Aiden Pinuelas Chapter 1 Exercises:
1. Jenga – basic elements
Actions: Pull a block and place it on top of the tower.
Rules: Depending on the ruleset, you may only use one hand, and can only select below a certain height.
Goal: Do not cause the tower to fall over.
Objects: Rectangular blocks.
Playspace: Table or other even surface.
Players: Two or more people.
2. Swap one element.
In blackjack, one of the rules is that a player loses if their ‘score’ goes above 21. If that rule was applied to bowling, then players would try to bowl as close to 21 points as possible. Players would most likely try to not get a strike, because that would mean they would have to get less than 6 pins total in the next two rolls or otherwise they would bust. Once a player reaches 21, logically they would then throw all their balls into the gutter for the rest of the game. So, it would definitely be less entertaining bowling.
3. Space of Possibility (Checkers)
4. Real-time and turn-based game states and space of possibilities.
Real time game – Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
This game is about two players working together to defuse a bomb. The game state of failure is one of the most important parts of this game. While losing is possible in many games, just as often players have some level of control over how imminent failure is. However, the use of a timer always counting down makes the experiences players have deliberately stressful. Added on top of this stress is that the playspace meanwhile is divided into two separate realms. One player never sees the screen and the other player is not allowed to know all the ‘rules’ to the game. Rapid communication, and thus rapid action, and thus stress and miscommunication. Overall, the space of possibility in experience is limited (except for the increasingly complex rules for bomb defusal), but that limitedness of ‘mobility’ is what manages to powerfully evoke the game’s theme and emotional experience.
Turn based game – Twilight Struggle
This game about the Cold War uses a turn based system to create a different type of tension and immediacy of player actions. Representing either the USA or USSR, each player’s action on a typical turn tends to be undoing the other player’s action. Should a player not do that, they end up usually giving initiative to the other player, leading to their opponent’s victory. With a world map filled with various countries, over a hundred unique events, coups, realignment, space race competition, Defcon status, and more, the rules, actions, and playspace allow for a huge space of possibility. However, each player’s goal of just barely beating the other, plus the way the rules easily gives one player a huge advantage with initiative should the other player act incorrectly, simultaneously makes the possibilities for players feel small. The game’s strategy then revolves around trying to break out into that wider world of possibility, while the game’s emotion creates both the ‘cold’ part of the Cold War and the on-the-brink feeling of disaster that embodies the era.
