Game Worlds - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 85

CHAPTER 4
Game Worlds
Games entertain through gameplay, but many also entertain by taking the player
away to an imaginary place—a game world . (This topic uses the terms world , setting ,
and game setting interchangeably with game world .) In fact, the gameplay in most
single-player video games appears to the player as interactions between himself and
the game world. This chapter defines a game world and introduces the various
dimensions that describe a game world: the physical, temporal, environmental,
emotional, and ethical dimensions, as well as a quality called realism .
What Is a Game World?
A game world is an artificial universe, an imaginary place in which the events of
the game occur. When the player enters the magic circle and pretends to be some-
where else, the game world is the place she pretends to be.
Not all games have a game world. A football game takes place in a real location, not
an imaginary one. Playing football still requires pretending because the players
assign an artificial importance to otherwise trivial actions, but the pretending
doesn't create a game world. Many abstract games, such as tic-tac-toe, have a board
but not a world—there is no imaginary element in playing the game. Chess has
only a hint of a world; although the board and the moves are abstract, the names of
the pieces suggest a medieval court with its king and queen, knights and bishops.
Stratego has a slightly more elaborate world: The board is printed to look like a land-
scape, and the pieces are illustrated with little pictures, encouraging us to pretend
that they are colonels, sergeants, and scouts in an army. Stratego could be played
entirely abstractly, using only numbers and a bare grid for a board, but the setting
makes it more interesting.
ART IS NOT ENOUGH
When defining your game world, it will be tempting to start drawing pictures right away,
especially if you're artistically inclined anyway. That's good in the early stages of design;
you will need concept art to pitch your game. But don't make the mistake of thinking that
nice drawings are enough. Your game world must support and work with the core
mechanics and gameplay of your game. To make the world serve the game well, you
must design it carefully. Otherwise you may forget to address an important issue until
late in the development process, when it's expensive to make changes.
84