Difference between revisions of "Deliver"

Revision as of 08:10, 3 August 2022

The goal of moving a certain game element to another specified game element or place within the game space.

Many games make goals of having specific game elements in specific places of the game world. Deliver goals are such goals but where a focus is placed on the moving of specific rather than general game elements.

Examples

Football can be described as the task of delivering the ball into the other team's goal.

Capture the flag variants of first-person shooters such as the Quake series and Unreal Tournament series have the goal of gaining access of the other team's flag and carrying it to one's own capture point.

The "Fairgrounds" level in Left 4 Dead series has an optional goal consisting of transporting a garden gnome to a rescue vehicle.

Many games, e.g., the Assassin's Creed series, the Elder Scrolls series and the Fallout series, that have vast game spaces and non-players character make use of Deliver quests. A side effect of performing these is that it makes players see more parts of the game worlds than they might otherwise do.

Using the pattern

Deliver requires something to deliver somewhere and that the player has means of moving that. The latter part of this typically implies that players have to engage in some form of Movement.

Game Items in general suit as the things to be delivered. MacGuffins can be used for Deliver goals that are intended to be more significant since these add a narration importance. Non-Player Characters are an option if their movement is indirectly controlled by a player (i.e., a form of Indirect Control) - a natural option is that Non-Player Characters follows players' Avatars (but God Fingers can work also). Players may automatically gain the thing to Deliver as the set-up of the goal but the goal can be made more challenging by first requiring a Gain Ownership goal to be fulfilled (e.g., through Trading).

The somewhere that the delivery should go can be anywhere but design goals related to Thematic Consistency can require motivations for why the thing should be delivered to the place. Non-Player Characters that want to have the thing is a standard option. Installations is another option when the things delivered are needed to use or activate the Installations, e.g., delivering a certain magic gem to a circle of runes to activate them. Regardless, for games with Pervasive Gameplay Deliver goals may need Artifact-Location Proximity goals to be part of the game state.

Deliver differs from Collections in that the focus is on specific game elements that needs to be moved to specific places. Collections in contrast focus upon having game elements together, and there might be many different game elements that can take a place in the collection.

Can Be Instantiated By

Check Points,

The difficulty of Deliver goals can be modified by requiring Evade or Overcome subgoals to be dealt with. An archetypical examples is bandit or pirates that try to steal what is to be delivered as it is being moved.

Can Be Modulated By

Pick-Ups

Narration Aspects

Deliver goals can quite easily be constructed to drive narration in that succeeding with such a goal implies clear actions having been performed by the player, and that the story arcs for various Characters can be updated depending on this.

Consequences

Can Instantiate

Aim & Shoot, Goal Points, Narration Structures, Quests, Stealth, Traverse

with Artifact-Location Proximity

Player-Location Proximity

with Guard

Guide and Protect

with Indirect Control

Herd

Relations

Can Instantiate

Aim & Shoot, Goal Points, Narration Structures, Quests, Stealth, Traverse

with Artifact-Location Proximity

Player-Location Proximity

with Guard

Guide and Protect

with Indirect Control

Herd

Can Modulate

Artifact-Location Proximity, Trading

Can Be Instantiated By

Check Points, Gain Ownership, Game Items, Installations, MacGuffins, Movement, Non-Player Characters

Can Be Modulated By

Evade, Overcome, Pick-Ups

Possible Closure Effects

-

Potentially Conflicting With

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History

An updated version of the pattern Delivery that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design^[1].

References

1. ↑ Björk, S. & Holopainen, J. (2004) Patterns in Game Design. Charles River Media. ISBN1-58450-354-8.

Acknowledgements

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