Evade

The goal to avoid being captured or hit.

Many games have dangers that need to be avoided. Evade is the goal to try and avoid these dangers, regardless if they are due to "natural" causes such as falling rocks or intentional attacks such as weapon fire.

Examples

Go gives an example of a turn-based Board Game in which Evade occurs. When playing this game, players may have groups that will be captured unless they manage to Evade an enclosure constructed by another player. Evade goals can also occur in Chess, either as "optional goals" when any piece is threatened or as enforced goals when one's king is checked.

Many Arcade Games had Evade goals as a main part of their gameplay: in Pac-Man one much avoiding ghosts while collecting the yellow dots, in Centipede one must avoid all enemies while trying to kill the centipede, in Donkey Kong barrels need to be avoided, and being hit by asteroids in Asteroids destroys one's ship.

The Resident Evil series makes use of quick time event challenges to let players evade various dangers in the game.

Using the pattern

Creating an Evade goal involves deciding what Enemies should to be evaded and what Penalties occur it the goal is not achieved, as typically Evade goals have no explicit Rewards. Evade goals can seldom be completed in themselves, with the exception of Evade goals with Time Limits, but can often be completed by achieving another goal: that of completing an Excluding Goal to whatever goal causes the actions the player is trying to Evade. Examples of this are to shoot an enemy that is trying to shoot you or to deactivate a robot that is trying to kill you. The Penalty for failing to Evade something is closely related to the Reward of the Preventing Goal, but usually means Damage, the loss of a Life, or control of a Unit (possibly because another player completed Gain Ownership of the Unit). The Penalty can also be that the players are forced into Committed Goals, where both succeeding and failing those goals can have negative consequences, for example, having to fight an innocent opponent to the death for having failed a Stealth goal.

Evade goals can be Supporting Goals for Traverse and Delivery goals. If the player succeeds with evading the possibleEnemies, there may be no need to succeed with Overcome goals.

Evade goals usually have Units or moving game elements with dangerous connotations such as bullets, arrows, or missile-like spells as the game elements to be avoided. Noticing Aim & Shoot actions from these trigger Evade goals but also of course make the Aim & Shoot actions more difficult. However, in games where players' Units or Avatars constantly move, Evade goals can also be constructed around Deadly Traps. Any kind of Movement Limitations that affect players during evading naturally make them more difficult.

Evade patterns can interact with Overcome patterns when one player has both. If the Overcome patterns are not used at all, the player with the Evade goal cannot make the chaser fail by directly affecting values related to the chaser. When both Evade and Overcome are present simultaneously, they allow players to create tactics of offense and defense, e. g., to strike or dodge in a boxing game. Another option is to let a player have the Evade goal until a certain other goal, e. g., Gain Ownership of a weapon, is completed and then the player has the possibility to strive for the Overcome pattern. This can be used to create Role Reversal patterns, as in Pac-Man, so the chasers move from having an Overcome goal to having an Evade goal.

Penalties

Damage Ability Losses Lives

Can Be Instantiated By

Capture, Traps

Achilles' Heels together with Avatars, Characters, or Units

Movement and Penalties together with Avatars, Characters, or Units

Vulnerabilities together with Avatars, Characters, or Units

Can Be Modulated By

Aim & Shoot, Enemies, Line of Sight, Privileged Movement, Time Limits

Consequences

Evade goals are based upon avoiding being hit or captured, and therefore naturally promote Movement in games. In Real-Time Games, this typically requires players to be proficient in Maneuvering while Puzzle Solving is often the required skill in Turn-Based Games.

Evade goals are Continuous Goals that are likely to cause Tension to those that have them due to the clear potential for Penalties if they fail. When the evasion has to be done against Agents actions, Evade goals are Preventing Goals. One such example is to avoid the Aim & Shoot goals of others, something which naturally make these goals more difficult. Another example is to avoid those with Capture goals - here the use of Privileged Movement for one or the other can easily make for Challenging Gameplay.

Evade goals can easily be formalized in games as Quests.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Continuous Goals, Maneuvering, Puzzle Solving, Quests

with Capture and Privileged Movement

Challenging Gameplay

Can Modulate

Aim & Shoot

Can Be Instantiated By

Capture, Traps

Achilles' Heels together with Avatars, Characters, or Units

Movement and Penalties together with Avatars, Characters, or Units

Vulnerabilities together with Avatars, Characters, or Units

Can Be Modulated By

Aim & Shoot, Enemies, Line of Sight, Privileged Movement, Time Limits

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

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History

An updated version of the pattern Evade that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.

Acknowledgements

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