Week 8 Working with Formal & Dramatic Elements
Fullerton, T. (2008). Chapters 3 & 4
Working with Formal Elements
In this chapter the formal elements of games described. Knowing these element will give a change to designer to invent a game play. Before designing a game, a game designer can take advantage of current games by analizing them based on formal elements to practice.
Players: “ games are experiences designed for players and that players must voluntarily accept the rules and constraints of the game in order to play”(p.49).
Objectives: give your players something to strive for. They define what players are trying to accomplish within the rules of the game. They should be both challenging and achievable.
 Capture: The objective in a capture game is not to be captured or killed and destroy any things belong to opponents.
Chase: catch an opponent or elude one
Race: reach a goal before the other players.
Alignment: create an alignment between categories of pieces.
Rescue or Escape: find a safe place
Forbidden Act: Get the competition to break the rules
Exploration: Explore game areas.
Solution: Solve a problem or puzzle.
Outwith: Use the knowledge
Procedures:methods of play and actions to achieve game objectives.( who does what,where and how).
Rules: define game objects and allowable actions by the player.
Resources: assets to accomplish certain goals.
Boundaries: separate the game from everything that is not the game.
Outcome: uncertain element to hold the player’s attention
“The inherent subjectivity of video games creates dissonances,gaps between the designer’s procedural model of a sources system and the players’ subjectivity, their preconceptions and existing understanding of that simulation”(p.57).
 Working with Dramatic Elements
Dramatics elements provide a context to gameplay and integrate the formal elements of the system into a meaningful experience. Challenge and play are the main dramatic elements of a game and premise character and story are the complicated dramatic elements. In order to create a more engaging game, knowing how those elements work is necessary.Â
Challenge: tasks that players are satisfying to complete.
Play: engages players emotionally in games.Â
Premise: establish the action of the game within a setting or metaphor.
Characters:  the agents through whose actions a drama is told
Conflict: draws players into the game emotionally by creating a sense of tension as to the outcome
