Unwinnable Games
Games that do not have any winning conditions.
Some games are not possible to win regardless of how well one performs. This is because the systems they use have no state defined as winning or no way to get there. Such games can still pose interesting challenges to players either by letting players could their own goals and winning conditions or by letting players compare their performance with previous performances by themselves or others.
Contents
Examples
Early computer games such as Asteroids and Space Invaders were Unwinnable Games in that gamers were constantly given new obstacles as soon as they overcame their current ones. Pac-Man is designed in the same fashion but the original version has a software bug making it allegedly impossible to complete its 256th level[1], making it open for interpretation if reaching the highest possible level in a game equals winning over it. The casual games Staries and Icy Tower are later examples of games that have no winning conditions.
Roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons and GURPS do not have general winning conditions. Individual campaign might be winnable but the gameplay of improving one's character can continue and may likely be in the players interest. The 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons have structures of retiring characters when they reach level 30 (through gaining some form of immortality) but not even this needs to be seen as having completely beating the game since gameplay can continue with a new character. While simply surviving Paranoia scenarios with at least one of one's clones alive can be considered victories, the publishers of the roleplaying game published Code 7 missions that required one more clone that players have.
Massively multiplayer online games such as World of Warcraft and Eve Online have similar structures but add challenges of fighting other players, accessing the best available equipment and gaining achievements.
September 12th and Hell Tetris are examples of games that make the realization that they are unwinnable one of the main experiences of playing them.
Using the pattern
Games may be unwinnable to specific people because of lack of time, interest, or competence. This is however more a question of the players' possibilities than the design of a game, and when it is an effect of the design (rather than say the people not being the targeted audience) it is often seen as a problem with that design. Unwinnable Games in contrast are games whose system is design so that their is no winning condition and no players regardless of skills and devotion can achieve a certain game state designated as the winning one. The two main ways of creating Unwinnable Games are Ever Increasing Difficulty to ensure that players at some point lose or Grinding that lets players continuously do actions for little or no progress in the game, but it may be more important considering why a game should not be possible to win.
There are two typical reasons for creating Unwinnable Games. The first reason is that one may wish to reinforce the Replayability by not making it possible to ever beat the game completely. In this case there exists enforced end conditions, e.g. by strict Time Limits or Steadily Decreasing Resources and to make it possible to compare ones performance with earlier game session there typically also exists Trans-Game Information (e.g. Achievements or High Score Lists) so that Meta Games are possible. The second reason is to create Never Ending Stories, that is, games without any end condition at all. Common in Roleplaying games, these games cannot have a winning condition for the whole game but instead needs to provide incentives to play in other ways. This is typically done through offering smaller local goals, either Ephemeral Goals or Player Defined Goals, or simple through the Social Interaction offered by the game or play activity. An issue with non-ending games is how to balance increased Game Mastery and Improved Abilities with challenges so that the Challenging Gameplay is maintained. Red Queen Dilemmas is a possible solution to this by adding the difficulty as players gain more power to influence the game. However, non-ending games are incompatible with Time Limited Game Instances but this may not be a problem if Game Pauses are used since then the game and play sessions can be regulated instead.
One design possibility that is more suitable to Unwinnable Games than others is that of Entitled Players; it is less problematic to trust players with powers affecting how the game is played if they have less reason to misuse that power.
Consequences
At first glance it can seem strange that one can have games which cannot win since it removes what is typically the reason for activities to become meaningful in them. Most games can however be the basis for Meta Games through Trans-Game Information (such as Achievements or High Score Lists) or Progress Indicators and can then still provide meaningful gameplay. When Unwinnable Games allow this kind of gameplay, they somewhat paradoxically promote Replayability. Sometimes realizing the unwinnable nature of a game is an intention in the design; the Serious Game September 12th uses the impossibility of winning it to argue the futility in the struggle thematized by the game and the (earlier) movie War Games appropriates Tic-Tac-Toe to make a similar argument.
When players notice that games are unwinnable they may see this as revealing an Exaggerated Perception of Influence in the game design. This may cause them to stop playing (which in a sense was the intention with the serious games mentioned in the previous paragraph since this would make the point that one should stop with the activity portrayed) but may also cause players to set up their own Player Defined Goals that they consider win (and end) conditions.
Although Narration Structures can support players the gameplay structure in Unwinnable Games, the narrative aspects are likely to not attract interest unless they change in significant ways between game sessions. More specifically, Predetermined Story Structures are difficult to have in Unwinnable Games since their content is limited and this may be exhausted by sufficiently long gameplay and Main Quests are in direct conflict with Unwinnable Games since completing the Main Quests are ways of winning the game even if gameplay continues afterwards.
Unwinnable Games may be seen as a rather easy way to avoid having a Predictable Winner at any point in a game, but this is not strictly true. First, the Predictable Winner may nobody as the Tic-Tac-Toe example shows and second players may set up their own winning conditions between themselves, e.g. who can get the highest score in a game of Pac-Man. Even so, Unwinnable Games can be used as part of a design strategy to make players less likely to identify any specific player as being able to reach the winning conditions set up by a game.
Multiplayer Games which are also unwinnable, e.g. most Tabletop RPGs, will need to deal with Early-Leaving Players since this will occur in all game instances except the ones where all players simultaneously stop playing.
Relations
Can Instantiate
Never Ending Stories, Replayability, Serious Games
with Multiplayer Games
Can Modulate
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Can Be Instantiated By
Ever Increasing Difficulty, Grinding, Time Limits, Steadily Decreasing Resources
Can Be Modulated By
Achievements, Entitled Players, Ephemeral Goals, Game Pauses, High Score Lists, Meta Games, Player Defined Goals, Red Queen Dilemmas, Trans-Game Information
Possible Closure Effects
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Potentially Conflicting With
Challenging Gameplay, Exaggerated Perception of Influence, Main Quests, Predetermined Story Structures, Predictable Winner, Time Limited Game Instances
History
New pattern created in this wiki.
References
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Acknowledgments
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