32 / wfmag.cc
‘Serious’ fighting games use
clear feedback to show that
everything that happens is
down to player skill, and not
the result of chance.
Most games include some element of chance, but how
you use it can have a major impact on your audiencenderstanding the role of chance
is a key design skill, because the
same game can appeal to wildly
different audiences with just a
slight shift in how chance is used,
displayed, and managed. But before we go any
further, let’s talk about why we’ll be looking at
‘chance’ instead of ‘luck’.
This article will cover chance, risk, probability,
and statistics (don’t worry, those last two aren’t
as dry as they sound), but I’m not really going to
cover luck. That’s for the simple reason that you- as a game designer – can influence the role
of chance in your game, but you can’t do much
about luck.
Skill versus chance:
using luck in games
U
‘Chance’ literally means ‘the chances of
something happening’, so you have a one in six
chance of rolling a four on a standard dice, or a
50/50 chance of calling heads or tails on a coin
flip. As game creators, we can work with chance,
deciding how, when, and where to use it and
whether to expose it to our players.
Luck, on the other hand, is when that die you
rolled pings across the room, never to be seen
again, or when the tossed coin lands on its edge
and refuses to be either heads or tails. For a
more concrete example, you can work out the
exact chance that your Hearthstone opponent
will draw the perfect hand of cards they need,
but luck dictates whether they make a mistake
and deploy the wrong one.CHANCE AFFECTS AUDIENCE
Every game can be placed on a spectrum from
pure chance, where you basically have no say
(snakes and ladders, roulette) to pure skill, with
the outcome solely determined by who plays
best (chess, most rhythm games).
Where your game sits on this spectrum has
a big impact on who’s likely to play and enjoy it,
so it’s important to think about this and make
sure you match your skill/chance balance to
your intended audience. It’s also important to
remember that neither side is better or worse- it purely comes down to who you want to play
your game.
Pure skill games can be extremely
intimidating, because they leave nowhere for
AUTHOR
STUART MAINE
Stuart Maine has been a designer for 22 years, across PC,
console, and mobile. He helped set up Well Played Games,
and is currently working on Warhammer Combat Cards.Skill versus chance: using luck in gamesToolbox