FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
The Key Components of Video Games
Chapter 1 looked at what a game is and what gameplay is. But where does gameplay come from, and how does the player interact with it? In order to create gameplay and offer it to the player, you need to make sure your video game is composed of two key components. These are not technical components but conceptual ones. They are the core mechanics and the user interface. Some games also use a third important component called the storytelling engine, but we will deal with it in Chapter 7, "Storytelling and Narrative." This section introduces the core mechanics and the user interface and shows how they work together to produce entertainment. Each of these components has a complete chapter devoted to it later in the book, so the discussion here is limited to defining their functions, not explaining how to design them.
One of a game designer's tasks is to turn the general rules of the game into a symbolic and mathematical model that can be implemented algorithmically. This model is called the core mechanics of the game. The model is more specific than the rules. For example, the general rules might say, "Caterpillars move faster than
snails," but the core mechanics state exactly how fast each moves in centimeters per minute. The programmers then turn the core mechanics into algorithms and write the software that implements the algorithms. This book doesn't address technical design or programming but concentrates on the first part of the process, creating the core mechanics. Chapter 10, "Core Mechanics," addresses this process at length.
The core mechanics are at the heart of any game because they generate the game - play. They define the challenges that the game can offer and the actions that the player can take to meet those challenges. The core mechanics also determine the effect of the player's actions upon the game world. The mechanics state the conditions for achieving the goals of the game and what consequences follow from succeeding or failing to achieve them. In a conventional game, the players are aware of the core mechanics because the players must implement the rules. In a video game, the core mechanics are hidden from the players. The players experience them only through play. If the players play the game over and over, they eventually become aware of the game's mechanistic nature and learn to optimize their play to beat the game.
One quality of the core mechanics is their degree of realism. A simulation, in the formal sense, is a mathematical or symbolic model of a real-world situation, created for the purpose of studying real-world problems. If it is to have any validity, the simulation must represent some part of the real world as closely as possible (though aspects of it may need to be simplified). A game, on the other hand, is created for the purpose of entertainment. Even if it represents the real world to some degree, it always includes compromises to make it more playable and more fun. For example, a real army requires a large general staff to make sure the army has all the ammunition and supplies it needs. In a game, a single player has to manage everything, so to avoid overwhelming him, the designer abstracts these logistical considerations out of the model—that is to say, out of the core mechanics. The player simply pretends that soldiers never need food or sleep, and they never run out of ammunition. All games fall along a continuum between the abstract and the representational. Pac-Man is a purely abstract game; it's not a simulation of anything real. Its location is imaginary, and its rules are arbitrary. Grand Prix Legends is a highly representational game: It accurately simulates the extraordinary danger of driving racing cars before the spoiler was invented. Although no game is completely realistic, gamers (and game developers) often refer to this variable quality of games as their degree of realism. For the most part, however, this book uses the terms abstract and representational to characterize games at opposite ends of the realism scale.
You decide what degree of realism your game will have when you decide upon its concept. The decision you make determines how complex the core mechanics are.
