Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Innovating with Discrete Mechanics
Discrete mechanics offer more opportunities for innovation than many of the current
forms of continuous mechanics do. As games and genres change, designers' definitions
of physical mechanics are all evolving into a handful of directions that correspond
closely with game genres. Most of the time there is little point in completely chang-
ing the physics of a first-person shooter. In fact, as games increasingly use physics
engine middleware to handle these mechanics, there is less room to innovate in
that area. On the other hand, all designers want to offer unique content, and many
first-person shooters do include a unique system of power-ups, or an economy of
items to collect and consume, to make their gameplay different from their com-
petitor's. There is more room for creativity and innovation in the mechanics that
govern these economies than in the physics of the game. This topic concentrates on
discrete mechanics.
NOTE
The mecha-
nistic perspective on
gameplay used in
this topic is a narrow
one and focuses on
mechanics over many
other aspects of games.
it is what you might
call a mechanistic per-
spective on games and
gameplay. however, we
do not want to argue
that this is the only
perspective on games
or that it is the best
one. in many games,
art, story, sound, and
music, among other
features, contribute just
as much to the player's
experience as gameplay
does. sometimes they
contribute even more.
But we wrote this topic
to explore the relation-
ship between game
mechanics and game-
play, and that is what
we concentrate on.
Looking back at four decades of computer game history, it's clear that game physics
have evolved much faster than any other type of mechanics in games. Physics are
comparatively easy to design because of the clarity of Newton's laws and the increas-
ing computing power to simulate them. The laws of economics are far more complex
and dificult to work with. In this topic, we hope to give you a solid theoretical
framework for nonphysical, discrete mechanics to make it easier.
There are almost as many different ways to design a game as there are game com-
panies. In
Fundamentals of Game Design,
Ernest Adams advocates an approach
called
player-centric
game design, which concentrates on the players' roles and the
gameplay that they will experience. Adams defines
gameplay
as consisting of the
challenges the game imposes on the player and the actions the game permits the
player to perform. The mechanics create the gameplay. When Mario jumps across
a canyon, the level design may define the shape of the canyon, but it is the game's
laws of physics—its physical mechanics—that determine how far he jumps, how
gravity behaves, and whether he succeeds or fails.
Because the mechanics generate the gameplay, we encourage you to start designing
the mechanics as soon as you know what gameplay you want to offer. The devel-
opment process outlined in this section is player-centric game design with an extra
emphasis on creating complex, but balanced, game mechanics.
Outlining the Game Design Process
Roughly speaking, the process of designing a game goes through three stages: the
concept stage, the elaboration stage, and the tuning stage. These stages are discussed
next, but you can find more details about these stages in
Fundamentals of Game Design
.
