Committed Goals

Goals that players have entered a form of contract to try and fulfill.

Although most games have many goals in them, players do not have to accept or strive to complete all of them. However, there are goals that players need to strive towards. This might be because they are forced to or because they will suffer some form of penalty if the goals are not completed. Such goals are Committed Goals. Another type of Committed Goal occur when players have to choose between a number of goals to try and complete; here the commitment is based on the fact that players have chosen so they cannot succeed with other goals and thereby committed themselves to the chosen goals.

Examples

The winning conditions of games such as Chess or Go are Committed Goals that players have to strive for; if they are not working toward these conditions, they are not playing the game.

In the board game Ticket to Ride, players can commit to building a railway line between cities. Once committed, the player will at the end of the game either receive a certain amount of points if successful or be penalized by the same amount if the line is not completed. A similar example can be found in the trick-based card game Bridge.

Using the pattern

While many goals can be Committed Goals or share much with Committed Goals, the defining feature of Committed Goals is that players have to commit to the goals and that the commitment brings with it a (potential) penalty. This means that Committed Goals need to be Optional Goals, although it may be that players only have a choice of selecting one goal from a group of two or more goals. The penalty associated with a Committed Goal can either be that players can suffer a penalty if they fail or that they have forsaken the chance to fulfill other goals by committing to that particular goal.

Diegetic Aspects

Interface Aspects

Narration Aspects

Consequences

Having Committed Goals can make Agents in games have what is equal to Enforced Agent Behavior when the Penalties of the goals make it paramount to try to succeed with them. Quests provide players with Risk/Reward choices since they Quests are Committed Goals that have both Penalties and Rewards associated with them.

Can Instantiate

Delayed Reciprocity,

Players gain Gain Information goals when they knows that other players having Committed Goals but do not know the details of them (i.e. when they are to a certain extent Secret Goals).