Week 2- The Six Elements of Play Design

Week two of my Game Design for Play class and we are creating our own folk game. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, folk games are the games that have been passed down from generation to generation (Tag, Cops and Robbers, Duck Duck Goose) are all great examples of folk games. But how does one create a game?. Well if you’ve ever read Macklin and Sharp’s Chapter One Games, Design, and Play you would have heard of the Six Basic Elements of Play Design. These elements state every good game needs actions, goals, rules, objects, playspace, and players. Actions are “the primary things players are doing in a game.”- glossary, for example, if you’re playing Freeze tag your two actions are to run away from the person who is it and to freeze whenever they tag you. A game's goal is just as important, although many people think that a game’s goal is to win, it is defined as “what players try to achieve while playing”- Chapter One. In Freeze Tag, there are two goals, for those who are running away the goal is to try and get to the base before being caught and frozen in place, while the tagger the goal is to freeze everyone in place so they can’t reach base. But what do you do if someone is tagging someone too hard or if the tagger is constantly blocking base? Well, that is why every game has a set of rules to keep people safe and accompany the game's overall goal. The rules can change with each new group that plays, for example when I would play Freeze Tag with my family I was slower than most of them and couldn’t climb trees as well as they could so when it was my turn to be the tagger you couldn't stay in a tree for more than thirty seconds so I would have a chance to tag you. Now the fourth element of play design, objects, is more lenient in its meaning as objects are just “the things players interact with during play”- Chapter One, which includes other people. Looking back at freeze tag there aren’t really any big objects needed to play the game except for the people themselves. Playspace is the environment you play the game in, if you're playing a hide and seek game like Freeze Tag, playing it in a flat open field with no place to hide might not be the best option. And finally, you need players, because how else are you supposed to play a game without people?