5. Exercise 3.6: Rules Restricting Actions

There are many types of rules that restrict action. Here is a list of games: Twister, Pictionary, Scrabble, Operation, and Pong. What rules within these games restrict player actions?

Twister

In Twister players must follow the instructions on the spinner and can’t decide where to place a hand or foot. They are also restricted by the rule that prevents them from lifting a hand or other body part from a circle unless the spinner instructs them to do so. Finally, no other body part can touch the playing surface.

Pictionary

In Pictionary players are trying to communicate a secret word to their teammates. Whereas under normal circumstances they would simply say the word, in the game they must communicate through the medium of (often bad) drawings. Furthermore, they cannot use letters or numbers in drawings. They are also prohibited from using props or body language.

Scrabble

Players can only use the letters they have drawn randomly from the bag. Any words they create must intersect with the existing words on the board and cannot stand alone. Proper nouns are not allowed, and any word they play must appear in the official Scrabble dictionary.

Operation

Players must remove the small plastic medical parts from cavities in the body using only a pair of tweezers. They cannot touch the sides of the cavity. Players cannot choose which pieces to attempt to remove, but instead this is determined by drawing a card.

Pong

Players can only move their paddles/bats vertically. The speed of movement of the bats is limited and so players must predict where the ‘ball’ will be when it reaches their side of the screen and move their bat accordingly.

---

Discussion

Rules are clearly fundamental to games. As Schell points out “Games have rules. Toys do not have rules. Rules are definitely one of the defining aspects of games.” (Schell, 2015, p. 41). Rules govern some of the other elements that Fullerton (2019) describes, such as resources and boundaries (what can a resource do?, what happens if a boundary is breached? Can the boundary be breached?). In most of the examples above the rules are explained and learned beforehand. The exception is Pong where the (simple) rules are inherent in the gameplay – it is obvious that paddles can only move vertically because this is a physical restriction. Which makes me wonder: are physical limitations and rules the same thing?

---

References

Fullerton, T., & Taylor & Francis eBooks EBA. (2019). Game design workshop: A playcentric approach to creating innovative games (Fourth ed.). Taylor & Francis, CRC Press.

Schell, J. (2015). The art of game design: A book of lenses, second edition (2nd ed.). A K Peters/CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/b17723