Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Games of emergence have a high replay value because the challenges and possible
actions that occur while playing are different every time. Every session is the unique
result of the collaboration between the game and its players. However, it is very
hard to predict whether interesting gameplay will emerge from a particular game
simply by looking at the rules. From our discussion of tic-tac-toe
and
Connect-Four
in the previous chapter, it should be clear that creating emergence is not simply a
matter of having many rules. The relation between the complexity of the rules and
the complexity of the game's behavior is not linear. You cannot create a more inter-
esting game simply by adding more rules. In fact, sometimes it is more effective to
reduce the number of rules to create a system that displays truly interesting and
emergent gameplay.
between Order and Chaos
The behavior of complex systems (see the “What Are Complex Systems?” sidebar)
can be classified as ordered to chaotic and anything in between. Ordered systems
are simple to predict, while chaotic systems are impossible to predict, even when
you fully understand the way the parts work that make up the system. Emergence
thrives somewhere between order and chaos.
What are complex systems?
When we refer to complex systems in this topic, we do not mean systems that are dificult
to understand. The word
complex
is used here to indicate that the system consists of
many parts. as is often the case with the systems studied by the science of complex-
ity, these parts are often quite simple to understand and to model individually. When
these parts are put together, most complex systems display surprising and unpredictable
behavior that can be difficult to explain just by looking at the parts separately. in the
scientific literature on complex systems, games are a classic example. The individual
rules of these games tend to be fairly simple and easy to understand, yet the outcome of
a game is unpredictable. in this topic, we explore in detail the relationship between the
individual parts of a game and the game's overall behavior.
There are two stages between the extremes of order and chaos: periodic systems and
emergent systems (
Figure 3.1
). Periodic systems progress through a distinct number
of stages in an ongoing and easily predicted sequence. On a large scale, the weather
system and the cycle of seasons behave like this. Depending where you are on the
planet, you have a fixed number of seasons each year. In some areas, the rhythm
of the seasonal cycle is very strict, and a particular season will start almost on the
same day every year. Despite some variance in seasonal temperatures and the date
when seasons start, the weather system is mostly in balance and progresses through
the same cycle over and over again. (Global warming appears to be changing the
