kzucker
10-07-2005, 06:31 PM
I received a call from someone who wanted more information about the magazine. He is getting started in game design and wants to know about the process.
It is an ongoing and necessarily halting process but from time to time I try and write up some of the lessons I have learned. Today I was working (and re-working) a bit on this article for a future issue:
Introduction to
Wargame Design
Kevin Zucker
There are six different types of games—these are, first, card games (no board); second, board games—either linear, track- games or geometric, map- games—third, dice games; fourth—wagering and mathematical games; fifth, language games; and sixth, playground games—singing and rhythm games, and sports.
You can see from that list that games can combine two or more of these types. Wargames can be a mixture of all but type six. But most importantly of the geometric, map-board variety, with cards and dice—they also mix the geometric and the linear track game (employed in various types of record keeping).
Wargames had their beginnings in the von Reisswitz wargame ("Kriegsspiel") of 1824, and the work on the Theory of Games of strategy, established in 1928 by John von Neumann.
"By stressing strategic aspects (i.e., aspects controlled by the participants), it goes beyond the classical theory of probability, in which the treatment of games is limited to aspects of pure chance. …
[These games, by contrast, feature] conflicting interests, incomplete information, and the interplay of rational decision and chance. —Britannica, "Games, Theory of"
And don't forget "irrational decision..."
It is an ongoing and necessarily halting process but from time to time I try and write up some of the lessons I have learned. Today I was working (and re-working) a bit on this article for a future issue:
Introduction to
Wargame Design
Kevin Zucker
There are six different types of games—these are, first, card games (no board); second, board games—either linear, track- games or geometric, map- games—third, dice games; fourth—wagering and mathematical games; fifth, language games; and sixth, playground games—singing and rhythm games, and sports.
You can see from that list that games can combine two or more of these types. Wargames can be a mixture of all but type six. But most importantly of the geometric, map-board variety, with cards and dice—they also mix the geometric and the linear track game (employed in various types of record keeping).
Wargames had their beginnings in the von Reisswitz wargame ("Kriegsspiel") of 1824, and the work on the Theory of Games of strategy, established in 1928 by John von Neumann.
"By stressing strategic aspects (i.e., aspects controlled by the participants), it goes beyond the classical theory of probability, in which the treatment of games is limited to aspects of pure chance. …
[These games, by contrast, feature] conflicting interests, incomplete information, and the interplay of rational decision and chance. —Britannica, "Games, Theory of"
And don't forget "irrational decision..."