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A game mechanic is a rule or set of rules intended to produce an enjoyable set of outcomes in a game. Complex games, such as role-playing games, are built using a large number of interlocking game mechanisms. The entirety of the game experience or set of game mechanics is called game play.

The interaction of the various Game_mechanic.html in a game determines the complexity and level of player interaction in the game. Designing a system of mechanics that interact well to produce a satisfying game is a challenging task, even for professional game designers. Some forms of game mechanic have been used in games for centuries, while others are relatively new, some having been invented within the past decade. The creation of new Game_mechanic.html, and ways in which existing ones can interact, is the ongoing goal of game designers.

Game_mechanic.html fall into several more or less well-defined categories.

Game play mechanics

These are mechanics that control how the players play the game.

Action points

These control what players may do on their turns in the game by allocating each player a budget of action points each turn. These points may be spent performing various actions according to the game rules, such as moving pieces, drawing cards, collecting money, etc. This type of mechanic is common in many German-style board games.

Auction or bidding

Some games use an auction or bidding system in which the players make competitive bids to determine which player gets the right to perform particular actions. Such an auction can be based on different forms of "payment":

• The winning bidder must pay for the won privilege with some form of game resource (game money, points, etc) (e.g.: RA).
• The winning bidder does not pay upon winning the auction, but the auction is a form of promise that the winner will achieve some outcome in the near future. If this outcome is not achieved, the bidder pays some form of penalty. Such a system is used in many trick-taking games, such as contract bridge.

In some games the auction determines a unique player who gains the privilege; in others the auction orders all players into a sequence, often the sequence in which they take turns during the current round of game play.

Cards

These involve the use of cards similar to playing cards to act as a randomiser and/or to act as tokens to keep track of states in the game.

A common use is for a deck of cards to be shuffled and placed face down on or near the game playing area. When a random result is called for, a player draws a card and what is printed on the card determines the outcome of the result.

Another use of cards occurs when players draw cards and retain them for later use in the game, without revealing them to other players. When used in this fashion, cards form a game resource.

Capture

In some games, the number of tokens a player has on the playing surface is related to his current strength in the game. In such games, it can be an important goal to capture opponent's tokens, meaning to remove them from the playing surface.

Captures can be achieved in a number of ways:

• Moving one of one's own tokens into a space occupied by an opposing token (e.g. chess).
• Jumping a token over the space occupied by an opposing token (e.g. draughts).
• Declaring an "attack" on an opposing token, and then determining the outcome of the attack, either in a deterministic way by the game rules, or by using a randomising method.
• Surrounding a token with one's own tokens in some manner (e.g. go).
• Playing cards or other resources that the game allows to be used to capture tokens.

In some games, captured tokens are simply removed and play no further part in the game (e.g. chess). In others, captured tokens are removed but can return to play later in the game under various rules (e.g. backgammon). Less common is the case in which the capturing player takes possession of the captured tokens and can use them himself later in the game (e.g. shogi).

Dice

These involve the use of dice, usually as randomisers. Most dice used in games are the standard cubical dice numbered from 1 to 6, but increasing numbers of games make use of polyhedral dice or dice marked with symbols other than numbers.

The most common use of dice is to randomly determine the outcome of an interection in a game. An example is a player rolling dice to determine how many board spaces to move a game token.

Dice also often determine the outcomes of in-game conflict between players, with different outcomes of the dice roll of different benefit (or adverse effect) to each player involved. This is useful in games that simulate direct conflicts of interest.

Movement

Many board games involve the movement of playing tokens. How these tokens are allowed to move, and when, is governed by movement mechanics.

Some game boards are divided into more or less equally-sized areas, each of which can be occupied by one or more game tokens. (Often such areas are called squares, even if not strictly square in shape.) Movement rules will specify how and when a token can be moved to another area. For example, a player may be allowed to move a token to an adjacent area, but not one further away. Dice are sometimes used to randomise the allowable movements.

Other games, particularly miniatures games are played on surfaces with no marked areas. A common movement mechanic in this case is to measure the distance which the miniatures are allowed to move with a ruler.

Resource management

Many games involve the management of resources. Examples of game resources include game tokens, game money, and game points. Resource management involves the players establishing relative values for various types of available resources, in the context of the current state of the game and the desired outcome (i.e. winning the game). The game will have rules that determine how players can increase, spend, or exchange their various resources. The skilful management of resources under such rules allows players to influence the outcome of the game.

Role-playing

Role-playing games often rely on mechanics that determine the effectiveness of in-game actions by how well the player acts out the role of a fictional character. While early role-playing games such as the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons relied heavily on randomisers such as dice to determine the outcomes of role-playing actions such as diplomatic negotiations, later generations of games often use the standard of "good role-playing" as a modifier or even the sole determinant of whether such an action is successful.

Tile-laying

Many games use tiles - flat, rigid pieces of a regular shape - that can be laid down on a flat surface to form a tessellation. Usually such tiles have patterns or symbols on their surfaces, that combine when tessellated to form game-mechanically significant combinations.

The tiles themselves are often drawn at random by the players, either immediately before placing them on the playing surface, or in groups to form a pool or hand of tiles from which the player may select one to play.

Tiles can be used in two distinct ways:

• The playing of a tile itself is directly significant to the outcome of the game, in that where and when it is played contributes points or resources to the player.
• Tiles are used to build a board upon which other game tokens are placed, and the interaction of those tokens with the tiles provides game points or resources.

Examples of tile mechanics include: Scrabble, in which tiles are letters and players lay them down to form words and score points; and Tikal, in which players lay tiles representing newly explored areas of jungle, through which archaeologists (represented by tokens) must move to score game points.

Victory condition mechanics

These mechanics control how a player wins the game.

Goals

This is the most general sort of victory condition, which can be broad enough to encompass any method of winning, but here refers to game-specific goals that are usually not duplicated in other games. An example is the checkmate of a king in chess.

Piece elimination

Some games with capture mechanics are won by the player who removes all, or a given number of, the opponents' playing pieces.

Puzzle guessing

Some games end when a player guesses (or solves by logic) the answer to a puzzle or riddle posed by the game. The player who guesses successfully wins. Examples include hangman and zendo.

Races

Many simple games (and some complex ones) are effectively races. The first player to advance one or more tokens to or beyond a certain point on the board wins. Examples: backgammon, ludo.

Structure building

The goal of a structure building game is to acquire and assemble a set of game resources into either a defined winning structure, or into a structure that is somehow better than those of other players. In some games, the acquisition is of primary importance (e.g. concentration), while in others the resources are readily available and the interactions between them form more or less useful structures (e.g. poker).

Territory control

A winner may be decided by which player controls the most "territory" on the playing surface, or a specific piece of territory. This is common in wargames, but is also used in more abstract games such as go.

Victory points

These are points that a player accumulates over the course of a game. The winner can be decided either by:

• The first player to reach a set number of points.
• The player with the most points at a predetermined finishing time or state of the game.

This mechanic is often used explicitly in German-style board games, but many other games are played for points that form a winning condition. Victory points may be partially disguised in the role of game resources, with play money being a common example.

Gameplay vs. Game_mechanic.html in video games

Generally, the term "gameplay" in video game terminology is used to describe the overall experience of playing the game excluding the factors of graphics, sound, and the storyline. This is the very essence of a game. The term "Game mechanics" refers to sub elements of the gameplay, but particularly the primary control and movement features of the game (thus excluding things like level design or AI). See gameplay.