Switches

Game elements that players can use to activate events or actions in game worlds.

Examples

Buttons and levers on the walls are Switches used to open doors, walls, and sections of the floor in the early first-person Computer Roleplaying game Dungeon Master. The early installments in the Doom series had Switches that temporarily opened secret doors that could only be reached by quickly moving some distances within the games. Both the Elder Scrolls and makes use of Switches in the form of pressure plates to activate physics-based "swing object" traps. Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas uses pressure plates in the same fashion, although some of them are linked to "grenade bouquets".

The activation of various types of machinery in the Left 4 Dead series let players proceed in the levels of the game, but also attract the attention of infected humans wanting to kill the players.

The puzzles in the Portal series often consist of accessible boxes than can then be put on Switches to activate various elements on levels. In the co-op mode of Portal 2 one player can sometimes fill this role while the other player performs some necessary action.

Levels

Game Worlds

Varying Rule Sets

Using the pattern

Buttons can be sticky, i. e. they stay pressed allowing the players to know if the Button is activated or not. If the Button can be pressed again to inactivate it, this can be used to create Reversability, while those that cannot be changed back enforce Irreversible Actions. Buttons, which are not sticky, can cycle through a series of states, for example, pressing a button repeatedly can let a player decide which of the three doors are open.

Environmental Effects Inaccessible Areas

with Obstacles

Quick Returns

Can Be Modulated By

Irreversible Events

Consequences

Switches are simple Controllers that allow for a limited range of actions, most often turning on or off an effect in the game. Being located at specific points in Game Worlds or Levels, they modulate these. Their use is often trivial to understand, although the effect of activating them can activate new rules, thereby instantiating Varying Rule Sets, or may have complex and have long-term consequences on gameplay.

When players know what effect activating Switches have, this give not only Anticipation but also promotes Stimulated Planning. When players can notice that the state of Switches have changed from since last they saw them, or from what should be their normal state, this provides them with Traces of previous gameplay events.

Switches often affect Environmental Effects, by causing them to exist or disappear, or Inaccessible Areas, by making them accessible or not. They can also enable Quick Returns by removing Obstacles.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Anticipation, Stimulated Planning, Traces, Varying Rule Sets

with Obstacles

Quick Returns

Can Modulate

Environmental Effects, Game Worlds, Inaccessible Areas, Levels

Can Be Instantiated By

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Can Be Modulated By

Irreversible Events

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

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History

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

Acknowledgements

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