Technology also plays a factor in what can be accomplished in a workspace. Game designers are limited in what they can make with the tools at their disposal. While a lot of what is used to make a game is conceptual, there are plenty of physical tools needed to make the task easier. Knowing how to roll dice is one thing, but if you don’t have any on hand to get a sense of what the players will experience, it’s nothing but speculation. The same goes for card games. Although some games use special symbols or non-standard playing cards, game designers can keep a key handy to interpret the numbers as stand-ins for the symbols or write on the cards themselves. These last two examples are illustrations for repurposing the supplies on hand to provide a new use to existing technology.
One of the core principles of play is to find new uses for what has already been created. Even in this vein of thought, the objects can only function within their limited roles. For instance, a hammer can have its use extrapolated out from its original purpose (driving fastening pins/nails into place, shaping metals, shaping stone, etc.) which is essentially leveraging a weighted end to hit an object with greater force. The challenge is how to use what’s there for a new goal. Using the hammer as an example, its function reaches a point where smashing items as the only option can undercut the premise of the game’s obstacles. This limitation stems from the tool’s range of functions, which results in games that have a variation or reskinning of the object. Whack-a-mole is still the same game even if the moles are replaced with gophers, for instance. The game’s core mechanic is one of timed reflexes. Reskinning the game doesn’t change the victory conditions but it can influence the player’s experience. Without adding anything new, the game audience will be bored rather quickly.
Why so much emphasis on the hammer? Because each tool has limits and the hammer is one of the easiest examples of this as you can scale it up to become a mallet, maul, sledgehammer, and sports equipment to include bats, clubs, and sticks used to hit balls. Sure, they look different, have different game rules, and lead to vastly different experiences, but they ultimately use the same laws of physics to leverage a weighted end for more force. Pen and paper do wonders in creating a design, but the complexity of a system and how the various parts interact with the players can render those tools ineffective once you get past the planning stages based on biological limitations. The human brain can only keep so many details at the forefront and be able to react to constant changes.
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What Game Design Teaches, Part 3