Games as Emergent Systems - Ch 14

Game design schema: emergent systems
schema: a conceptual framework focusing on a particular aspect of a game design
Complexity:

In a complex system. internal relationships of the elements of the system become intrinsically compounded and complex.

relationship of elements, unpredictability of the player’s actions, uncertain outcome all contribute to the complexity

To understand whether system is getting more complex, one can look at the changes of the relationship in the system over time.

Four kinds of systems:
fixed: remain unchanging, relationship between elements are same.

periodic: repeat the same pattern endlessly.

chaotic: elements are constantly in motion, their relationships are random

complex: more complicated than periodic but less dynamic relationships than chaotic.

Heads or Tails example: why not fun, because no meaningful play

           why no meaningful play, because no complexity

Are meaningful play and complexity the same thing?
No, but complexity is a prerequisite for meaningful play.

meaningful play concerns the relationship between decision and outcome complexity concerns the way these parts are related to each other

without complexity, space of possibilities would be small.

One can push the Heads and Tails beyond the complexity barrier and into meaningful play. - by adding social interaction, repetitions, or reward or punish outcome of actions, integrated actions can create a meaningful  play and hence complex Heads and Tails

Emergence: systems like Heads and Tails generating complex and unpredictable patterns of behavior from simple rules

-how the games become meaningful

characteristics of emergence:

-the whole is more than the sums of its parts

-there is a relationship between the whole and its parts

-disconnection between the rules and the ways those rules play out

coupled vs context-dependent: about interactions between the elements of the system

-coupled, they are recursively linked, object act together to perform some action they cannot perform individually, e.g. ant in a colony

-context-dependent, because they are linked together, one change in one object create change in another, and so on, and changes that occur are not the same every time.

Bottom-up behaviors: within emergent systems, simple local interactions lead to a larger, more complex patterns

Games show bottom-up behaviors as formal structures of rules facilitate the unpredictable experience of the play

How is complexity and emergence relate to game design?
-by affecting meaningful play
-if a system is fixed, periodic, or chaotic, no flexible space of possibilities
-emergent system creates more engaging game play, by offering new experiences as players explore the system’s behavior.

Game tuning: iterative tweaking, testing, refinement of game rules to create better play experience. Done very early in the design process.

Game is a second order design problem: designer’s challenge is to design the player’s experience by directly designing the rules. The experience is designed indirectly.