ChierHu

In Tetris, nobody programmed in all the possible combinations and sequences of falling tetrominoes (Tetris blocks). The game simply releases tetrominoes at random. In Tetris, the challenge is created by a combination of a random sequence of tetrominoes and the player’s previous actions in dealing with them. This combination is different every time, and players have some level of control over the challenges they face. The game requires very few actions to deal with the infinite variety of challenges it can create.

Because an exploding rocket exerts a force on nearby objects in most first-person shooter games, clever players have used that extra force to jump greater heights and distances. Smith regards these emergent player tactics not as problem but as an opportunity: He argues that more games should be designed around the freedom and creativity that expressive systems allow.

the story and its integration into the game was probably the biggest change. StarCraft 2 changed little about the core mechanics of the original game. You can still build a base, manage resources, and construct and upgrade your force. However, the missions of the single-player campaign are much more varied than they were in the original game. For example, in the level “The Devil’s Playground,” the lower areas of the play field are periodically submerged in lava, destroying everything that is caught there. The mission’s objective is not to defeat an enemy base but to survive under these harsh conditions and harvest a number of resources in the meantime. This creates a different rhythm and progression from those of the typical missions in the original version of StarCraft. Another good example is the earlier mission called “The Evacuation.” In this mission, it is your objective to protect a number of civilian colonists as they try to escape a planet overrun by aliens. To this end, you need to escort four caravans of civilians trying to break through to the safety of a nearby spaceport. You will build a base and an attack force but in this case, to protect the route and civilians. Again, this creates a different play experience from the typical StarCraft mission. In the single-player campaign of StarCraft 2, it is rare to find a mission that progresses through the typical stages of the missions of the original game. No longer can you simply build your base, carefully explore the map, and attack enemy bases one by one. In StarCraft 2, you find yourself pressed by events and scenarios that were predesigned—a classic progression mechanic. As a result, the missions are much more varied and engaging, forcing players to adapt their strategies and common patterns of play to new circumstances all the time. Because they are not repetitive, they feel more storylike. In StarCraft 2, the player has more control over the larger story line of the game. To a certain extent, players can choose the order of missions and sometimes can choose between two options. Although this integrates the overall storyline into the game slightly better than the original StarCraft did, it is not as sophisticated as the integration between progression and emergence on the level of the individual mission.

The original version of StarCraft is an excellent example **** of emergence. StarCraft helped define the real-time strategy genre. Like Civilization, the individual game elements are fairly simple, but there are many interrelationships among them, setting up a system of game mechanics that has many interesting emergent properties. During the single-player campaign, you play through 30 missions, which nearly all have you build a base, manage your resources, and construct and upgrade an attack force before obliterating your opponents. The progression within a single StarCraft level is almost always the same, and because it is predictable, a given level does not feel very storylike. StarCraft also tells a story around the levels. In many ways, it is a good example of storytelling in games, with a narrative that is more dramatic than most games of its time. In fact, its storyline follows a structure similar to a classical tragedy, which is definitely rare in games. However, the story is only a framing device around the core gameplay. The player’s performance and choices have no impact on the plot, apart from the fact that the player must complete missions to advance the story. The story provides context and motivation for the game but is not an integrated part of the gameplay.

The games from this series are first-person shooter action games in which the player traverses a virtual world that seems to be vast but which in reality is confined to a narrow path. The whole story of Half-Life is told within the game. There are no cut-scenes that take the player out of the game, all dialogue is performed by characters inside the game, and the player can choose to listen or ignore them altogether. Half-Life has perfected the art of guiding the player through the game, creating a well-structured experience for him. The practice is often referred to as railroading; in this light, it is probably no coincidence that in Half-Life and Half-Life 2 the player arrives on a train. The disadvantage of railroading is that the player’s freedom is mostly an illusion. When players go in a direction that was not intended by the game, the illusion can break down very quickly. It takes a lot of design skill to prevent players from noticing the invisible boundaries that prevent the player from exploring in other directions.

Give the losers a break: Mario Kart is famous for its unusual system of giving out power-ups. Players who are ahead in the race get meager power-ups, while players who are far behind get the good stuff, allowing them to race ahead. This is a great system for that game because it feels more fair and keeps everyone engaged: players who are behind need to pay attention because a game-changing power-up could come at any second, and players who are ahead cannot afford to rest on their laurels because that “blue shell” could hit them at any time. This tricky system does a great job at nudging all players to the center of the flow channel. Mario Kart is a symphony of triangularity. Again and again, it brings you high-risk/low-risk choices with appropriate payoffs. Examples include the following: Manual or automatic? Manual requires more skill to use, but when used well, it gives you more speed boosts. Kart or bike? Karts have a faster base speed—but if you do a wheelie on a bike (which is risky because you can’t turn during a wheelie), you go faster than the karts do. Grab power-ups? (risking a crash) or ignore them? Use power-ups? (risk breaking your concentration) or ignore them? Keep the power-up you’ve got? or dump it in favor of a new one? Use speed boost pads? They speed you up but tend to be in dangerous locations. Hit the gas early? If you hit the gas early at the starting line, you get a speed boost if you time it right, and a frustrating delay if you time it wrong. Left or right? Many tracks include forking tracks that have a low-risk and high-risk path—and of course the high-risk path has more speed boosts.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which has many puzzles but smoothly integrates them into environments in the game. When confronted with a river of lava, you have to figure out how to throw water jugs in the right pattern so that you can cross the river. When you are in a dungeon where the doors are opened and closed by a complex series of switches, you must figure out how to use items found in the dungeon (statues, etc.) to flip the switches so you can successfully get through all the doors. Some of these are quite complex; for example, some enemies in the dungeon are paralyzed when light falls on them. To get the doors open, you must lure the enemies onto the right switches and then shoot flaming arrows near enough to paralyze them to keep the door open so you can run out. But in all cases, the puzzle elements are natural parts of the environment, and the goals of solving the puzzle are direct goals of the player’s avatar.