1. Identify the basic elements in a game of your choice (actions, goals, rules, objects, playspace, players).
Connect 4:
Actions: Dropping the chip
Goals: Connect 4 chips first (horizontally, diagonally, vertically) and prevent the other player from connecting 4 chips.
Rules: You must place your chips one at a time, alternating whose turn it is. Once you place a chip, it must stay in place.
Objects: Connect 4 board, black chip, red chip
Playspace: Connect 4 board
Players: 2 players competing to win the game
2. As a thought experiment, swap one element between two games: a single rule, one action, the goal, or the playspace. For example, what if you applied the playspace of chess to basketball? Imagine how the play experience would change based on this swap.
If I swapped the action of the “tagger” freezing an opponent upon touching them from “freeze tag” to “doubles tennis,” then the play experience could change the way players strategically place themselves on the court to both avoid being tagged and tagging another. Instead of just worrying about where to place oneself to most effectively return a volley, one would also have to place themself in a position to tag or not get tagged. Teams would also have to coordinate whether risking one member of the team to antagonize the other team is worth it because it would leave the single player open to coordinated attacks from the other team.
3. Pick a simple game you played as a child. Try to map out its space of possibility, taking into account the goals, actions, objects, rules, and playspace as the parameters inside of which you played the game. The map might be a visual flowchart or a drawing trying to show the space of possibility on a single screen or a moment in the game.
Rock-paper-scissors
4. Pick a real-time game and a turn-based game. Observe people playing each. Make a log of all the game states for each game. After you have created the game state logs, review them to see how they show the game’s space of possibility and how the basic elements interact.
Freeze Tag
1. Showcases the roles that the different players can assume. The player with the horns is the tagger and the other players are trying to avoid them.
2. The tagger attempts to tag another player but misses, showcasing that players use the play space, the surrounding area, to evade the tagger. The tagger’s goal is to tag the other players and the other players’ goal is to not get tagged.
3. The tagger tags another player and they are frozen in place. This shows the action of tagging and the action of being frozen. This also displays the rule that the player must remain in place once frozen.
4. Another player unfreezes the frozen player by touching them and avoiding the tagger. This introduces the action of unfreezing and the objective of unfreezing teammates. This also shows the rule that a non-tagger can unfreeze another non-tagger.
5. Now the players are unfrozen and the state is the same as it is at state 1. This shows the importance of the tagger’s abilities to tag the other players to reach the conclusion of the game.
6. A player is once again frozen.
7. Finally, both players are frozen and the game is over. This shows the rule that once the tagger has frozen everyone, the game is over.
Tic-tac-toe
1. This state showcases the play space (the grid) and the first player’s object, “X”
2. This state showcases the second player’s object, “O”, helps explain the actions that the players can take (place your symbol somewhere in the grid that is not already occupied), and shows the rule that players go one after the other
3. This state showcases the goal of trying to connect three of the same symbol vertically, horizontally, or diagonally
4. This state shows the action of blocking another player to achieve the goal of not letting them connect three of their symbols in a row before you
5. This state shows the action of placing a symbol in a space that is not occupied
6. This state shows the goal of connecting three of the same symbol in a row to end the game and win.
