High Score Lists
High Score lists give players the chance to rank how well the current game sessions compared to previous game sessions.
Contents
Examples
The first arcade game to have High Score Lists was [[Asteroids]. The player who achieves a high enough score compared to the other players of the same machine is allowed to enter his initials to be displayed in the High Score List.
Using the pattern
The use of High Score Lists is fairly standardized, with the main design choices being the number of Scores saved in the High Score List and how Handles are supported. Most High Score Lists make use of Handles so that the players can identify their own scores and know that other players can recognize them. Since High Score Lists typically are ordered, they need Tiebreakers or have to be explicitly designed to allow several players with Tied Results to be displayed as completely equal.
High Score Lists may be designed to remove old values after a certain time period. This can be motivated if large numbers of players use the same list, e.g. in games with global High Score Lists, since very few players will have a chance of making it into the list. Although this can seem to remove the reward for achieving the all-time best score in the game one can avoid this by having an all-time High Score List and a temporary one.
Diegetic Aspects
High Score Lists are typically presented outside the gameplay and game world. This does not imply that they cannot be accessible during gameplay since they can be presented in a different section of the game interface or be accessible through Option Interfaces. There are however some example of how to place High Score Lists within the game world. The use of Ghosts in racing games can be seen as a form of High Score Lists that allows players to judge their progress against other performances, as well as their own individual performances, in previous game sessions while playing the game.
The Facebook version of the game Icy Tower shows one way which High Score Lists can be incorporated into the game world, here the highest level a players' friends have reached is indicated by placing the friends Avatars on that level in the player's game.
Consequences
What effects a patterns has on a design.
Relations
Instantiates
Player Defined Goals, Meta Games, Replayability, Trans-Game Information, Social Statuses, Tied Results
Modulates
Instantiated By
Modulated By
Tiebreakers, Single-Player Games
Potentially Conflicting With
Consequences
High Score Lists create a Meta Game out of the game by using Trans-Game Information, allowing players to have Player Defined Goals such as to rank themselves against previous achievements, and thereby encouraging Game Mastery. Doing so adds Replayability to the game, as the players have the additional goal of simply performing slightly better than in the previous game sessions. High Score Lists are also a simple way to introduce Competition to otherwise Single-Player Games and are also a way for players to compare and display their Social Statuses.
History
An rewrite of the original pattern named High Score Lists in the book 'Patterns in Game Design' (Björk & Holopainen, 2004).
References
Björk, S. & Holopainen, J. (2004) Patterns in Game Design. Charles River Media. ISBN1-58450-354-8.
