1. Serious Games
Game elements

2. Critiques and research

3. aesthetics

4. aesthetics Style and skill, not beauty Harmony
coherence and consistency
Harmony isn’t something that you can fake. … It’s a sensual, intuitive experience. It’s something you feel. … it doesn’t come from design committees ,,, And it never happens by accident or by luck. … Games with harmony emerge from a fundamental note of clear intention.
Brian Moriarty

5. Emergent play

6. Actions (emergent play)
Operative and resultant
Number of actions
What you can act on
Ways to reach a goal
Number of objects
Side effects: changing constraints

7. Actions (emergent play): the verbs
Two types:
Operative (movements)
Resultant (intents): capture strategy
Interesting games are defined by resultant actions
KEYS:
Probably the key to innovative games
How to make the player feel they have unlimited options with limited actions

8. How to improve emergent play
Add more actions
Let actions act on more objects
Multiple ways to reach a goal
Avoid dominant strategies
Many subjects (active objects)
Side effects changing constraints

9. Skill and chance

10. skill Types Goal is improvement Real vs. virtual
Physical (sports, controllers)
Mental (problem solving)
Social (reading opponents, psyching opponents)
Goal is improvement
Real vs. virtual
Balance!

11. chance: LITTLE BIT OF probability
looked for
possible outcomes
OR = add probabilities
AND = multiply probabilities
Probability distributions
Expected values

12. Chance: How it plays Probability Skill of understanding chance
Human element
NOT just expected value
Risks and regrets

13. Rules and goals

14. rules Foundational (abstraction) Operational (how you play) Behavioral
(how you act)
Conceptual
Written
Unwritten
Sniderman

15. rules Different for Different Modes Enforcement Full game Within game
Minimize time spent there or lose the bigger game
Enforcement
Players
Referees
Computer (architecture)

16. Goal Simply stated and understood Must be Choices:
Between a tag line and a tweet!
Must be
Concrete
Achievable
Rewarding (both in gaining and seeking)
Choices:
Series or single
Short or long term
But if more than one, MUST be related