideration for keeping the player engaged
57

What Do Players Mean by “Challenge”?
• Not that they want to face an impossible or very hard task!
• They usually refer to
§Tasks that are satisfying to complete and
§Require the right amount of work to create a sense of
accomplishment and enjoyment
• Challenge is therefore very individualized and determined by the
abilities of the specific player in relationship to the game
• Challenge is also dynamic: a task is initially difficult and but after
becoming accomplished in the task, players will no longer find it
challenging and interesting.
58

Is there a way to look at challenge
that is not defined by individual experience?
Regardless of age, social class, or gender, the people
describe enjoyable activities in much the same way
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Findings
• The experience (of enjoyment) usually occurs when we confront tasks we
have a chance of completing
• We must be able to concentrate on what we are doing
• The concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear
goals, and provides immediate feedback
• One acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness
the worries and frustration of everyday life
• Enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their
actions
• Concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically, the sense of self emerges
stronger after the flow experience is over.
• The sense of duration of time is altered: hours pass by in minutes, and minutes
can stretch out to seem like hours.
60

“The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep
enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel like expanding a great
deal of energy is worthwhile simple to be able to feel it.”
Csikszentmihalyi M., “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc. 1990.

In flow, an activity balances a person between challenge
and ability, frustration and boredom, to produce
an experience of achievement and happiness.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi…
• Flow occurs most often within activities that are goal-directed and bounded by
rules, and that could not be done without skills
• “When all of a person’s relevant skills are needed to cope with the challenges
of a situation, that person’s attention is completely absorbed by the activity.”
• Players are so involved that activity becomes almost automatic, they stop be
aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing.
• “[…] they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they
are performing.”
• In flow experiences, players know what needs to be done and get immediate
feedback on how well they are achieving their goals (music, tennis, rock
climbing, etc.).
64

• In game flow, players are aware only on what’s relevant here and now
(no tax problems, no laundry, just the game)
• Many game interfaces take over the entire screen or build impressive
audiovisual worlds to focus all the attention
• The Paradox of Control: People enjoy the sense of exercising control in
difficult situations; however it is not possible to experience a feeling of control
unless the outcome is unsure, meaning that the person is actually not in
control
• The paradox of control is a key element of the enjoyment of game systems:
how can we offer meaningful choices to players, without offering complete
control or an assured outcome? (god-like games)
65

• In flow, we are too involved in what we are doing to care about
protecting the ego.
• Although during flow we forget our self consciousness while we
are engaged, after a flow activity is over we generally emerge with
a stronger self-concept
• Paradoxically, the self expands through acts of self-forgetfulness
• “One of the most common description of optimal experience is
that time no longer seems to pass the way it ordinarily does”
• Digital games are notorious for sucking players in for hours on
end because they involve players in flow experiences that distort
the passage of time.
66

When most these conditions are present, we begin to
enjoy whatever it is that produces such an experience.
The activity becomes autotelic
There is no reason for doing it, except
to enjoy the experience it provides

When Designing a Game…
• What skills does your target audience have?
• What skill level they are at?
• How can you give players clear, focused goals, meaningful choices, and
discernible feedback?
• How can you merge what a player is doing physically with what they need to
be thinking about the game?
• How can you eliminate distractions and fear of failure? Or, how can you
create a safe environment where players lose their sense of self and focus only
on the task at hand?
• How can you make the game activity enjoyable as an end in itself?
68

Engaging the Player: Premise
• Overarching premise gives context to the formal elements and
creates engagement (monopoly)
• The premise of World of Warcraft is that players are characters
in a rich fantasy world with archetypical quests
• The premise of Guitar Hero is that player are rockstars
71

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYr5J877tsU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LwQDF-iBN0

Premise establishes the action of
the game with a setting or metaphor

In traditional drama, premise is
established in the exposition of a story
Exposition sets up the time and place, characters
and relationships, the status quo, etc.
Exposition also depicts the event that upsets the status
quo and creates the conflict; and the point of attack,
the point at which the plot begins

Angry birds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNNzRyd1xz0

S2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XIi0Pe6ZHc

Pitfall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhXMYw1lXY0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oixAg0BGSaI

The first task of a premise is to make a
game’s formal system playable for the user
Shoot aliens, not just shoot blocks!
A premise that unifies the formal and dramatic elements
provides another opportunity to engage the player

So … What is a Game?

The Sum of the Parts
• None of the definitions of the four games describe to what
extent each of the formal elements relies on each other
• Games are systems and systems, by definition, are groups of
interrelated elements
• These elements work together to form a complex whole, and the
“whole is greater than the sum of its part”
• Game designers have to look at a game system not only as
separate elements but also as a whole in play
• Cannot study a game by analyzing all the elements separately
81

“A game is: A closed formal system that
engages the player in structured conflict
resolves its uncertainty in an unequal outcome”
Tracy Fullerton

“Game: a system in which players engage in
an artificial conflict, defined by rules,
that results in a quantifiable outcome”
Rules of Play

Games are conflicts in which the players
directly interact in such a way as to foil
each other’s goals.
Chris Crawford

A game is a problem-solving activity,
approached with a playful attitude.
Jesse Schell

more definitions at
http://gamedesigntools.blogspot.it/2012/11/what-is-game-page-of-definitions.html

formal elements @ play

Breakout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up-a5x3coC0

http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/breaksout/

Asteroids
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYSupJ5r2zo

Combat
https://youtu.be/Q7XNUOPz4GE?list=PLmdWJZHSFYuDNURxKplrKOSe5qkrQO0Gz

Challenge #1
Propose a new dogfight game for two players that combines
the typical Atari 2600 combat scenario with asteroids
The game must be playable both on
a PC with keyboard or gamepads and on a tablet
Challenge: can we (as a group) come out with a hundred
variations?
(a sort of Goldberg’s variations for asteroids)

Challenge #2
Design innovative art for the same game for a resolution of
2048x1536 (ipad3) 2560x1600 (nexus) 1920x1080 (full HD)

Challenge #3
Can we (as a group) come out with a hundred variations?
(a sort of Goldberg’s variations for asteroids)

http://www.facebook.com/polimigamecollective
https://twitter.com/@POLIMIGC
http://www.youtube.com/PierLucaLanzi
http://www.polimigamecollective.org

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