musings of a social architect

What are game mechanics?

This morning (courtesy of Raph Koster) I ran across an excellent and timely essay about the nature of  game mechanics. The author begins by offering a definition:

Game mechanics are rule based systems / simulations that facilitate and encourage a user to explore and learn the properties of their possibility space through the use of feedback mechanisms.

He then goes on to explore these elements, and includes a useful reference chart (see below) that summarizes his main points. Well worth a read if you're interested in creating compelling, addicitive interactive experiences (games or otherwise).

animals on the underground

One of the ongoing themes in my life is finding patterns among seemingly random data. In that spirit, I offer you  animals on the underground -- a clever and delightful take on visual pattern recognition. Enjoy!

Growth in mobile content: women and older folks?

Via MocoNews, I ran across this M:Metrics study showing that women are outpacing men in the rate that they're purchasing mobile content. Here's the stats:

The number of females consuming ringtones and games grew by 27 percent and 21 percent, respectively, year over year. Corresponding numbers for males were growth of 15.4 percent in males downloading ringtones and a decline of 11.3 percent in the number of males downloading games. Females now account for a clear majority, or 55 percent, of ringtone purchasers. While males still have a higher propensity to download games, the ratio of male to female game downloaders has dropped from 61 percent male in 2005 to 54 percent male in 2006.

Interestingly, this same study also showed high growth in an older, often-neglected market segement:

While starting from a smaller base, the 35-to-44-year-old segment has had the highest growth for games and ringtones. Consumption among teens has lagged, with the number of teen ringtone purchasers remaining relatively flat, while teens engaged in downloading games fell by a whopping 30 percent.

LINK

Newfangled Tamagotchi from Holland

Yesterday, a reporter from Cnet called to discuss a new "virtual parenting" simulation game from Holland called Eccky. The premise of this game is that two people  "seed" a baby with their characteristics, and then "raise" the kid together, Tamagotchi-style. Eccy's unique twist is that this game is played within MSN Messenger; the child appears as a Messenger contact that's driven by a chat-bot.

Once "born," the unique Eccky (which is derived from the Japanese word, ecci, meaning "naughty") has its own profile page and is added to the MSN Messenger contact list of each parent. The virtual child grows and ages three years for every one day of game play. As an Eccky ages, its vocabulary matures. Within six days, the Eccky turns into an 18-year-old with an individual character and leaves the nest, thus ending the game. Players are rated at the end of the game by the happiness of the child, which is measured by attention and game play. For example, if the parent neglects to command the child to go to the bathroom when it's full, or forgets to feed the Eccky, then the child's happiness rating suffers.

In addition to IM communication with the child, you can also send and receieve SMS messages. It's a fascinating concept - you can read more here (I'm quoted near the end of the article).

Books that help you make games

Next Generation has just published a list of 50 must-read books for everyone in the computer games industry - and I'm proud to say that my book has made the list. Although it's now out of print, you can purchase and download an electronic copy directly from the publisher.