Second Playthrough
Beyond Entertainment

Simulation

In short A working model of a system that can be run to see how that system behaves.

A simulation is a working model of a system that can be run to see how the system behaves over time. It takes a slice of the world, such as an aircraft in flight, a national economy, or a spreading disease, and reduces it to rules that produce outcomes when given inputs. Every simulation is an argument about what matters, because whoever builds it decides what to include and what to leave out. A simulation does not need a player, a goal, or a score: scientists, engineers, and trainers use simulations to predict, test, and rehearse. It becomes a game only when someone adds goals and invites play.

Not to be confused with

  • Simulation game

    A simulation game wraps a model in goals, rewards, and pacing for players, while a simulation can run with no player and no goal at all.

  • Training game

    A training game uses a simulation, or something like one, to build job skills, and adds structured scenarios and assessment the model alone does not have.

  • Sandbox

    A sandbox is a game that leaves players free to set their own goals; it need not model any real system, while a simulation must.

Where the game lives

  • rules
  • goals
  • feedback
  • uncertainty
  • choice
  • play

A simulation is rules that answer inputs with outcomes, often with chance built in. It has no goal of its own; the goal is supplied by the person running it, which is why a simulation is not yet a game.

used dropped · What the six structures are

Examples

  • Link TrainerEdwin A. Link, 1929

    An electromechanical flight trainer that taught instrument flying on the ground, and an ancestor of every flight simulator.

  • MONIACBill Phillips, 1949

    A hydraulic machine that modeled the flow of money through the British economy with water.

  • World3Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, 1972

    The computer model behind The Limits to Growth, which projected population, resources, and pollution into the next century.

In the essays

The Game in All of These

Where the game lives

Six structures—rules, goals, feedback, uncertainty, choice, play—map any game-like thing; the missing ones explain why it does or doesn’t feel like a game.

8 min read

Sources

  1. ArticleGonzalo Frasca. Simulation versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology. The Video Game Theory Reader (Routledge), 2003. Distinguishes simulation, which models a system's behavior, from representation, which only depicts it.
  2. BookJerry Banks (ed.). Handbook of Simulation: Principles, Methodology, Advances, Applications, and Practice. Wiley, 1998. Reading list
  3. BookIan Bogost. Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism. MIT Press, 2006. Reading list