PREFI GD

Gameplay 

It is defined as choices, challenges, or consequences that players face while navigating a virtual environment.

Rules

It defines the actions or moves that the players may make in the game (and also those that they cannot make).

Victory Conditions 

It corresponds to how players should win the game.

Loss Conditions

It specifies how players lose the game.

Implicit loss condition 

It is common in games that require competition between the player and other players or non-player characters.

Explicit loss condition 

It is when the player loses because his character dies or runs out of vital resources.

Interactivity Modes

It originates with the player, which illustrates how important the player’s decisions are in the game-playing process.

Player-to-game

It is a very common form of interactivity, especially when it involves single-player mode where the player is interacting only with the game itself and the platform.

Player-to-player 

It is the connection between players: how they communicate with each other and ways in which they play the game together.

Player-to-developer 

It is most commonly illustrated in chat rooms and discussion forums available on the game’s website.

Game Theory

It focuses on the types of conflicts that exist in games and how players might respond to these conflicts.

Zero-Sum

It involves situations where players have completely opposing interests.

Non-Zero Sum

It involves situations in which players do not have completely opposing interests. In this case, the players are cooperating with each other while competing against common enemies.

Prisoner’s Dilemma

This illustrates what happens when all players try to compete with each other in an NZS situation.

Challenges

Gameplay involves a series of _________ that are linked together. It is often related to the game’s genre.

Explicit Challenge

This type of challenge is intentional, immediate and often intense.

Implicit Challenge

This type of challenge is not specifically added to the game but is an emergent feature of the game itself.

Perfect Information

It yields logical challenges, where players assimilate the information and use it to decide on the best course of action.

Imperfect Information

The players are provided with only a fraction of the information needed to make the best decision.

Intrinsic Knowledge

This type of knowledge is gained from within the game world.

Extrinsic Knowledge

This type of knowledge is gained outside the game world and applied to the game.

Spatial Awareness

The players usually have to navigate through environments.

Resource Management

It allows players to manage settings and actions associated with their resources or characters. It is referred to as micromanagement. It is one way to allow the player to have many options in the game.

Reaction Time

It is significant when the speed at which a player responds to a challenge is directly related to the speed at which the player’s character reacts in the game.

Advancement

Reaching a higher level in the game.

Race

Accomplishing something before another player does.

Analysis

Applying mental processes to solving riddles and cryptic codes.

Exploration 

Moving into new areas and seeing new things; satisfies the curiosity of the player.

Conflict

Disagreements or combat between characters, used in almost all game genres to provide dramatic tension.

Capture

Taking or destroying something belonging to an opponent without being captured or killed in return; remains one of the most overarching game goals across all genres.

Chase

Catching or eluding an opponent, often by utilizing either quick reflexes or stealth strategies.

Organization

Arranging items in a game in a particular order, often by utilizing spatial and pattern-matching strategies.

Escape 

Rescuing items or players and taking them to safety, often involving analytical reasoning and resource management. 

Taboo

Getting the competition to “break the rules”, often involving physical or emotional stamina.

Construction

Building and maintaining objects, common in process simulations; involve resource management and trade.

Solution

Solving a problem or puzzle before or more accurately than the competition does involving analytical reasoning and knowledge application.

Outwit

Applying intrinsic or extrinsic knowledge to defeat the competition.

Balance

If players perceive that games are consistent, fair, and fun.

Consistent challenges

Players should experience gradually more difficult challenges.

Perceivably fair playing experiences

Players shouldn’t be doomed from the start through their “mistakes.”

Lack of stagnation

Players should never get stuck with no way to go on.

Lack of trivial decisions 

Players should be required to make only important decisions in the game, even in games that incorporate micromanagement.

Difficulty levels

Players should have a choice of difficulty, or the level should adjust to the player’s ability throughout the game.

Level Design

It is defined as the creation of environments, scenarios, or missions in an electronic game.

Structure

Levels can be used to structure a game into effective subdivisions, organize progression, and enhance gameplay.

Objectives

Each level should have a set of these that the player understands. It is shown through cut-scene or interactive tutorial at the beginning of each level and by providing access to a status screen during the course of the game.

Flow

Two things that the game developer should address while designing a level:

• You want to make sure that a player stays in a particular area of a level until he has accomplished the necessary objectives.

• You also want to prevent the player from returning to a particular area once the objectives associated with that area have been met.

Duration

“How much time should be spent on each level?”. One universal rule seems to be that a player must complete at least one level of any game in a single session

Availability

You need to consider the various gameplay goals in the game and ensure that each level covers one primary goal.

Relationship

"What are the relationships between levels in the game?". Think of each level as a scene or even an episode within a larger story.

Progression

"How do you pace the game’s progression through level design?" You want to make sure that a game’s difficulty slowly increases as it continues.

Time

It can also be thought of with respect to real-world time. “Game time” can move slower, faster, or not any differently from real-world time.

Authentic

Some games try to portray time authentically and use the passage of time as a gameplay characteristic.

Limited

Time is sometimes implemented as a part of the setting of the game but not of the gameplay itself. Time creates an atmosphere and provides some variety, but it does not alter gameplay.

Player-Adjusted

Players may modify the time associated with game levels. It is important to provide time options to players when possible.

Altered

Several games incorporate this as an effect. Max Payne was the first game to use bullet time—the technique of going into slow motion while retaining the ability to move the camera’s viewpoint at normal speed.

Space

It incorporates the physical environment of the game—including its perspective, scale, boundaries, structures, terrain, objects, and style (color, texture, look, and feel).

Camera & Perspective

The purpose is to show the action at the best possible angle; more generally, they are used in 3D virtual worlds when a third person point-of-view (POV) is required.

POV

It is related to the perspective of the game world—or how the player views the game environment.

Omnipresent

The player has the ability to view different parts of the game world and can take actions in many different locations of the world (even if parts are hidden at times).

Aerial (Top-Down)

It shows the player the game as seen from above a bird’s-eye view.

Isometric

The player can look slightly across the landscape at a 30- to a 45-degree angle. This perspective also makes the player feel closer and more involved with events than a top-down or aerial view.

Side-Scrolling (or Flat/Side View)

This is used to create the illusion of space. The player character would travel from left to right horizontally across the screen as the background moved from right to left.

Parallax scrolling

The camera moves vertically or horizontally, with different layers moving at different speeds which gives the feeling of depth.

Terrain & Materials

Environmental materials—such as metal, glass, sand, gravel, sky, and clouds directly influence the look and feel of the game.

Radiosity & Effects

Without the proper application, players will not be able to navigate through the game environment nor will they be able to see and interact with details that might determine whether they can progress through the game.

Scale

It includes the total size of physical space and relative sizes of the objects in the game.

Realism

Actual photographic and land-height data is used to create a realistic model for most flight simulators; consider how much detail you want to include in your game.

Style

It influences everything from the character, interface, manual, and packaging.