Game Elements: Characters, Items, and Objects/Mechanisms ....
If you think of the level designers on your team as painters, then the game elements are
the colors they have on their palette. These elements are the different parts of your
game that will be brought together in the levels to create a compelling experience for
players. The designers will be able to take these elements and, by combining them in
unique and interesting ways, create a variety of levels that will keep players interested
for hours. Of course, not every game has levels, but nearly every game has game ele-
ments. Whether these elements are the various types of foes players fight inRobotron:
2084,the different sorts of special buildings that can be created inSimCity, or the differ-
ent blocks inTetris, they need to be listed and detailed in the Game Elements section.
Now that you have spent a good many pages focusing on the more general game
mechanics and artificial intelligence capabilities of your game, it is time to move on to
specific content. Remember that you kept the Game Mechanics and AI sections general
enough that one could make many different games using them. These sections may
even remain relatively unchanged for a sequel, should your game have one. But the
enemies, NPCs, objects, items, and mechanisms players will encounter in the
game-world will probably be unique to this game. This content is usually closely tied to
the story, which you will delve into later in the Story Overview and Game Progression
sections of your document. It is actually a toss-up if you want to list your characters,
items, and objects before or after the story sections. It is up to you to determine what
makes the most sense for your particular document and game.
I customarily use three classifications of game elements: characters, items, and
objects/mechanisms. You may wish to create a separate section in your design docu-
ment for each of the classes, or you can make each class a different subsection in one
all-inclusive Game Elements section.
- Characters: The characters class includes all the enemies players will battle, all
the personalities they might meet and potentially have conversations with, and all
the different types of AI agents in the game. Think of the character grouping as
containing all of the active, non-player-controlled elements in the game. - Items: The items class includes any entity that players can pick up and use or
manipulate in some fashion. Certainly any weapons players might use would be
listed here, as well as any items that might make their way into the players’
inventory, such as notes, keys, or health elixirs. - Objects/Mechanisms: The third group contains what I call objects or mechanisms.
These elements are entities that appear in the game, that are not AI driven, and
that players cannot pick up but can operate in some way. This would include doors,
switches, puzzle elements, or other objects that can be manipulated through the
course of the game.
Again, depending on the type of game you are working on, you may not need to
use all three classifications. A shooter likeHalf-Lifewould have all three: the aliens
players fight would be among the characters, the weapons they find would be listed
under items, and the different game-world mechanisms players encounter, such as
the redirectable laser beams, would fall under the third classification. An RTS game
likeStarCraft,however, might instead have a units listing (which is essentially a
Chapter 19: The Design Document 369