Health

A measure of how much damage or other negative consequences avatars, characters, or units can take before they suffer serious penalties.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Using the pattern

Health is basically an Attribute which sometimes can be used as a Resource, so designing games to make use of Health to a large extent consist of considering the design options of these two other patterns. However, sometimes Health is split into several different Attributes. Quake, for example, has both health and armor Attributes which have very similar properties.

The Damage and Health patterns often influence each other heavily, but Health modifies Damage since the latter one can exist without the former. While Damage causes reductions in Health, there are many ways of modifying this. Armor can reduce the amount of Damage taken and acquiring them, or choosing which one to use, can become gameplay elements. Difficulty Levels and Handicap Systems can be applied before or during game instances to shift gameplay between Casual and Challenging and to try and find Player and Team Balance.

If Health can be healed or repaired, it becomes a Renewable Resources. Chargers are Environmental Effects that can provide this effect, and together with healing Pick-Ups show how restoring Health can be linked to moving in Game Worlds.

Healing

Privileged Abilities Skills Powers

Tools,

Interface Aspects

Given the importance of Health values for overall gameplay development, they are usually displayed as Game State Indicators so they are easily noticable by players. For their own Avatars or Characters this may be through HUD Interfaces since these Focus Loci may not be visible themselves to players. Geospatial Game Widgets - for example hovering health bars - are often used for players' own Units, encountered Enemies, or the Avatars and Characters of Team members.

Consequences

Can Instantiate

Attributes, Renewable Resources, Resources

Can Modulate

Characters, Combat, Damage, Destructible Objects, Lives, Units

Relations

Can Instantiate

Attributes, Renewable Resources, Resources

Can Modulate

Characters, Combat, Damage, Destructible Objects, Lives, Units

Can Be Instantiated By

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Can Be Modulated By

Armor, Chargers, Difficulty Levels, Game State Indicators, Geospatial Game Widgets, Handicap Systems, HUD Interfaces, Pick-Ups, Powers, Privileged Abilities, Skills, Tools, Traps

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

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History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

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Acknowledgements

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