FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION

The Core Mechanics as Processes

If you get a job in the game industry, you will hear industry professionals talk about the core mechanics as if the mechanics actively take part in the game: The core mechanics "talk to the storytelling engine" or "signal the UI." But rules can't act. You would never say of Monopoly that the rules do anything beyond perhaps "allowing" the player to take a particular action or "specifying" a penalty. So what's going on?

The relationship between the core mechanics and the game engine is extremely close, because the core mechanics specify how it will behave. So references to the core mechanics may sound like references to the engine itself. As long as you understand that the core mechanics consist of algorithms and data that precisely define the rules, it doesn't really matter. When these algorithms exist only in the core mechanics design document, they obviously can't do anything, but when the programmers turn them into code, they can.

Therefore, when you read, "The core mechanics send triggers to the storytelling engine," it's just shorthand for a longer sentence that reads, "The game engine, using algorithms specified by the core mechanics, sends triggers to the storytelling engine."