IAT 210 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: List Of Playstation Home Game Spaces, Social Skills
10 Jun 2018
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IAT 210 - Textbook - Chapter 5
Game Mechanics
● Core of what game truly is, interactions & relationships remaining when aesthetics,
technology, story are stripped away
● No universally agreed upon taxonomy of game mechanics
○ Reas - mechanics of gameplay tend to be quite complex & diff to disentangle
● One one level, game mechanics are very objective, clearly stated sets of rules
○ On another level, involve something more mysterious
Mechanic 1 - Space
● Space is “magic circle” of gameplay
○ Defines various places existing in game & how places related to one another
● As game mechanic, space is mathematical construct
○ Need to strip away all visuals, all aesthetics & simply look at abstract
construction of game’s space
● No hard & fast rules for describing but generally spaces are
○ Either discrete/continuous
○ Have some number of dimensions
○ Have bounded areas which may/may not be connect
● Even though players can make marks in infinite number of places in continuous two-
dimensional space, there are only certain number of discrete places w/ any actual
meaning in game
Nested Spaces
● Spaces within spaces
● Player travelling space sometimes encounters towns, caves, castles, etc
● Players can enter these as completely separated spaces, not really connected in any
way to outdoor space
Zero Dimensions
● For game where no board & nothing moves, e.g. game where only people talking, can
be argued that game has no space
● Mind of answerer contains secret object
● Mind of questioner is where all weighing of previous answers goes on & convo space
b/w them is how they exchange info
● Every game has some kind of information/state & has to exist somewhere
● Even if game takes place in single point of 0 dimensions, can be useful to think of it as
space
● Mind of answerer → conversation space → mind of questioner
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Mechanic 2 - Objects, Attributes, States
● Space without anything is just a space
● Game space will have objects
○ Characters
○ Props
○ Tokens
○ Scoreboards
○ Anything that can be seen/manipulated in game
● “Nouns” of game mechanics
● Space can be considered object but usually space of game is diff enough from other
objects that it stands apart
● Objects generally have one or more attributes
○ One of which is often current position in game space
● Attributes - categories of info about an object
● Each attribute has current state
● If objects are nouns of game mechanics, attributes & their states are adjectives
● Attributes
○ Can be static
○ Can be dynamic
Secrets
● Important decision about game attributes & states - who is aware of which ones
● In many board games, all info is public
● In card games, hidden/private state is big part of game
● In video games, state is only known by game
● Games forcing players to be aware of too many states to play can confuse & overwhelm
Mechanic 3 - Actions
● “Verbs” of game mechanics
● Operative actions - base actions player can take
● Resultant actions - actions meaningful only in larger picture of game
○ Have to do with how player using operative actions to achieve goal
● List of resultant actions generally longer than list of operative actions
● Resultant actions often involve subtle interactions within game & are often very strategic
moves
● Ways to increase chances of interesting resulting actions appearing
○ Add more operative actions
○ More actions that can act on more objects
○ Goals can be achieved in more than one way
○ More subjects
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Core of what game truly is, interactions & relationships remaining when aesthetics, technology, story are stripped away. No universally agreed upon taxonomy of game mechanics. Reas - mechanics of gameplay tend to be quite complex & diff to disentangle. One one level, game mechanics are very objective, clearly stated sets of rules. On another level, involve something more mysterious. Defines various places existing in game & how places related to one another. As game mechanic, space is mathematical construct. Need to strip away all visuals, all aesthetics & simply look at abstract construction of game"s space. No hard & fast rules for describing but generally spaces are. Have bounded areas which may/may not be connect. Even though players can make marks in infinite number of places in continuous two- dimensional space, there are only certain number of discrete places w/ any actual meaning in game. Player travelling space sometimes encounters towns, caves, castles, etc.
