Elements of

Strategy
Game Design
The Role of Skill in
Games

A good game is a series of interesting decisions. The

success of decisions is a measure of player skill.
• Good games cause players to exercise their skills
frequently
and reward them with immediate and obvious
feedback.
• By constantly making decisions, the player
enters a psychological state called “flow.”
• It is an optimal play state and one designers
work hard to achieve.
Types of
Decisions

The extent that the player’s actions affect the

outcome of the game is broadly classified as “skill”, as
opposed to factors outside of player influence, called “chance”
or “luck”.
• The player skill influence the outcome of a game
depending on the decisions the game lets the
players make.
• The player experience involves making
decisions that influence the game state.
• A game designer should consider what these
decisions are, and why making them is fun or
interesting or compelling.
Types of
Decisions

When the winning decision is obvious the choice is not

compelling because there is no reason to make any other
choice.
Obvious Decisions
• When the decision is blindingly obvious, a
designer can
remove the choice and make it automatic.
• Or, to take an obvious decision and add time
pressure, changing it from a strategic decision
to a test of dexterity.
Types of
Decisions
The only thing more frustrating than an obvious
choice is a choice with no right or wrong
answers at all.
Meaningless Decisions
• The choice has no effect on the game’s
outcome.
• It’s usually better to eliminate these from
the game entirely.
• The exception is related with the player’s
perception:
• Some games offer a narrative that doesn’t affect the
overall outcome.
• But the player perceives that it does, due to the way
the game responds to those choices.
• Only on replaying the game is obvious these choices
Types of
Decisions
Roulette has a real decision of what number to bet on:
• Not obvious: the answer if not known.
• Not meaningless: affects the outcome.
•But not interesting: no information to base the
decision. Only the hard cash reward makes the game
compelling.
Blind Decisions
• Blind decisions can be turned into other kinds of
decisions by
giving the player enough information.
• Ongoing decisions can be quite interesting
because they change as more information is
revealed over time.
Types of
Decisions
A tradeoff happens whenever a player doesn’t have
enough resources to accomplish all of his goals.
Tradeoffs
• No option is clearly “right” or “wrong” but
each has advantages and disadvantages.
• All of a sudden this feels like a real,
important, choice.
• If one option is clearly better it becomes an
obvious choice.
• In a balanced choice the options are weighed so
that there is no single best one that always “wins”.

With several viable paths to victory, players must

choose based on their personal styles and
environmental factors in the game, the decisions made
The Prisoner’s
Dilemma
• Two prisoners are independently asked which committed a
crime.
• Each can choose to cooperate (saying nothing) or defect
(denouncing the other).
• If both cooperate: each pays a small penalty.
• If both defect: each pays a big penalty.
• If one cooperates but the other defects: the first pays
the maximum penalty and the defector pays the
minimum penalty.
• One (possible) Payoff Matrix is
B − 1, − 1 0,
coopera A cooperates
−5 A defects
tes B − 5, 0 − 2,
• The optimal joint state is when both cooperate.
defects −2
• But the optimal player option is defect, that avoids the
maximum
penalty.
• So, each player will defect and the final state is not joint
optimal.
• This holds for one-shot games.
• But for iterated games, the dynamic become quite
Types of
Decisions
A dilemma is a tradeoff where all options will harm
the player.
Dilemmas
• Variations of Prisoner’s dilemma are common in turn
based strategy games.
• If a game poses a series of these decisions the
dynamics change greatly.
• Adding multiple players also changes the dynamics,
especially if players have the ability to seek retribution
against those who defected.
• If players don’t know who cooperated and who defected,
that can likewise change things, bringing in
feelings of paranoia.
Types of
Decisions
Risk versus Reward, happens in situations that have
multiple outcomes, but whose level of risk is
different.
Risk Versus Reward Tradeoffs
• These kinds of tradeoffs are common in board
games with dice, cards, or other random
mechanics.
• Players often have the option of making a safer
move with a smaller reward, or a risky move with
a greater reward if it succeeds and a penalty if it
fails.
• In these games, typically, a player who is behind
tends to take more risks in order to catch up,
while a player in the lead prefers to play it
safe in order to preserve his lead.
Frequency of Anticipation of
Decisions

