Massively Single-Player Online Games

Games that make use of other players' game instances to provide input to the game state.

Many games, ranging from Solitaire to computer games where one players against the computer, are single-player games. These can however have some aspects of multiplayer games by letting the actions of other players in other games somehow influence the gameplay. These games are called Massively Single-Player Online Games due to the fact that they have become feasible mainly through automation computers offers and the connectivity the internet provides.

Examples

Crobots and NetHack are examples of Massively Single-Player Online Games that precede online gaming. The code and messages created by players of the games are stored locally on the computers they are played on and can only affect the game instances that follow on that computer, or on computer that have been installed with all the files from those game installations.

Players of Spore can create their own species, vehicles and buildings as part of following a species development from single cell life-form to interstellar society. The other life-forms encountered during the gameplay are a mix of those created by the game developers and those created by other players are downloaded from online sources.

4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness uses the fact that others are playing the game also as input to game instances. This by making players lose if any other player begins to play during their own game instance. Icy Tower can be seen as a weak example of Massively Single-Player Online Games. In it the avatars of other players are placed in the game world to show the highest platform they reached.

Using the pattern

High-Score Lists

(Games that make use of other players’ game instances to provide input to the game state; Enablers: Private Game Spaces

Speed Runs and Ghosts

Casual Gameplay Private Game Spaces Freedom of Choice Late Arriving Players Single-Player Games Speed Runs

History

New pattern created in this wiki.