Measured Cruelty
1. challenge
a game is definitionally some kind of ‘challenge’.
implicitly or explicitly, any interactive system is designed with the ability to allow a user to meet a goal. a barista or mcdonalds kiosk takes your order; a car allows you to steer it; a rope allows you to pull objects out of your reach.
a game, then, is an interactive system engaged with under the yoke of a lusory attitude1; the acceptance of a set of constraints as antecedent for participation in the phenomenon. by accepting the constraints, you assent to the experience.
constraints, then, can make any interactive system into a game. remember: walking over a sidewalk or tile floor - ‘don’t step on the cracks,’ ‘don’t step on the white tiles’. constraints generate interest.
of course, they also take away freedom of movement; take away agency; force the user of the system to play by the rules. they pose challenges for the player to overcome; you ‘lose’ if you step on a crack, or if you get tagged as ‘it’, or you die to the zombies.
it is this threat of loss that makes a game interesting; if you don’t feel on some level that there are stakes, even as simply as ‘in your head’, the game ceases to be fun at all.
2. cruelty
a good game designer needs to have a handle on their willingness towards cruelty.
such is the notion of ‘cruelty’; such is the fate of a game designer, to be the demiurgal source of cruelty.
3. measurement
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think back to the playground; it was no fun to play pretend with other kids who threw out ‘nuh-uhs’ and ‘i attack you times infinities’, because they were slipping the rules of the game in pursuit of ‘just winning’.↩︎