Conceal

The goal of trying to hinder other players ability to gain information.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Having as much information as possible about the game state is usually advantageous, and Conceal is the goal of trying to prevent other players from gaining information about part of the game state. Conceal is not only about preventing or hindering other players from finding out the location of the goal object; the aim of Conceal may be to keep certain information associated with a game element from the other players.

Examples

The children's game Hide & Seek is the archetypical example of using Conceal where all children except one try to Conceal their locations.

The game Zendo allows the master to secretly make a rule for how differently colored pyramids should be arranged to have "Buddha nature", and the goal of the students is to try and extrapolate the rule from experiments.

Anti-Examples

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Relations

Replayability Avatars Units Characters Enemies Achilles' Heels Vulnerabilities Red Herrings Traverse Auxiliary Game Screens Stealth Evade Sanctioned Cheating Continuous Goals Preventing Goals Unknown Goals Extra-Game Actions Hiding Places

Modulated by: Freedom of Choice,

Can Instantiate

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Can Modulate

Survive

Can Be Instantiated By

Asymmetric Information, Imperfect Information

Can Be Modulated By

Creative Control

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

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History

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

Acknowledgements

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