Mechanic
In short A mechanic is a single action the rules let you take, together with how the game responds to it.
Definition
A mechanic is a single action the rules allow, together with what the game does in response: jump, shoot, trade, rewind time, place a block. It is the smallest unit of play that still means something to the player. Mechanics are not the same as rules in general; a rule can limit or score without being something you do, while a mechanic is a verb you can use. Games that share a mechanic need not share a genre: jumping appears in platformers, shooters and role-playing games alike. Second Playthrough keeps mechanic as its own axis, separate from genre, theme, perspective and format, so that a borrowed verb is not mistaken for a borrowed kind of game.
Not to be confused with
- Genre
A genre is the overall shape of play that many mechanics add up to, while a mechanic is one of the verbs inside it.
- Theme
Theme is the fiction that dresses a mechanic, so the same mechanic of matching tiles can be about gems, crops or spells.
- Feedback loop
A feedback loop is a pattern in which the results of play feed back into later play, which may connect several mechanics rather than being a mechanic itself.
Where the game lives
- rules: used
- goals: dropped
- feedback: used
- uncertainty: not essential
- choice: used
- play: dropped
A mechanic is a rule the player can act through, a choice to use it and the game's response. Goals and the wider activity of play belong to the whole game, not to any single verb.
used dropped · What the six structures are
Examples
Super Mario Bros.Nintendo, 1985
The jump, with its momentum and variable height, is a single mechanic that carries almost the entire game.
PortalValve, 2007
One new mechanic, placing two linked portals, is enough to build a full puzzle game around.
BraidNumber None, 2008
Rewinding time is a mechanic, and each world varies its rules so the same verb produces new puzzles.
In the essays
Why “RPG” stopped meaning anything
“RPG” fuses five separate things—mechanic, theme, format, perspective and role-play—and once progression spread to every genre, the label stopped sorting games.
Sources
- PaperDefining Game Mechanics. Game Studies 8(2), 2008. Defines mechanics as methods invoked by agents to interact with the game state, distinct from rules.
- PaperMDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research. AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI, 2004. Separates mechanics from the dynamics they produce in play and the experiences players have.
- BookRules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press, 2003. Reading list