Game Design: Systemic Machines, Loops, Currencies, and Goals

This assignment delves into the intricacies of game design, focusing on systemic machines, gameplay loops, and in-game currency balance. It identifies three types of systematic machines: Engines, Economies, and Ecologies, explaining their differences in resource management and loop dominance. The assignment further discusses the concept of deadlocks in game design, illustrating it with an example from Settlers 3. It emphasizes the importance of maintaining in-game currency balance and suggests an iterative design approach for achieving a stable and dynamic economy. Finally, the assignment outlines the steps involved in defining a system's loops and goals, highlighting the critical role of player interactions and behaviors. This document is available on Desklib, a platform providing AI-based study tools and a wide range of solved assignments for students.

12/10/2018
GAME DESIGN

Question 1.
The three types of systematic machines comprises of the following:
 Engines
The term engine has a number of meanings as applied in game designs such as; the engine of
development enables the game construction process to become easier by helping in a number of
underlying tasks that are tedious. The engine may either be breaking (balancing) or boosting
(reinforcing). The first type drains resources out of the game while the second type adds
resources to the game.
 Economies
In this type of systematic machine, a set of loops (reinforcing loop) dominates. Here, resource
increase or value arises from the internal resource investment but by exchange of resources or
converting one to another with a gain nonlinear value.
 Ecologies
Here, a set of loops (balancing loops) dominates and not the reinforcing loop. The resource
exchange occurs like in economy but the exchange happens such that every part balances
ultimately and not reinforcing the rest. The reinforcing loops are also present in this systematic
machine but they happen not to be the primary driver of the structure of the system.
The difference between these types of systematic machines is that, in Engines, the breaking and
boosting either adds or drains resources from the system, in economies, the reinforcing loop
increases the value of the loop through exchange or converting it and finally in Ecologies, the
process of exchange occurs exactly like in economy but the target is to balance the resources
unlike in economy where they target to reinforce (Sellers, 2017).
Question 2.
Deadlocks in game design.
Deadlocks occur when a player requires a resource in order to construct a mechanism of
production in order to increase the same resource. For example, Settlers 3, there are stones

required to build stonecutter’s hut. I needed more stones to create the huts but it turns out that, in
order to get the stones, I need the stonecutter’s hut. In this case, I could not get either the
stonecutter’s hut or the stones since both of them require stones to be increased. The problem
though is not with the game itself as enough stones are provided at the beginning of the game but
they are allocated to cater for other things (Adams, 2012).
Question 3
Importance of keeping in-game currencies in balance and the design approach to be used to
achieve that.
Currencies are used a sort of resource catalyst so that they may be exchanged again. The
currencies are exchanged rather than consumed. It enables the resource but it does not actually
participate directly in the process.
They can be used in any kind of exchange, for example, a subway surfer player may use the
currency to buy power ups, change the biker, buy outfits or just save the currency and use it at a
later stage. It is essential to maintain the in-game currency in order for them to maintain value
and not make them become overly precious as they should be.
Seller suggests that, for this to occur, it is advisable to consider a design that is iterative and
tweak values of economy in order to form an economy that is stable and dynamic as well
(Sellers, 2017).
Question 4
Steps used in Defining a System’s Loops—And Goals.
There are a number of steps that are involved in defining the loops of the system and the goals as
well. They include the following: constructing the form of looping of the system to aid the player
and the gameplay experience what you intend to develop, carefully and continuously considering
all kinds of interactions of the player, behavior and goals that are needed to be enabled through
inclusion of the system in the game and finally defining clearly parts as well as their interactions
that needed while working in creation of the system as well as the rest of the systems in the game
that the game is going to interact with.

In all steps described, one of the most important steps is to consider the goals, behavior and the
player interactions that the designer wants to enable and include in the system of the game. This
is because, the player is the most important aspect of the game hence, the interactions of the
player should be the main goal as well as how they are going to behave with the system (Sellers,
2017).

References
Adams, E. (2012). The Designer’s Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie III.
Sellers, M. (2017). Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach. Addison-Wesley Professional.