Cdt: Dr. Maizatul Hayati Mohamad Yatim

1. MMX3043
GAME DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
Lecture 3
Rules of Game
Miss Laili Farhana Md Ibharim

2. ‘Game Book’
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3. ‘Game Book’
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4. PRIMARY SCHEMAS OF GAMES
RULES: Logical gameplay behind the game. It is a
deep structure of a game from which all real world
instances of the game’s play and derived.
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5. 3 kinds of RULES Operational rules
• Concrete material of the
game (the real world rules)
• The spinner (dice/cards)
• The pawn
• The squares on the board
Constitutive rules
• Mathematical and logical
rules to create the formal
identity of a game
• All player begin at 0
• Player alternate turns
• First player to reach the top
wins
Implicit rules
• Common for many different games
• The board should be placed in the middle
• Everyone chooses one pawn
• Additional pawns are taken away
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6. Designing A Board For Board Games
• The board contains all aspects of the GAME INFORMATION at once.
• The representations of the players (their tokens) are all in the same
“space”, making COMPARISON of relative positions and immediate and
intuitive.
• Players can clearly see the CONSEQUENCES of their actions, whether it
is moving normally during a turn, climbing, or sliding.
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7. Game Rules In Digital Games
• Rules are related to the PROGRAM CODE. Rules concern the
ACTIONS players can take and the OUTCOME of those actions.
• Game rules are the aspects of a game program that STRUCTURE
and take in player INPUT and DETERMINE the game’s output.
• The internal functioning of formal GAME LOGIC is also part of the
rules.
• The specific manifestations of the VISUALS AND AUDIO in a
digital game are usually NOT PART of formal structure of the
game.
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9. • “UNCERTAINTY” brings to mind ideas of
CHANCE and RANDOMNESS. It is
crucial in a game that players do not know
exactly how it will play out.
• If the outcome of the game is
PREDETERMINED, the experience
cannot provide MEANINGFUL PLAY.
• Mathematics of uncertainty = Theory of
Gambling and Statistic Logic (Richard
Epstein)
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10. Decision-Outcome Relationship
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11. Probability Theory (PT)
• The feeling of RANDOMNESS is an important
part of what makes the game fun to play.
• It creates a sense of open-ended PROBABILITY
and players are rewarded for taking advantage of
chance.
• We use PT to make decision and make better
prediction.
0 ≤ P (A) ≤ 1
P(A) = Probability (A= Events)
0 means “impossible”
1 means “absolutely certain”
Between these two extremes is “possible”
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13. Pseudo-Random Distribution (PRD)
• Refers to the statistical
mechanics of how certain
probability-based items and
abilities work (in DOTA).
• The important GAMEPLAY
and BALANCE EFFECT of
PRD is that effects based on it
rarely occur many times in a
row or go a long time without
happening.
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14. Breaking The Rules
• To cheat in a game means to break the rules.
• RULE-BENDING and RULE-BREAKING manipulate the structure
of a game.
• When it comes to forms of rule-breaking in games, game designers
need to think as how gamers’ think.
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15. Digital Game Rule-Breaking
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16. Digital Game Rule-Breaking
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17. Digital Game Rule-Breaking
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18. Digital Game Rule-Breaking
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19. Digital Game Rule-Breaking
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20. Digital Game Rule-Breaking
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21. Feedback design: Reward
• Rewards are balanced with challenges or risks
and all players have equal chance of winning.
Theory of Flow
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22. Feedback design: Reward
• Rewards are balanced with challenges or risks
and all players have equal chance of winning.
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23. Feedback design: Reward
• Types of reward
 Score (increase a person status)
 Surprise
 Extension of game
 Valuables inside the game (extra car, power up, etc)
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24. Feedback design: Punishment
• Punishment: application of
the punisher. Be very careful
when thinking about using
punishment, as it tends not
to be a tone of fun.
• Try REINFORCING
alternative behaviors rather
than simply punishing those
you want to discourage.
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