If players can anticipate
the outcome of a game, they will stop playing. You
have probably been in this situation before??”when
one player is so far ahead that no one will be able to
catch up. At this point, everyone generally agrees to
end the game. In chess, a player who has calculated
that she cannot win will o en concede the game without
playing it to the conclusion.
Unlike favorite movies or books, which can remain
entertaining even if we already know the ending,
games depend on uncertainty of outcome in every
play for their dramatic tension. And players invest
their emotions in that uncertainty, making it the job
of the game designer to cra a satisfying resolution
to the game, usually in the form of a measurable and
unequal outcome. 2.8 Boundaries
Formal Elements
The games you described in Exercise 2.1 might also
have other elements we have not mentioned here:
perhaps special equipment, digital environments,
complex resources structures, or character de?¬? nitions.
And of course Go Fish and Quake each have
their own unique elements that we haven??™t touched
upon, such as the turn structure in Go Fish or the realtime
element of Quake.
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