Non-Linearity................................
Non-linearity is another buzzword in the game industry, but like emergence, there is a
lot of value to the concept. Non-linearity is what interesting gameplay is all about, and
many game developers forget this in the heat of production. Non-linearity gives
interactivity meaning, and without non-linearity, game developers might as well be
working on movies instead. The more parts of your game that you can make non-linear,
the better your game will be. Unfortunately, on the flip side, the more non-linearity
your game has, the more time consuming and difficult it will be to develop.
In general, when someone says something is linear they mean that it follows a line.
A line is a series of points connected in either two- or three-dimensional space, where
one can find any point on that line using a specific equation, such as, in a 2D case, y =
mx + b. In layman’s terms, this means that a line must be straight. If one considers any
two points on that line, say A and B, there is only one way to navigate that line from A to
B. There are no choices to be made; one simply must navigate all of the points between
A and B. Outside the world of mathematics, we can consider reading a book to be a lin-
ear experience. If one is reading a 323-page book and if one does not skip pages or
chapters, there is only one way to read the book: by starting on page 1 and reading all of
the pages leading up to page 323.
Games, however, are non-linear works. In the game of chess, there are multiple
ways to capture the opponent’s king, to move from the game’s predetermined starting
state to its conclusion. Indeed, there are a vast number of different ways to be victori-
ous in chess, and that variety is what keeps the game interesting. These choices make
chess non-linear. Suppose the chessboard were one-dimensional instead of two, each
player’s pieces could only move in one direction, and each player had only one piece.
This version of chess is a linear one, since there are no meaningful choices for players
to make and the outcome of every game is completely predetermined. And, as a result,
it would not be any fun to play.
Types of Non-Linearity..........................
So when we say we want our games to be non-linear, we mean we want them to provide
choices for players to make, different paths they can take to get from point A to point B,
from the game’s beginning to its end. We can mean this in a number of ways: in terms of
the game’s story, in terms of how players solve the game’s challenges, in terms of the
order in which players tackle the challenges, and in which challenges players choose to
engage. All of these components can contribute to making a game non-linear, and the
more non-linearity the developer creates, the more unique each player’s experience
can be. Furthermore, the different non-linear components can interact with each other
to make the whole far greater than the sum of its parts.
- Storytelling: I discuss non-linear storytelling in more detail in Chapter 11,
“Storytelling.” Of course, a non-linear story line is necessarily tied to non-linear
gameplay, and no one would bother to try to make a story non-linear if the game
itself offered players very little in the way of meaningful decisions. Storytelling is
perhaps one of the most neglected parts of games in terms of non-linearity, with
Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay 119