V Greg Costikyan – I Have No Words & I Must Design?

I recently read through Costikyans “I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games” in which he evaluates what a “Game” is. He says how the word game has become overused and plastic as it relates to so many sub topics that can fill multiple pages, it doesn’t just relate to the digital but also the physical and mental aswell.

The word game is adaptable to many different types of mediums and that the best way to understand a game, is to understand the gameplay, all the different areas that make up a game. This way he hopes to find things that all these games have in common and build the ability to define why a game is good or bad by discussing its core mechanics.

He goes on to list some of the major areas of gameplay, without going into too much technical detail:

Interaction – This is an obvious element of any game, but just saying that it has good interaction isn’t enough, you need to be able to define it and discuss why it made the game good. Costikyan says that you need to understand the different between a game and a puzzle. A puzzle is static; it has a logical structure with clues to help you reach the goal. A game is not static; it is constantly changing depending on your interaction.
If every choice and decision was already made for you, it only leaves you to play through that one method of play, which is a core puzzle mechanic. However if your left with the option to analyse the situation and then respond instead of taking the obvious set path, decide on the best course of action, that’s making it a game. If you’re interacting with a purpose, trying to reach the goal through your own means, the way you want to play, that makes it a much more enjoyable experience.

Goals – That leads us onto goals, interaction alone isn’t enough to make a game enjoyable. You need to have a goal/aim/objective that you are constantly trying to achieve. It’s the entire point of playing the game, you want to have the satisfaction of saying – I did A and I got Y for it, or instead of doing A and getting Y, I did B and got Y, X and Z.

It is all about decision making, goals can be built into a games core, i.e. tag – catch the other person, but it is up to the players whether they play solely by that rule or not. As a child you notice how you easily get bored with the simple game of tag, so the rules often changed, one person catches another who will help you catch the rest, or how it gets split into teams etc. This way the players set their own custom goals, but the core game mechanic is still there and it easily allows these new rules to be added and modified.

This option for user created goals can be a big factor in whether a game is good or not, as a player you will notice if the option is there from the early stages of play. Although not every game needs user goals, having something that the player can choose to aim for whether it’s something simple like collectables or not, builds upon the games main mechanics and adds a hidden sense of a built in mini game.

But many games don’t have the capacity to allow something like this; fighting games for example are a lot harder to work user goals into, yet they are still successful and that based on the complexity of the game. The option to fight how you want, you can choose whether you want to hinder yourself and only use one style, or finish your opponent off in a particular way, making the game much harder for yourself, but the satisfaction of completing your own task makes it all worthwhile.

Struggle – Goals ultimately lead to struggle, you need to fight your way to the end or else it will seem too easy. If you’re just given a victory then it won’t seem earned and you will not appreciate it.

Whether it’s a competitive or co-operative struggle to the goal it matters not, as long as the player is satisfied with the resolution and feels like they earned the goal / reward then it will enhance the gamer’s experience.

Structure – Costikyan quotes Eric Zimmerman “Games are structures of desire.” By this he means that the desire is the want to reach the ultimate end, the goal is wanted and important to the player. Structure refers to the rules, components of the game that allow the player to reach and obtain that desire. The structured rules and mechanics of a game guide player behaviour to obtain their goals, after they get to understand the structure they will start to experiment with it, they know what they can and cannot do.

Structure differs from game to game, Mario has players jumping over trees and going down water pipes, but in tomb raider the mechanics of the game are much more realistic, the player knows the characters limitations and they will play by those rules. But they are still able to play with the games structure.

Using tomb raider as an example; there are usually multiple paths the player can take to get on top of that ledge. They obvious paths are things like, walking up a path to the top, climbing it etc. But there is also the much harder option of jumping from one pillar to another and make it across. It can usually take many tries, and there is no particular reward for doing so, but just making it possible makes the game seem much more alive and immersive.

Endogenous – The definition of endogenous is ‘Caused by the factors within the system’. This means that the game creates meaning and value to the player, and this can be unique to that one player based on their experience through the game. If the games structure is immersive and the player enjoys their time playing the game, then the games items and materials can be important to the character, things that are meaningful within the game.

Ultimately all games are a fantasy, they are not real. Every aim and goal you make in the game has no physical real world meaning. But success in a game can mean a lot more to the player, items in the game shape the way it is played, the player always has a preference to how they like to play and if given the option of choose what item to play the game with, then they will grow attached to it as they spend their time through the game.

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All these create the core of a game; define it in a way that it is its own unique entity that only relates to a game, so “A game is an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle towards goals”. I think that sums up what a game is pretty well.


SM – iHK

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