The Concept of Game - Game Design Theory - page 9

when its gameplay mechanisms
are. For instance, you could rep-
resent a soldier on a map with
a helmet or sword icon, which
would be a clear example of vi-
sual representation. It's harder
to give a clear example of game-
play abstraction, though, be-
cause game rules are inherently
abstract ( Figure 6 ) .
A very clear example of an
abstract or representative mech-
anism is the classic health bar of
so many digital games. Usually
in-game avatars have numeric
expressions representing their
current physical status: high
numbers represent health, low-
er ones mean injuries, and zero
usually represents death. There
are many reasons that game de-
signers render some things ab-
stractly or representatively and
other things literally or themati-
cally, and I'll get into these more in Chapter 4 . For now, it's sufficient to
say that a great emphasis is put on the thematic elements of video games,
which is causing us to actually miss the point of games: developing a
strong set of rules.

Gran Tu rismo

Final Fantasy XII

Super Mario Brothers

Pac-Man

Chess

Te tris

Figure 6 . A ranking of popular games
from the literal to the abstract.

The Meaningful Decision
Let's say you're playing a highly thematic game—perhaps a game like
Final Fantasy —and a prominent character dies in a cutscene (and I
mean really dies, not the type of death that can be fixed with a “phoenix
down�!). As that character dies you may think of a loved one who has
passed away, so you walk away thinking that the game has personal mean-
ing to you. But strip away that theme and look just at the mechanisms
behind it. If it's Final Fantasy , your party—which is essentially a group of
integers and Boolean flags that contain various resources, utilizes special
actions, and lets you do a certain amount of damage in combat—just lost
one group of resources. Obviously, if looked at in this abstract state—the
true game-state—there's no reason that the game would be making a