Games and Video Games - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 5

The Essential Elements of a Game

The essential elements of a game are play, pretending, a goal, and rules. The defini-
tion refers to each of these elements and includes some additional conditions as
well. In the next few sections, we'll look at each of these elements and their signifi-
cance in the definition more closely.

PLAY
Play is a participatory form of entertainment, whereas books, films, and theater are
presentational forms. When you read a topic, the author entertains you; when you
play, you entertain yourself. A topic doesn't change, no matter how often you read
it, but when you play, you make choices that affect the course of events.

Theoreticians of literature and drama often argue that reading or watching is a con-
scious, active process and that the audience is an active participant in those forms
of entertainment. The theoreticians have a point, but the issue here is with the actual
content and not the interpretation of the content. With the rare exception of some
experimental works, the audience does not actually create or change the content of
a topic or a play, even if their comprehension or interpretation does change over
time. Reading a topic or watching a play is not passive , but it is not interactive in the
sense of modifying the text.

In contrast, each time you play a game, you can make different choices and have a
different experience. Play ultimately includes the freedom to act and the freedom
to choose how you act. This freedom is not unlimited, however. Your choices are
constrained by the rules, and this requires you to be clever, imaginative, or skillful
in your play.

NOTE Games are in-
teractive. They require
active players whose
participation changes
the course of events.

This topic will continue to use the term play despite the fact that you can play
games for a serious purpose such as learning or research.

PRETENDING
David: Is this a game, or is it real?

Joshua: What's the difference?

—E XCHANGE BETWEEN A BOY AND HIS COMPUTER FROM THE MOVIE W AR G AMES

Pretending is the act of creating a notional reality in the mind, which is one
element of our definition of a game. Another name for the reality created by
pretending is the magic circle. This is an idea that Dutch historian Johan Huizinga
originally identified in his topic Homo Ludens (Huizinga, 1971) and expanded
upon at some length in later theories of play. The magic circle is related to the
concept of imaginary worlds in fiction and drama, and Huizinga also felt that it
was connected to ceremonial, spiritual, legal, and other activities. For our purposes,