A designer’s goal, at the physical level, is to keep

the player’s brain busy with possibilities.
• The frequency with which the players make
decisions is paramount.
• There are some cases where decisions are not
frequent. . .
• . . . but the anticipation of a known pending
decision sustains the player with thoughts of what
she may do when decision time rears its head.
Strategy and
Tactics
A “grand strategy” is the overarching means to achieving
an
ultimate, long-term goal.
• A grand strategy consists of several supporting
strategies, that must be performed in order to
achieve the ultimate goal.
• “Tactics” are the lowest-level micro-decisions
made when carrying out a strategy.
• Players make strategic decisions when planning for
the long term, and tactical decisions when
achieving short-term goals.
• Tradeoffs make for interesting strategic or
tactical decision-making.
• Fast decisions (“twitch” mechanics) are
limited to tactics.
• So, “more strategic” games do better to focus on
tradeoff decisions.
Completely Skill-Based
Games
Pure skill games have no chance elements thus can be
“solved”.
• Games that focus on strategy and tradeoffs tend to
have at least some elements of chance.
• In pure skill games, decisions once interesting can
become
known and therefore obvious.
• Designing a pure-skill game requires that there be
enough
depth of choices in the game that it cannot
easily be solved.
• Many pure skill games are physically based
action games.
• Unlike tradeoff decisions, it is not about getting
the right answer but getting it quickly.
Mechanics of
Skill

Players bid some resource in order to earn an item.

The winner of the auction pays his bid and takes the
item.
Tradeoff Mechanics | Auctions
• Open auction: players call out bids at any time,
each one being higher than the last, until
everyone is silent.
• Sequential auction: players make a bid in turn
order.
• Silent or Closed auction: players make
their bids simultaneously and in secret.
Mechanics of
Skill
Tradeoff Mechanics | Auctions
• Fixed-price auction: the item is offered at a named
price; the first player to accept the price gets the
item.
• Dutch auction: offer the item at an initial high price,
that falls over time until a player accepts the
current value.
• Reverse auction: the item is a disadvantage and
players bid to avoid it.

Designers can vary auction mechanics. For example:

• Items can be grouped into lots.
• Multiple auctions at once lead players to
resource management.
• All players can loose their bids.
• The second-highest bidder gets a lesser
Mechanics of
Skill

Players have the ability to purchase items, abilities, or

actions at fixed prices.
Tradeoff Mechanics | Purchases
The choices come from which stuff and when to
purchase.
• The players will be limited in the currency used to
make the purchases.
• The resource is limited.
• The item may not be available later in the game.
Mechanics of
Skill

Special abilities give players the ability to break the

standard rules of the game in specific ways.
Tradeoff Mechanics | Limited-Use Special Abilities
• Players can gain advantages only once (or twice, or n
times).
• The choice of when to use that ability becomes a
compelling decision.
• Use it now or will there be a better use later?
Mechanics of
Skill

The strategic nature of the decision is amplified by varying

the strength of special abilities based on space, time,
location, or some other factor.
Tradeoff Mechanics | Dynamic Limited-Use Special
Abilities
• Using it now or saving it until later presents the
player with an interesting decision.
• Weighing the immediate benefit against
larger future rewards isn’t always an obvious
decision.
Mechanics of
Skill

Simple, immediate, choice between clear

options.
Tradeoff Mechanics | Explicit Choices
• A game gives a choice to a player, making clear the
effects of each option.
• The player must then weight the relative
values of the options.
Mechanics of
Skill

Managing allocation of resources.

Tradeoff Mechanics | Limited Actions
• Having only one “avatar” all actions are
taken by that character.
• When the player controls many avatars, choosing
which one takes which action becomes a difficult
decision.
• For example, in board games.
Mechanics of
Skill
Whenever multiple players are working together toward
mutual goals, a whole host of social choices come into
play. There’s the mix of cooperation versus
competition.
Tradeoff Mechanics | Trading and Negotiation
• Alliances can be forged and broken.
• Promises of future considerations in exchange for
help at present can be made.
• formally binding,
• non-binding,
• or else with a penalty when the contract is
broken
• There are even the metagame considerations of
the social relationships of the players outside of the
game itself.
• one plays a board game differently with close friends
Strategic
Evaluation

How do game designers assess the success of the

strategy and tactics they hoped to create?
• A designer can gather a lot of information by
interviewing players or watching them play.
• The level of strategy in your game should fit the
audience’s desire for the same.
Strategic
Evaluation

A strategic game requires players to care about the

outcomes of each player’s move, because those moves
will, in turn, affect their move.
Do players care when other players are taking their
turn?
• In a game with a high degree of strategy, players are
reluctant to leave the table, let alone the room.
• They are constantly reassessing the play
state as each player takes his or her turn.
Strategic
Evaluation

Strategic games invite the player to form strategies

that can be carried out over multiple turns.
Are players making long-term plans?
• If players are stifled by the existing mechanics of
the game or allowed too much latitude, they may
be unable to see how their strategy could be
sustained or achieved over multiple turns.
• When playing a game, ask the players what they plan
to do or how they think they will win the game.
• These answers usually reveal a strategy or lack
thereof.
Strategic
Evaluation

The more rich the strategic opportunities are, the more

diverse the answers will be.
Are there multiple strategies for multiple games?
• At the beginning of any given game, the player should
have an idea of how he will approach the play of the
game.
• A player may have literally dozens of different
strategies to play against different players or to
compensate for different starting states.