Structure of Games

Lecture 2

Last week, we learned about what makes a game a game. Professor Nacke thoroughly explained more in depth the concepts about games in general.

Structure of Games

A game structure includes: Players, Objectives, Procedures, Rules, Resources, Conflict, Challenge, Character, Story, Dramatic element, etc... I am not going to talk about all of these elements but I will talk about the ones that stood out to me the most during the lecture.

Players

Firstly, a game must have players. No matter what kind of game it is whether it is a board game or a video game. Players are an essential part of a game. Without players, the game cannot be played. Its like a car with no wheels. Players are the ones who get involved in the game activity. They are the ones who actually get the game started. the game can't play itself. Sometimes, depending on the game, different roles (e.g. teams, individual, defined actions, play styles) are available for players to choose from. Games where you have a variety of roles with different kinds of actions to face your opponent with or simply just to win the game.

Objectives, Conflicts, Challenge

Secondly, objectives, conflict, and challenge are also in important in games. The reason why I put those two together is because I think they are connected in a way. Objectives always have to be in a game. Examples of some objectives are race, exploration, capture, rescue, escape, etc... The players must always have an objective otherwise they will be doing nothing exciting in the game. If you have a game where the player has the freedom to do what they want, it just a bogus game in my opinion. It might be fun if it were a cool video game like Sims or Need for Speed where the players can just look around and enjoy the 3D graphics yet, there is still no goal to achieve. Young children will definitely get bored of the game and move onto playing something else. The reason why people have so much interest in certain games is because of the objectives; the goals given to the players that they must achieve in order to move on to the next level. And what better to incorporate objectives in a game without including conflict? Sure games can have objectives. Anyone can easily get as many points as possible without having any problems if there is no conflict. conflict is like the events that distract, disrupt, or block the players from getting what they want so easily. A simple but very good example would be the board game Snakes and Ladders.
Each player wants to get to the finish line first but, there will always be a time when they will slide down the snake preventing them from achieving their goal of winning. To me conflict adds more fun to the game and it allows players to try again and again until they finish the game (unless they are sore losers). Adding objectives and conflict together brings forth a challenge for the players. Challenge allows players to think about how the game is structured and causes them not to repeat the same mistakes they made before. 

Rules

Thirdly, rules are a definite necessity  in a game. Rules are like the things the players can or cannot do during the game. In my opinion, they are the restricting actions that form fairness among players in the game. It would be unfair if a player decides to roll a dice three times in a board game and pick the highest number to play.

Conclusion

All in all, the structure of games is like the essential core that depicts how it should or should not be. It has to properly engage its players, have interesting objectives and challenges, and have a well explained document of rules. When you have a good structured game you will have no problem engaging players and allowing them to have fun.