40 mechanic for social games

Game developer Raph Koster has compiled a comprehensive list of the basic rules on which social relationships in games are based (multiplayer, side-game, etc.). These rules for game developers replace the alphabet. In many ways, they overlap with the principles of game mechanics , which have already been discussed at Habré.

Rough Koster gained fame as the creator of Ultima Online design and the creative director of the Star Wars Galaxies project, after which he founded his own studio.

This list is a brief summary of Koster's presentation ( 190 slides ).

# 1: Help . The simplest form of multiplayer is the usual advice and assistance. How good are your communication channels? Help is the building material of all social gameplay.
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# 2: Status . Quantification of achievements. Saving them in a database.

# 3: Racing . The first user who reaches the goal wins. Surprisingly rarely found. Why no one uses the race to complete the level? You can use it in network settings. Social games do not race.

# 4: Leaderboards . All compete asynchronously, in parallel with the preservation of history. We see it in bars.

# 5: Tournaments . Divide (bracketing) users into groups. Social games tend to use bracketing for simple PvP, while he deserves more.

# 6: Collect flowers . You are competing for resources, new ones constantly appear.

# 7: Eating points . I ate you not. Consumption of resources with zero amount.

# 8: Tug -of-war. I can take your things, and you can take mine. Winner and Loser.

# 9: Handicap . Artificial status equalization to ensure more equal competition.

# 10: Secrets . In game theory, insufficient information. Knowledge is value. Tug of war. Distribution cards.

# 11: The Last Hero . Multiplayer to death until there is a winner.

# 12: Betting . Intermediate status. Your bet, you take away the opponent's things (money) and who ultimately has a thing, wins. Where are silent auctions in social games?

# 13: False . Cheating and bluffing. Cheating only works against another player, not a computer. Misinformation becomes a game technique that gives an advantage.

# 14: Third Party Betting Here competitors participate in the auction for third-party resources.

# 15: Prisoner's dilemma . The partners do not have complete information, but they are in the same team. If one gives up, both lose. If they stick together, they succeed. You don't know if your partner will hold on.

# 16: Kriegspiel . The military strategy in the form of a board game was first used in the Prussian army in 1812: Dungeonmaster, Gamemaster. The judge follows the rules, Gamesmaster directs the action, the game. Now we do not do too much control in social games, but we could. Basically, the action of the game is controlled by the judges, although this role can be passed on to the game master.

# 17: Roles . Specialization leads to the emergence of different games within the same group. Extremely rarely used in modern games, the rare exception is Treasure Isle.

# 18: Grouping and changing roles within groups. As in the Mafia, one of the partners can suddenly become a predator.

# 19: Rituals . Ceremonies play an important role in human culture: birth, wedding, death, rising within the game (graduation, getting a diploma, getting a job), calendar holidays, religious holidays.

# 20: Gifts . Closely related to the previous item, they are found during almost every ritual. They represent the transfer of things from one player to another to enhance its status.

# 21: Reciprocity . Players send a gift that they like because they expect to return it (where is the “Return Gift” button?).

# 22: Mentors . Training a person or transferring important knowledge to him. He gets knowledge, you get social status as a mentor. Social ties are strengthened in the group.

# 23: Self-expression . Demonstration of their status through rare accessories.

# 24: Exile from the group through a failure in shared resources.

# 25: Trust . The degree of trust depending on the position of the node in the social graph or cluster. Direct communication gives you maximum trust. If one person trusts two people as much as possible in a cluster, but they are not directly related to each other, then trust between them exists, but is much weaker.

# 26: Guilds, clans . Extremely efficient structure, combining several social clusters. At the moment, in social games, structures from hundreds and thousands of participants are poorly used.

# 27: Exclusivity . On the basis of segregation and genocide, it is known that people tend to select within the community elite groups that have exclusive access to selected things. VIP clubs.

# 28: Guild vs. Guild . We know how big related groups love to destroy each other. Competition. Battle. Competition.

# 29: Trade . Formalization of profitable relationships between too remote nodes on the network.

# 30: Elections . Politics is the greatest multiplayer game invented by humanity.

# 31: Reputation, influence, and honor . It is necessary to develop micropayments for the social currency so that the sender can put +1, and the recipient accumulate these statuses.

# 32: Public things . This is similar to the prisoner's dilemma, but only in relation to many users. Most public resources are not unique and can be consumed by all (for example, clean air).

# 33: The tragedy of the communities , if the resources are unique and can be appropriated by someone, then all the others will lose.

# 34: Community . The situation when users themselves become chips in the game.

# 35: Strategic guilds . Grouping to solve very difficult puzzles.

# 36: Teamwork . The joint efforts of people is always more than the work of the same people alone.

# 37: Arbitrage . Turning to the economic models of the game, it is necessary to allow the existence of arbitration, when uneven quantities of goods arise in the game and there is a way to evaluate and exchange such goods.

# 38: Delivery channels . Channels of exchange of goods and trade routes.

# 39: Custom Content . Good tools for this: forums, image editors, game cards, weddings, and so on.

# 40: Grifing . Virtual sociopathy. Change the rules of the game by the players themselves and the emergence of new game universes.