What makes a game
Find the goal, rules, feedback and challenge inside any game, and see why an obstacle nobody needs is the whole point.
Playing a game
Philosopher Bernard Suits, in his book The Grasshopper, called playing a game "the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles". Voluntary: nobody forces you. Unnecessary: there is an easier way, and the rules ban it. The ban is not a flaw in the game. It is the game.
A 100-metre race: the goal is to get to the finish line. A bicycle would be faster, but then it's not the race anymore.
Check yourself
Good rules make a game harder than it needs to be, on purpose.
Show the answer
True
True. That's Suits' point: the rules block the easy way, and overcoming the obstacles they create is what's fun. Golf without the ban on carrying the ball would be a short walk, not a game.
FOUR PARTS
What to look for in any game
Take any game apart and you'll find four pieces (close to the list designer Jane McGonigal used in 2011):
- Goal: what you're trying to do. Clear lines, reach the flag, get three in a row.
- Rules: what you may and may not do. The rules create the obstacles.
- Feedback: how the game tells you how you're doing. A score, a health bar, a sound, a piece clicking into place.
- Challenge: the outcome is uncertain and depends on you. If it's certain, it stops being a game.
Football: goal, score more than the other team. Rules, no hands for most players. Feedback, the scoreboard and the crowd. Challenge, the other team is trying just as hard.
Tetris (1984), taken apart
Goal survive as long as you can, score points
Rules seven shapes, each made of four squares, fall
you can move and rotate them, never stop them
Feedback a full row vanishes, score and level go up
Challenge the pieces fall faster and fasterFour lines describe the whole game.
No word about colours, music or graphics.Try the same four lines on any game you play. If one line is hard to fill in, you've found the part of that game worth thinking about.
Check yourself
Super Mario Bros. (1985): sort each part of the game
- Reach the flag at the end of the level
- Touching an enemy from the side hurts you
- A coin sound plays when you grab a coin
- You can't walk back left past the edge of the screen
- The timer at the top counts down
- Jumping on an enemy's head defeats it
Show the answer
Goal: Reach the flag at the end of the level
Rule: Touching an enemy from the side hurts you, You can't walk back left past the edge of the screen, Jumping on an enemy's head defeats it
Feedback: A coin sound plays when you grab a coin, The timer at the top counts down
A toy or a game?
Toy · a ball
You can throw it, bounce it, roll it. There's plenty of play, but no goal and no way to win or lose. You decide what to do moment by moment.
Game · the same ball
Add "keep it off the ground, count the touches". Now there's a goal (more touches), a rule (it mustn't land), feedback (the count) and a challenge (it can fall). Goal and rules turn play into a game.
Check yourself
Nima has a plain rubber ball and a bored little brother. Which change turns the ball into a game?
- Painting the ball a brighter colour
- Buying a second, bigger ball
- "Bounce it off the wall and catch it; count how many catches in a row"
- Putting on music while they throw it around
Show the answer
"Bounce it off the wall and catch it; count how many catches in a row"
Yes. The catch-and-count adds a goal (more catches), a rule (catch it off the wall), feedback (the count) and a challenge (a miss ends the streak).
WHEN THE CHALLENGE RUNS OUT
Tic-tac-toe is a solved game
Tic-tac-toe has a clear goal (three in a row), simple rules (take turns, one mark each turn) and instant feedback (the board itself). But once both players know the best moves, perfect play always ends in a draw. The outcome is no longer uncertain, so the challenge is gone. That's why children love it and adults rarely play it.
A game where the best play is known and always gives the same result is called solved. Chess isn't solved: nobody knows the perfect moves, so it still has challenge after centuries.
Check yourself
Why do most adults rarely play tic-tac-toe with each other?
- The rules are too hard to remember
- With best play it always ends in a draw, so there's no real challenge left
- It has no goal
- It gives no feedback about who is winning
Show the answer
With best play it always ends in a draw, so there's no real challenge left
Right. Goal, rules and feedback are all still there. What's missing is challenge: once both players know the best moves, the result is always a draw.
Check yourself
- Two friends play chess with a new set shaped like cartoon animals. After a minute of laughing, they play exactly as they always do.
- Two friends play chess on their usual wooden set, but agree that pawns may also move one square backwards. They both have to rethink their plans.
Which evening is a different game, and why?
- The first, because the pieces look completely different
- The second, because a rule changed and so the choices changed
- Neither, because the board is the same in both
- Both equally, because anything new makes a new game
Show the answer
The second, because a rule changed and so the choices changed
Exactly. New pieces changed the look, not a single decision. One small rule about pawns changed what every move means. The rules are the game.
Start your design notebook
- Get a notebook, paper or digital
You'll add one short entry after each lesson, and in the last lesson you'll use it to make a small paper game.
- Pick a game you love
Any kind: a phone game, a board game, a card game from family gatherings, a sport.
- Write its four parts, one line each
Goal, rules, feedback, challenge. Keep each to a single sentence.
- Circle the line that was hardest to write
That's usually the part of the game you've never really looked at. Keep it in mind for the next lessons.
Lesson recap
- Playing a game is "the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" (Bernard Suits, 1978). The rules ban the easy way on purpose.
- Every game has a goal, rules, feedback and a challenge. Tetris fits in four lines.
- A goal and rules turn a toy into a game: a ball becomes a game when you count the touches.
- When the outcome is certain, the challenge is gone: tic-tac-toe always ends in a draw with best play.
- The rules are the game; theme and graphics sit on top.
- Notebook: write a favourite game's goal, rules, feedback and challenge, one line each.