#cogwatch

I hate them smsmmmsmm

(via COGWATCH 1: Crypt of the Necrodancer - YouTube)

I’ve noticed a number of notable unpackenings of singular game mechanics springing up in recent months (actually, for almost a year now...). Here we have “Quinns” delivering a most aptly named series entitled COGWATCH for the delightful RPS, whilst Gamasutra brings us Game Design Deep Dive.

I’ve only watched the first one so far and, as insightful as Quintin Smith remains, couldn’t help but think about how discursive “game mechanics” as a term actually is. Even Quintin’s little black and white sequence of him standing in a park holding a ball without knowing what to do with it (or being able to act upon it) is telling, as so is his deliberate avoidance of any conclusive statement regarding what he actually means by “mechanics” in this context. Is it that the rules of the game do not permit interaction with the ball, or that any interaction with the ball brings about no perceivable change in the (game) state? If interaction is available but nothing happens as a consequence of it, is this the same as no interaction being available at all?

Funnily enough, when discussing the ins and outs of games and their design, we all seem quite happy to use the term “game mechanics” as though we all know, and understand, what we are talking about.  

Miguel Sicart does a good job of highlighting the fluidity of our (if not ours, then perhaps many scholar’s) use of the term “game mechanics” in his article on gamestudies.org. Although it is not my desire to unpack all of his thinking right now, it is useful to note Sicart’s separation of rules from mechanics; whereas rules refer to what actions are permitted (governed by the system), mechanics refer to what actions are made possible (affordances of the system itself). For Sicart; “rules are normative, mechanics are performative”.

It is under such light that we can begin to address the question I somewhat flippantly posed above, about interacting with the ball having any noticeable effect on the game state. Similar to the singing shopkeeper in Necrodancer, when we purchase items from the shop the changes to our statistics remain consistent whether the shopkeeper has been singing or not, however long we may have danced around the shopkeeper as he sings. Dancing and singing aren’t required, nor are they instrumental to the game as a mechanical experience, yet they are fundamental to our creation of our experience as an aesthetic one. The shopkeeper’s singing may, on one level, act purely as a perfunctory audible cue signifying the shopkeeper’s presence, yet, on another level, it is an act that purely delights. An act that enriches our experience as a whole, one that, as Quintin remarks; "hmm, tastes like good design.”