Rules.of.Play.Game.Design.Fundamentals [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

The Goal of a Game

In addition to competition and cooperation, another essential component of a game as a system of conflict is a goal. Goals are fundamental to games. In the explication of Centipede, Joust, and Gauntlet, goals figured into each form of conflict. At the outcome of a game, the goals are either reached or not reached, and this quantifiable outcome is part of our definition of games. Very often, it is a clear and quantifiable goal and outcome that distinguishes games from other play activities. Add a goal to informal play and usually you will have a game. Casual skiing for fun is a leisure play activity. But race your friend to the bottom of the mountain and suddenly you're taking part in a game.

A game's goal is defined by its rules and is tightly interwoven into the formal structure of the game as a whole. A game's goal is a central feature of its formal structure. When players come together to play a game, the goal is at the center of the magic circle, the pole that holds aloft the circular tent of the game while the players are inside the structure, at play with one other. The goal sustains their interest, their engagement, and their desire. Without a clear goal, meaningful game play is not possible; if players cannot judge how their actions are bringing them closer to or farther away from winning the game, they cannot properly understand the significance of their actions, and the game collapses into a jumbled heap of ambiguity.

A game's goal defines its endpoint; once it is reached, the game is over. In this sense, a game's goal is the death of play, the mark of the end, foretelling the moment the magic circle will disappear. There is a curious poetic quality to the struggle of game players as they make their way through the system of a game, playing to no end but the one provided by the game itself, even as their joyful pursuit of that end means the death of their pleasure. Until, of course, the next game begins.

Most games have an end in which one or more players achieve victory. However, in games such as Space Invaders, in which the game structure repeats itself with increasing challenge to the player, there is no single victorious endpoint. In this form of game, the goal is to play as long as possible or achieve the highest score. This formal structure heightens the sense of inevitable death. The player is living on borrowed time, staving off the inevitable end of a game that occurs when conditions of failure are met.

The space of possibility of a game is a plane stretched between two anchorage points: the beginning and the end of the game. The players journey from one end to another, making their way from the start to the finish. In a well-designed game that supports meaningful play, this journey between points should be taut and efficient, with every element contributing directly or indirectly to the larger experience.

In case this all sounds too goal-oriented, we must acknowledge that goals are not the only reason people play games. Play can be an end in itself, or a way to achieve social interaction, or affect cultural change.We address each of these motivations for play in later chapters. But seen as a formal system, the goal of a game needs to be recognized as a primary structure that shapes the game as a whole.

It is easy enough to state that the goal of a game is an important part of the overall design. But it is often very difficult to figure out the exact victory and loss conditions for a particular game. One play pattern can lend itself to different winning conditions, each one shaping the game experience differently.

LOOP is an online single-player game about catching butterflies. In the development of LOOP, the core game play was invented before a decision had been made concerning victory and loss conditions. The game development began with the idea of drawing lines to loop butterflies, scoring points by looping special groups of them (such as butterflies of the same color). The first prototype demonstrated the game interactivity but the start and finish conditions of the game had not been defined. Many options for the victory conditions were discussed and were narrowed down to three scenarios:

Each of these endpoints entailed different kinds of player experiences. For example, scenarios 1 and 2 presumed that the game proceeded as a series of discrete levels, whereas scenario 3 provided a single, continuous game, as in Tetris. There were other unsolved questions too: for example, in scenario 2, what would happen if a player were left with only one butterfly? And what was the loss condition? If the game did have levels, there needed to be victory and loss conditions for finishing a level; if it did not have discrete levels, there only needed to be a loss condition for the game as a whole. In considering the loss conditions, two primary schemes were proposed:

Many of these variations were playtested in different combinations. For the loss conditions, a time limit was selected, rather than the option of having the screen overrun with butterflies, because it gave the game a clearer sense of progression. In Tetris, it is clear that when the bricks pile up near the top of the screen, you are about to lose. In the prototype of LOOP, it was never quite clear when there were too many butterflies on the screen.