Thought o’ the Day: Games vs. Systems
Ok, quickie thought just to work things over…
Systems, as I define them, are objects with a well-defined state with set rules for advancement (though the rules may make use of indeterminacy and allow production of runtime rules if we so desire), with input allowed that modifies the system as allowed by those rules. In other words, a Turing machine. Go figure. I’m a programmer.
Games are a subclass of systems. Games are systems where
- External agent interaction is part of the input (usually human, but if you want to consider a purely-AI battle a game, so be it)
- Specific states (or classes of states with specific properties) are defined as “goal” states.
If you’re playing a shooter, you’re given those states where your health remains strictly positive and (usually) you move from point A to point B. If you’re playing an open-world simulator (ie: GTA or suchlike), perhaps we argue that you don’t have a specific goal. Bologna! You still must maintain non-zero health to continue the current “instance” of reality, and other goals are generated as runtime goals, such as the user supposing “I want to jump that bridge gap while a ship goes under it!”. Goals exist, whether they’re imposed by the designer or the player. The interesting part of these simulation games, then, is the latitude given to players in choosing their goals. We learn more about ourselves when we choose our goals and pursue them than when we work on predefined goals created by a third party.
And that’s all I have for you. Just a back-to-basics check on what I define as a game.
