We have also said that games are dynamic
systems and that their elements work together to
produce a complex whole. We can go even further in
our de?¬? nition by pulling out some of the most important
elements from the earlier discussion.
When we talked about boundaries, we mentioned
the physical and the conceptual because this
is what most games deal with in their rules. What we
did not mention is the emotional boundary between
the rest of life and a game. When you play a game,
you set the rules of life aside and take up the rules of
the game instead. Conversely, when you ?¬? nish playing
a game, you set aside the incidents and outcome of
that game and return to the trappings of the outside
One thing that might not be immediately apparent
from your game descriptions or from our examples
of Go Fish and single player Quake is the depth to
which each of the elements we??™ve discussed relies on
the others. This is because games are systems, and
systems, by de?¬? nition, are groups of interrelated elements
that work together to form a complex whole.
An important idea to consider when thinking
about games as systems is the old saying that the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
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