Games Development

Chapter One - Introduction to Games

Ahmed A. Qazzaz Sep. 2023

 Based on

Fundamentals of Game Design

3 edition
rd.
by Ernest Adams
Games and Video Games

• What is a Game?
• Essential Elements of Games
• Other Game Concepts
• Games v.s. Video Games
 Games and Video Games
What is a game?

• People are playing games for a long time ago, and games are activities done
in a context of pretending and social interaction.

• Games are not like toys, although for both type we use the term ‘Play’, but
playing with toys is not conducted in accordance to rules and not achieving
any goals

• If you add one rule to toy that identify one goal, it will be a Puzzle.
• Games are more complex it might have more than one rule, and more than
one goal.
 Games and Video Games
What is a game?

• GAMES are a type of play activity, conducted in the context of a pretended

reality, in which the participant(s) try to achieve at least one arbitrary, nontrivial
goal by acting in accordance with rules.

• Play
• Pretending
• Goal
• Rules
• Are the essential part of the game de nition
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 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• Play
• Play is a participatory form of entertainment, whereas books, lms, and
theater are presentational forms.

• Reading a book will never change the storyline of the book, also a lm will
never be change by watching it many times. but playing can change the
series of actions each time, based on your choices.

• Play refers to the activities that the player do in a game.

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 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• Pretending
• Pretending is the act of creating a notional reality in the mind, sometime it
called. “Magic Circle” because it is about creating an imaginary world in
ction and drama.

• The Magic Circle can de ne the relation between the players.

• The Magic Circle allows players to do things impossible in real world.
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 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• Goal
• All games need to have a goal or objective.
• The goal should not be trivial, and should not be brutal.
• The game can have more than one goal.
 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• Goal
• Game can have an ultimate goal that de ne the victorious player.
• this goal called Victory Condition
• Some games goal is to avoid being loser.
• this goal called Termination Condition
• Goals can be non-competitive goals like in creative games.
• Such as SimCity Game
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 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• Optional Goals are other

goals inside the game that will
not achieve winning or losing
to the player.

SimCity 4
if the player did
if the player did
not

player loses player Wins Victory Condition

Termination
player Wins player loses
Condition

nothing happens nothing happens Optional Goals

 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• What are the goals in the

following game?

• Subway surf
• Mario
• MineCraft
• PES
• COD
 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• Rules
• Rules are de nitions and instructions that the players agree to accept for
the duration of the game.

• Create a contextual framework that enables the players to know which

activities are permitted and to evaluate which course of action will best help
them achieve their goal
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 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• The Game Semiotics

• Symbols and relations in game that might have a parallel meanings in the
real world that helps to understand the magic circle it self.

If a player sees a red bar near his or her character that has no
instructions or label, it is assumed this represents "health" and
decreases with damage taken. A blue bar near the character
that has no instructions or label is assumed to represent
"mana" -- the currency used to cast magical spells. If the
cursor turns into a nger or a gear, it means the moused-over
object may be clicked in order to interact with it. Question
marks or stylized icons means an NPC has something to
say, and exclamation points means that NPC is waiting on
you to advance his state.
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 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• The Game Play

• The interaction that entertain
• it consist of two major parts of the game
• Challange
• Actions
 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• The Game Play - Challenges

• Any non-trivial task that is needed to be accomplished.
• challenge can be simple - such as passing a ball though a hoop
• or complex like making pro ts in a creative game
• Challenges can be unique, recurring, or continuing
• Unique: like big boss enemy
• recurring: like ghting the same enemy many times
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 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• The Game Play - Challenges

• Obstacles can be a challenge.
• such as climbing over a fence, crawling under a
barrier, jumping across a gap

• Obstacles mainly are directly related to the goal

• Optional Challenges might be set for optional
goals

• to help the player practice or simply to

provide more things for the player to do
 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• The Game Play - Actions

• Rules de nes actions in gameplay
• Actions are allowed.
• Actions are prohibited.
• Actions are required
• Actions are optional
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 Games and Video Games
Essential Elements of Game

• Sequence of Play
• The progression of activities that make up the game.

• MetaRules
• are rules about the rules. These might indicate under what circumstances
the rules can change or when exceptions to them are allowed.
 Games and Video Games
Other Game Concepts

• Fairness
• Players expect that the rules will guarantee that the game is fair.

• Symmetry and Asymmetry

• Symmetry games, all players try to achieve the same victory condition, such
as basketball, or chess.

• Asymmetry game, where players have di erent rules to play such as war
games.
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 Games and Video Games
Other Game Concepts

• Competition and Cooperation

• Competition occurs when players have con icting interests
• Cooperation occurs when the players try to achieve the same or related
goals by working together

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 Games and Video Games
Other Game Concepts

• Competition Modes
• Two-player competitive (“you versus me”)
• Multiplayer competitive (“everyone for himself”)
• *Multiplayer cooperative (“all of us together”)
• Team-based (“us versus them”)
• Single-player (“me versus the situation”)
• Hybrid competition modes
 Games and Video Games
Conventional Games v.s. Video Games

• Hiding the Rules

• Rules are not needed to be written or be told, the computer will enforce the rules to the players, and
determine the winner and loser.

• Setting the Pace

• The GamePlay pace is controlled by the game, and it keep going on and growing without players
interfering

• Presenting the game world

• In video games, imaginary places, people, creatures can be presented and added to the game world
• Arti cial intelligence
• The existence of AI allow non-human players, and multi-level challenges to be existed.
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