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Integration
In concluding the discussion of the qualities of digital games, it is important to remember that these four traits are not a roadmap for designing games or a checklist for analyzing them. They simply highlight ways of understanding the capabilities of digital game design. In a Quake deathmatch, for example, we can see all four traits in operation:
Immediate but narrow interactivity: The game controls require deft manipulation of the mouse and keyboard, with instantaneous response from the game system.
Manipulation of information: Like all digital games, Quake manipulates information, from the 3D data defining the deathmatch map to the way that players' movements are present but hidden from each other.
Automated complex systems: The graphics engine, control routines, opponent AI, and all other formal aspects of the game are automated.
Networked communication: The online deathmatches create a forum for rich social interaction between players.
During any actual game experience, the four categories generally overlap and operate simultaneously, together providing the overall experience of play. Before we end this chapter, let's take a moment to consider a "border-line" case: the board game Stay Alive. In this non-digital game, play takes place on a grid that houses a simple mechanical set of plastic switches. There are two sets of switches, at ninety degrees to each other. Some of the switch positions have holes and some do not. Players place their marbles on the grid and then try to eliminate opponents' marbles by moving the switches in turn. Stay Alive is not a digital game, but it has some of the properties of a digital game. For example, Stay Alive contains a complex system that functions semi-autonomously from the players. Because there is hidden information about which positions of the sliders have holes and will drop marbles, players interact with the system indirectly, moving sliders on the margins of the system to see how the playfield is affected as a result. Players do not internalize the rules of all of the positions of the sliders; instead, this information is contained in the mechanical construction of the playfield.
Stay Alive
Is Stay Alive a digital game? Of course not. It is not electronic and does not make use of digital technology. However, it clearly demonstrates how many of the elements of digital games are not really unique to the medium. In fact, a deck of cards can hold information as well: if a player shuffles the cards, the player does not need to internalize the order of the cards. Instead, the physical properties of the deck (the fact that it can be shuffled and that the cards can be face-down) lets the cards contain information that is autonomous from the players, such as which card is on the top of a face-down deck. These examples of game technologies (a deck of cards, Stay Alive, a digital game) provide a sliding scale for the kinds of complexity that game materials can embody. They also help to underscore a larger point: although different game materials allow for different game experiences, the underlying properties of games are ultimately more similar than different. The core challenges of designing meaningful play hold true in any game medium.
