Puzzle Game or Action Game?


Tetris is often referred to as a puzzle game, and for good reason. Tetris has elements obviously reminiscent of a puzzle, with players needing to find how blocks best fit together. In this way the game is similar to a right-angle jigsaw puzzle, or any number of other organize these geometrical shapes in this small space puzzles. An even better comparison would be the traditional game pentomino, from which Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris s designer, is supposed to have drawn inspiration. In pentomino, one must take twelve different shaped pieces, each made out of five squares, and fit them into a square box. One can see the similarities, but at the same time Tetris changes the game into something entirely different, something entirely more challenging and compelling. Pajitnov could have just as easily made a direct adaptation of pentomino to the computer, as many other developers have done for jigsaw puzzles or sliding number -type puzzles. This might have been an entertaining program, though perhaps not as fun as the actual game itself since part of the fun of pentomino is the tactile nature of manipulating the blocks. But by taking the puzzle and changing it into a game that could only happen on the computer, Pajitnov ended up creating a unique new game that is far more entertaining than the original.

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Tetris carefully balances action and puzzle elements to create a unique gameplay experience. Pictured here, and throughout this chapter: classic mode in The Next Tetris .

Many times when members of the computer game intelligentsia refer to a game as being a puzzle game, they do so with derision. For them a puzzle game is one that presents a series of static puzzles to players, puzzles that never change and never react to the players actions. They argue that a game must provide a reaction to the players actions and an opponent for players to compete against. Hence, the critics would say, these so-called puzzle games are not really games at all, but just puzzles.

Furthermore, often the puzzles found in these games have only one solution, further limiting the players interactive experience. Examples would include most all adventure games, such as Zork , Myst , or even Grim Fandango , games that, though they provide players with a world to explore and challenging puzzles to complete, do nothing to create a unique experience for players.

But Tetris is never criticized for this shortcoming because it so brilliantly combines the mechanics of a puzzle game with the mechanics of an action game in order to create a truly compelling gameplay experience. Thus everyone who plays Tetris , each time they play it, has a unique experience. One action game mechanic Tetris uses is the sense of an ever-approaching threat that players have to address in a limited amount of time. Just as most fiction revolves around dramatic tension, so do games, and Tetris is no exception. In Centipede this threat is the arthropod winding its way down from the top of the screen. In Tetris it is the block dropping from above. If players do not move and rotate as well as determine an optimal placement for the piece before it reaches the bottom of the screen, it may get stuck in a location that blocks off lower rows from being completed, and players get one or more lines closer to ending their game. As gameplay progresses, the speed at which these blocks fall from the top of the screen increases , thus increasing the challenge for players and ramping up the difficulty over the course of the game.

Another similarity between Tetris and action games that further distinguishes it from other puzzle games is the variety of gameplay situations Tetris can create: each game played is unique. The play mechanics set up an infinitely large number of unique games, with each move players decide to make influencing the rest of their game. The way a piece is positioned into the blocks already at the bottom of the screen directly impacts where the next piece can be placed. Should players fill up the four-block-long slot with only two blocks from an upside-down L -shaped piece? Or should they hold out, waiting for that desperately needed I -shaped piece? The L will not fill the slot completely, but no one knows how long it will be until the I piece arrives. In other cases players may have a number of different positions in which to put a piece, and must think ahead, figuring out if they put a piece in a given slot what sort of slots that will leave available for later pieces. Players constantly have to consider where future blocks will or will not be able to fit. Players may learn to recognize certain piece configurations, but every game is sufficiently unique that no players can be completely prepared for the challenges they may face.




Game Design Theory and Practice
Game Design: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Wordware Game Developers Library)
ISBN: 1556229127
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 189

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