The formal elements of game design make up almost every game there is, without these elements it's hard to call them a game.
PLAYERS:
Of course, every game needs to have players. Players are a very important formal element because they are the ones immersing themselves into the games and gaining experience from it, whether this be completing a campaign mode (story mode) or engaging in online play with numerous other players. Players don't only generate their own experience but they contribute to the experience of other players too, players can't play online PvP without a player to play against. Developers need to ensure they make their game as enticing as possible to keep a large player-base active, hence ensuring a more vivid experience from one another.
A game that heavily relies on this formal element is League Of Legends. League Of Legends is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) which involves battling with your team to fight the enemy team to destroy towers guarding the enemy base, such a title comes from it's massive player-base all participating simultaneously. Without these players simultaneously playing together, the game loses it's most basic principle.
OBJECTIVES:
Objectives are goals in which the game revolves around, they are also the player's prime motivation to want to play the game in the first place. There are numerous examples as to what a game's objective can consist of, a few example are finding the solution to a puzzle, exploring an unknown world, racing to get to the end before anyone else and killing a team before that team can kill you.
A game that uses a lot of objectives consistently are the Call Of Duty games. In online play, there are numerous game-modes for the player to try out, increasing replayability and furthermore enticing a bigger range of players with different preferences to try the modes out.
Here are a few game-mode options with explanation to how they work:
Team Deathmatch: Get more kills onto the enemy team then they do to you in the set time limit.
Gun Game: Kill players to progress all the way through the weapon roster before anyone else.
Capture The Flag: Capture flags from the enemy spawn-point and bring them back to your flag's position, capture more flags then the enemy to win.
Domination: Capture and retain ownership of up to three points on the map, gain score for retaining these positions and reach a certain score limit before the enemy does.
As well as the many game objectives, gaining XP and then going on to prestige to gain higher ranks is also an very large objective as it allows you to earn weapons and skins to develop customization opportunities.
PROCEDURES:
Procedures are one of the more technical formal elements. These are essentially the who, what, when where and why of the game and can be categorized into four sections:
Starting Action: How to put the game into play.
Progression of Action: Ongoing procedures after starting the game.
Special Actions: Conditional to other elements or game state.
Resolving Actions: Bring gameplay to a close.
Procedures range from specific instructions to specific control sets.
An example of a game that follows specific instructions is Connect Four, here's a basic outlook on the process of a game and how it follows these procedures:
Starting Action: Choose a player to go first (this is the starting action because it's most likely the first thing you'll do when playing Connect Four).
Progression of Action: Dropping red and yellow counters one after another (this happens after the starting action, but it doesn't end the game).
Resolving Action: A player getting four of their colour in a row (the player now hits the objective, nothing happens after this, ending the game.
An example of a game that follows a specific control set is Super Mario Bros. The up arrow makes you jump up, the left arrow makes you go left, the right arrow makes you go right and the down button makes you crouch or enter a pipe.
RULES:
Rules are the concepts of your game, these are what the game's procedures are bound by. Rules limit the player to what they can and can't do in order to keep it both fair and realistic, at least within the constructs of the game itself. As well as determining the actions of the player, rules also have to the determine the games action when a player does something back. To list it out, rules serve the following purposes:
Defining objects and conditions.
Restricting player actions.
Determining effects on players.
A game which makes it rather clear concerning where it's rules lie is Minecraft. Minecraft is an extremely popular sandbox game which allows the player to enter survival 'mobs' to fight mobs and establish a territory or jump into creative mode and have access to infinite amounts of the many items available in the game.
Rules play an important part in Minecraft to help ensure it allows for a sense of danger and adventure and so it's boundaries keep the game running smoothly, rules include:
You have a build height limit of 256 blocks.
Monsters spawn during the night.
You fall into lava, your health depletes.
Your hunger bar goes to zero, your health depletes.
Your air bar goes to zero when underwater, your health depletes.
'Mobs' can drop things when killed.
Day and Night cycles last twenty minutes each.
Minecraft has numerous other rules involving many aspects of the game but the ones listed are more basic and core to the game's functionality.
RESOURCES:
Resources can be any limited item or concept within the game that possesses value, this value comes from both their scarcity in the game and their utility. Resources have the power to help players act in different ways, create new products and can be purchased or sold.
Examples of resources include:
Food.
Money.
Health.
Weapons/Armour.
Materials.
Money.
An example of a game that uses resources is Skyrim. In Skyrim, there are vast varieties of resources of which you can gather through different means. Money can be stolen or earnt and can then be used to buy things such as armour, weapons and food. You'll find yourself in combat a lot so you need to do your best to preserve your health.
CONFLICT:
Conflict in games develops interest and helps develop strategy and idea, creates a problem for the players to resolve and allow for more story depth. It results when trying to meet objectives through different means in order to attain achievement.
Conflict tends to have 3 main sources, these are:
Opponents.
Obstacles.
Dilemmas.
On a business outlook, conflict within games can also motivate the player to 'purchase means of a solution' in order to progress easier.
Although conflict can be commonly associated with the likes of violent games such as the Grand Theft Auto series and the Call Of Duty series, conflict is present in games you might not have expected, such as poker.
In poker, you have to outbid the other players around the table based on the strength of your hand and bluffing. These are both your objective and means of reaching this objective, the sheer meaning of conflict.
BOUNDARIES:
Boundaries are exactly what they say they are, limitations which keep you within the world you're supposed to be playing in. They help keep the feeling of reality within the game world without allowing to say for example, jump off the map and see an empty void of nothing.
Many games have some kind of boundary but open world games portray the best examples. An example of an open world game with these 'outer map' boundaries is Grand theft Auto V.
In Grand Theft Auto V you experience the story line within 'Los Santos', a vast and open city. Whether it be a mountain you realistically can't drive up or floating barriers to stop your water vehicle from crossing, Grand Theft Auto V tries it's best to display it's boundaries without making it seem forced, trying to maintain the game's reality.
OUTCOMES:
Outcomes are the various ways a game can end, such outcomes consist of both winning and losing. An important factor you have to consider with outcomes is their unpredictability, a tense fight to the death is nothing if you could foresee the victor. Helping ensure fun game play is vital and can be done by forcing the player to first experiment with strategies before they're able to ensure a win.
A game that uses this formal element is Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. This game consists of a vast roster of mainly Nintendo characters battling it out to knock one another off stage to claim victory over their opponent. With such a vast roster of fighters and match-ups, it takes a lot of skill development to try and maintain a win each and every time. This factor of the game ensures that the win lose outcome is both always present and near impossible to determine, resulting in exciting game play over and other and therefore boost the game's replay-ability.
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