FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
Understanding Positive Feedback
Positive feedback occurs when a player's achievement causes changes to the state of the game that make a subsequent achievement easier, which in turn makes further achievements easier still, and so on. The term does not refer to the effect of increasing experience but to a phenomenon of the core mechanics that occurs even if the player's performance does not improve with experience. The core mechanics often reward achievements with assets that the player can convert into power to make further achievements easier. Figure 11.6 shows a feedback relationship diagram.
FIGURE 11.6
The positive feedback relationship among achievements, rewards, and power
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Achievement Reward
Monopoly, as usual, provides a classic example. When a player achieves a monopoly by buying a group of related properties, the player may charge higher rents to any opponent who lands on these properties—the owner's reward for the achievement. The player may then use the money to purchase more property and collect more monopolies, thus producing a better chance of earning still more money.
Some games feature an even closer relationship between achievement and power in which the player's reward for achievement is power. The reward doesn't come in an intermediate form, such as money, that must be converted into power by buying a weapon or a spell. Whichever side loses a piece in a game of chess then plays with a depleted force, so the player who takes the piece obtains more power relative to his opponent. In PvP games such as chess, achieving the lead often confers some advantage upon the leader that makes it easy for her to stay in the lead and difficult for the others to overtake her.
Not all games include positive feedback. If overcoming challenges does not produce a reward that the player can use to help him overcome further challenges, no feedback cycle exists. In a javelin competition, a good throw of the javelin does not produce additional power that influences subsequent throws.
