Auxiliary Game Screens

Games making use of several different physical screens for gameplay.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Examples

One of the simplest examples of Auxiliary Game Screens are computer games that run on operating systems supporting several screens and that themselves support this as well. Two examples of games that do this are the Quake series and the Dead Island game.

The Visual Memory Units for the Dreamcast console could work as an independent gaming device or provide players with an additional screen while playing on the Dreamcast by connecting the units to game controllers. In the Resident Evil series this allowed players to view their health without switching away from the main game screen, in the Soul Calibur series they could see versions of characters enact attacks, and in the Sega Rally series they could access the lap times without having the console on.

Wikipedia has a page for games on the GameCube that can make use of Game Boy Advance units as extra controls. Examples include Animal Crossing, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and the Splinter Cell series; for The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures it supported an essential game mechanic. The FIFA and Madden NFL series uses these Auxiliary Game Screens more passively as scoreboards.

Padracer and Scrabble™ Tile Rack are games that use iPhones as controllers for games whose primary displays are an iPad.

Using the pattern

Designing Auxiliary Game Screens is as much a question of software design as gameplay design, and sometimes may also require hardware design.

Interface Aspects

Auxiliary Game Screens is an Interface Pattern.

Consequences

Auxiliary Game Screens can give players individual presentations of game states and Game Worlds. By doing so they can not only provide Game State Overviews but allow for Asymmetric Information between players. This in turn allows for Imperfect Information and a possibility to design Conceal goals for players.

Given that Auxiliary Game Screens make it possible to provide a gameplay experience over several different types of displays, it can be seen as a weak form of Crossmedia Games.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Asymmetric Information, Conceal, Crossmedia Games, Game State Overviews, Imperfect Information

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

Acknowledgements

Magnus Hacker, Johan Peitz, Jose Zagal