Resources

NOTE: THIS IS WORK IN PROGRESS!

Game elements that are used by players to enable actions in a game.

Resources are the representation of commodities that is used in a game to fund actions or can be depleted by the actions of others. The commodities may exist as physical game elements or purely virtual one, or change between these.

Examples

Left 4 Dead series Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

Example: The board game Space Hulk gives each unit a number of action points at the beginning of a turn. These points are a form of Resources that pay for the actions of the units.

Example: Victoria is an example of a computer game with complex use of resource refinement, for example producing a Tank unit in the game requires the production of the Tank commodity. This commodity, in turn, requires Resources that are refined from other Resources, et cetera.

Common Resources in computer games include health and ammunition in first-person shooters, money and units in real-time strategy games, hit points and mana points in roleplaying games, action points in turn-based games, and players and money in sport management games.

Using the pattern

The primary question regarding Resources are what they should be used for. In many cases, game elements that the diegesis suggests are possible Resources. Examples of this include Armor, Ammunition, Companions, Game Items, Health, Pick-Ups, Territories, and Units. Generalizing, examples of what Resources can be used for include winning Competitions or abstract Races, allowing actions by being Ammunition or Energy, being the building material used for Construction. In many cases these choices modify or dictate what they Resources are, e.g. allowing them to be used in Construction makes them into construction material. Resources can also be what is put at risk in Betting, something that can be upgrade into more valuable Resources through Converters, and be the target of Damage. Resources can also be created from non-diegetic aspects related to actions. Action Caps, Budgeted Action Points, the Tokens used in Token Placement, and Temporary Abilities which have a Limited Number of Uses are all examples of potential Resources that are directly linked to players' abilities to perform actions. Cards tend to work this way in most Card Games since an action is typically to play a Card. Time Limits make the time available to do actions a Resource while Extra Chances and Lives allow players to try actions again after failing. The computer game version of Space Hulk shows one example of how time can be a Resource. The game has two modes of play: a strategic mode, where the actions of Units can be planned and nothing happens but in which a time meter counts down, and a real-time mode, where the time meter (the Time Limit) is replenished but commands cannot be given to Units. Time Limits and The Show Must Go On can also be used to force players use Resources within a certain time, which modulates one Resource while making time into another one.

After determining the use of a Resource, the next question is how players gain access to it. Players may start with Non-Renewable Resources to promote Stimulated Planning for whole game sessions, Collecting may be require to gather Resources from a Game World, Resource Generators, or Chargers, or the Resources may be Rewards for completing certain goals (Chargers and Resource Generators are in additional Resources in their own right). In addition to these ways of acquiring Resources, players may be able to redistribute Resources among themselves through actions such as Bidding, Player-Decided Distributions, and Trading if they are Transferable Items. Regardless of how players achieve Resources, the game may be set up to promote either Symmetric Resource Distribution or Asymmetric Resource Distribution to enforce different strategies and Varied Gameplay. However, Asymmetric Resource Distribution may negatively affect Player Balance, unless used in a controlled fashion through Rock-Paper-Scissors or Handicaps.

The Resources available at the beginning of game play may be the only Resources that exist, or they may be Renewable Resources. In the latter case, they may be produced from Resource Generators, Spawn or be handed out at regular time intervals, or be Rewards for completing goals (e.g. Loot for defeating Enemies). All these options are examples of how Producers can create Resources, and together with how Resources are depleted through Consumers form Producer-Consumer patterns. When Resources are collected from a Game World, several additional design choices are required, including the location of the Resources, who can see them, and whether there are Clues to where they can be found. Resources may be Secret Resources hidden by Fog of War or that can they only be detected by Privileged Abilities. Quite obviously, Resources can also be available in different amounts or concentrations, have time requirements when the can be collected and have requirements on whom can collect them. All these can be used to modulate how Resources work in a game.

How acquired Resources can be kept is another question that is relevant to many games using Resources. Containers and Resource Caps can limit the maximum Resources one can have (which may have a slight balancing effect) while Steadily Decreasing Resources or Time Limits on how long one can have specific Resources can require players to continuously need to collect new Resources even if they are not using them. Inventories (and Free Gift Inventories) serve as Containers in this sense but also allow players to equip them. Making them Stealables opens up for Stealing and the game design can make players Always Vulnerable if Tension is desired. More generally, Penalties can be designed to remove or threaten to remove Resources.

The next question is how control of resources is decided. Is it a Shared Resource whose use several players need to agree upon through Negotiation, or is it manipulated by all players through Indirect Control? Is the ownership changeable, i. e., can other players steal Resources by various actions that have Transfer of Control effects, or can the players change Resources through Trading? When Resources are contested but also used to produce Units, the struggle for Resources can become a Red Queen Dilemma where gaining control over larger amounts of Resources can only be achieved by consuming larger amounts of Resources.

