THE ULTIMATE
- Game mechanics! - Game mechanics, yeah! Everyone loves game mechanics. It's a word that's thrown out all the time- phrase or whatever, right?
What is a game mechanic? Anybody? No. No one even raised their hand. One guy is trying but we're not going to let him answer. I mean, in a first person shooter, like is shooting a mechanic Oncasinogames? Is gun collection a mechanic? Is just an entire game a mechanic? What if I play a game and that game determines who plays the next game? Right? So, what is a game mechanic? The fact is; if you look on the internet, if you try to look at research, books and Wikipedia, right? The definitions for game mechanic are so vague as to include so many unrelated things or they're so varied that you can't tell which one is the right one. I've seen things like: dice is a game mechanic. Like, I guess so? It's not that interesting to talk about just dice as a game mechanic. Right. But something else, like physics could be a game mechanic, if it's some sort of crazy physics game, right? Or even like Half Life 2. I mean, physics is a game mechanic in Half Life 2. The puzzles, you know? There's a levering board, and you've got to stand on it, and then walk up it. Or sometimes an entire game could be a mechanic of another game. So, it's: how do you really talk about game mechanics if you can't really separate them into any particular category, right? So, for the purpose of this discussion and at least in my mind, I see a game mechanic as- and this is a tabletop theater also, so we're going to focus on tabletop but of course it applies to all games, right? Is a set of rules that sort of form a new rule unto themselves, right? So, if you really break a game down into these smallest bits, like the rules of rolling dice would be like; pick up the die, shake it up a bunch, throw it, look at it, the number of dots that is face up is this number, right? But at the same time there's the distinction. I mean, there are actions that you take in the course of a game, that aren't mechanical, in the sense that they don't affect the game. The fact that I have to look at the value on the die isn't a mechanic. Like, if I forget to look at it, I don't get to move in Monopoly. That's not how it works. But for example, rolling a die and then moving a guy forward is a set of rules. You roll the die and then you move, right? It's a set of rules that create this mechanic of: roll your dice, move your mice. And we can just tell people, "Hey, in this game you roll your dice, move your mice." We don't need to explain all these sub-rules of that. It's a mechanic. It's a combination of rules that form a mechanism, that is a piece of a larger game. So, let us explore some many game mechanics. And for each game mechanic, we're going to tell you A: if you're a player, what you should do when you encounter this game mechanic. And B: if you're a game maker, when you should use it, how you should use it, and how you should think about it. All right? So, the number one most obvious game mechanic in the entire universe is: taking turns. Now, this might seem self-evident but really it's not. The idea of taking turns is not in all games and it's not even that intuitive. Yeah, look at soccer. Do you take turns in soccer? No, you just play for a long time and then it's over. Meanwhile, football... Football, you take turns. I mean, one team's turn is to be on offense. There's a way to interrupt that turn but it is their turn to score. Volleyball? It's my turn to score - as opposed to your turn. - Yeah, and turn it. There's so many variations on taking turns. It could be everyone takes a simultaneous turn, it could be we go around in a circle taking turns, it could be the turn order changes, it could be one person takes a bunch of turns, Look at baseball, you have a bunch of turns on one team, then a bunch of turns on the other team. It's crazy all over the place.
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AuthorAngelica is a professional Yoga trainer, wild life and nature lover. She is also a Subtly charming problem solver, online casino expert at Casinoslots. Friend of animals everywhere, Writer. Archives
April 2019
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