Can Be Instantiated By

Heterogeneous Game Element Ownership, Neighbors,

Can Be Modulated By

Arithmetic Progression, Cards, Drawing Stacks, Game Element Insertion, Increasing Rewards, Purchasable Game Advantages,

In games where several different types of resources are used, knowing how and when to convert one form of resource to another may be part of the Strategic Knowledge of the game. The conversion may have inefficient exchange rates (by use of Diminishing Returns), may require access to a Converter, or may only be possible through Trading with other players.

Resources usually have to fit within the Consistent Reality Logic of the game, the main exception being Time Limits to prevent Analysis Paralysis and Resources that are primarily used to determine winning conditions. In this light, the concept of Score can be seen as a Resource, which is used to determine the winner of a game.

Units are common Resources in god games. The games Lemmings and Pikmin both make use of different types of Units that players have to direct to achieve goals while making Tradeoffs between various actions and what Units to use. The equivalent to these Resources in games using Avatars is Lives.

--- consider

Decreased Abilities, Downtime, Improved Abilities, Limited Resources, Loot, New Abilities, Pick-Ups, Resource Caps, Trading, Vulnerabilities

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As a balancing factor, Resources can be placed on unused actions in games where players choose between different actions. This provides a No-Use Bonus which eventually will make otherwise uninteresting actions into interesting ones.

with Tools

Trade-offs

Can Modulate

Abstract Player Constructs, Aim & Shoot, Characters, Controllers, Crafting, Game Worlds, Movement, Quests,

--- move The Resources can either exist from the beginning of gameplay or be created through Producers, and are either destroyed by Consumers, transformed through Converters, or part of Closed Economies.

Resources are often also used to give Characters acting as Consumers or Converters the ability to perform actions. In some games, the distribution of Resources between players decides the order of Turn Taking.

Can Modulate

Secret Areas, Tools,

Interface Aspects

Bookkeeping Tokens can be necessary to keep track of Resources, for example in Board Games, and can replace or lessen the need for tokens that represent the actual Resources.

Consequences

Resources provide players with quantifiable measures to judge their progress and plan possible future actions, and thereby provide one way for players to have Emotional Engrossment in games. While they can be completely independent of a game's diegesis, they often help show the status of Abstract Player Constructs and Characters. Lack of Resources can cause Helplessness.

Games where the goal consist of Collections various types of Resources can use the number of owned Resources as a Score, and in games that have a separate Score system, Resources are often used as a second order Scores system that acts as Tiebreakers. The presence of Resources in Game Worlds such as those found in the Starcraft series can motivate Area Control goals and Exploration goals when Fog of War makes at least some of the Resources into Secret Resources.

When Resources can be used for several different purposes, for example, as Budgeted Action Points, they can be used to force players to make Tradeoffs and modulate how Complex Gameplay a game has. Examples of games using one Resource for multiple purposes include the board game Carolus Magnus, in which markers can either be used to strengthen a fraction's control over an area or a player's control over that fraction, and the card game San Juan where each card depending on context represents a good, a colonist, money, or a building.

Relations

Betting Competitions Races Converters Energy Damage Token Placement Tokens

Can Instantiate

Area Control, Emotional Engrossment, Helplessness, No-Use Bonus

with Collections

Scores

with Fog of War

Secret Resources, Exploration

with Scores

Tiebreakers

with Tools

Trade-offs

Can Modulate

Abstract Player Constructs, Aim & Shoot, Characters, Controllers, Crafting, Game Worlds, Movement, Quests, Secret Areas, Tools

Can Be Instantiated By

Action Caps, Ammunition, Armor, Budgeted Action Points, Cards, Chargers, Companions, Construction, Extra Chances, Game Items, Health, Heterogeneous Game Element Ownership, Lives, Neighbors, Pick-Ups, Producers, Resource Generators, Territories, Time Limits, Units

Limited Number of Uses together with Temporary Abilities

Can Be Modulated By

Always Vulnerable, Arithmetic Progression, Asymmetric Resource Distribution, Bidding, Bookkeeping Tokens, Cards, Chargers, Clues, Collecting, Construction, Consumers, Containers, Drawing Stacks, Fog of War, Free Gift Inventories, Game Element Insertion, Game Worlds, Increasing Rewards, Inventories, Loot, Non-Renewable Resources, Penalties, Player-Decided Distributions, Producer-Consumer, Purchasable Game Advantages, Renewable Resources, Resource Caps, Resource Generators, Rewards, Secret Resources, Spawning, Steadily Decreasing Resources, Stealables, Stealing, Symmetric Resource Distribution, The Show Must Go On, Time Limits, Trading, Transferable Items

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

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History

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

Acknowledgements

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