Games & Virtual Worlds Series

Skill & Decision Making

Understanding Games: How Video Games & Board Games Work

Michael Filimowicz, PhD

Published in

Understanding Games

6 min readJan 3, 2023

Skill

In games, skill building is the process of improving one’s abilities and strategies through practice and experience. As players become more skilled at a game, they are typically able to make more complex and strategic decisions, as they have a deeper understanding of the game mechanics and a larger pool of knowledge and experience to draw from.

For example, a beginner player of a strategy game might make mostly tactical decisions, focusing on immediate goals and trying to outmaneuver their opponents in the current round of play. As they become more skilled, they may start to make more strategic decisions, considering the long-term goals of the game and planning their moves accordingly.

There is often a positive relationship between skill building and the types of decisions one can make in a game. As players become more skilled, they are able to make more complex and strategic decisions, which can lead to better results and more enjoyable gameplay. This can help to keep players engaged and motivated to continue playing and improving their skills.

Decision Making

In games, decision making refers to the process of choosing between different options or actions. There are several types of decision making that can occur in games, including:

Meaningful decisions: These are decisions that have a significant impact on the outcome of the game and require players to weigh the pros and cons of different options.

Meaningless decisions: These are decisions that have little or no impact on the outcome of the game and do not require much thought or strategy.

Blind decisions: These are decisions that are made without complete information, such as when a player has to choose between different options without knowing what the consequences will be.

Forced decisions: These are decisions that are made under duress or time pressure, such as when a player has to choose quickly or face a negative consequence.

Strategic decisions: These are decisions that are based on long-term planning and consideration of the overall goals of the game.

Tactical decisions: These are decisions that are based on short-term considerations and immediate goals, such as trying to outmaneuver an opponent in the current round of play.

Self-defeating decisions include making an own goal. In many games, your decisions can boomerang against your own interests!

In game terminology, Actions are player-initiated while Events are game-system-initiated. A player’s ability to make their own choices and act on them is closely tied to the game’s design. When you think of things that players do, mentally label them ‘actions’ and when you think of game-initiated occurrences, mind-stamp them as ‘events’ and then you will be thinking a bit more like a game designer!

Many games include a combination of decision-making types, including some or all of the ones listed above.

Avoiding Dull Decisions

A game is a series of interesting choices.
— Sid Meier

Meier suggests that interesting options have the following qualities:

The best choice shouldn’t be made between just two alternatives.
Choices shouldn’t all be equally appealing.
Every decision the player makes must be based on solid information.
Decisions that are too simple, meaningless, or based on blind luck are boring.

Goals & Interesting Decision-Making

In games, goals are the objectives that players are trying to achieve, such as winning the game or reaching a certain level of progress. Decision making is the process of choosing between different options or actions in order to achieve those goals.

There is a strong relationship between goals and decision making in games. In order to achieve their goals, players must make a series of decisions about which actions to take and which strategies to pursue. These decisions can range from simple and tactical, such as choosing which card to play in a card game, to more complex and strategic, such as deciding on a long-term plan of attack in a strategy game.

The specific goals and objectives of a game will often shape the types of decisions that players need to make. For example, in a game with a clear win condition, such as defeating an opponent or reaching a certain score, players may focus on making decisions that will help them achieve those goals as quickly and efficiently as possible. In a game with more open-ended goals, such as exploration or resource management, players may need to make a wider variety of decisions in order to achieve their objectives.

The relationship between goals and decision making in games is a central element of gameplay, as players must make a series of decisions in order to achieve their objectives and win the game.

Bibliography & Further Reading

A Game Design Vocabulary: Exploring the Foundational Principles Behind Good Game Design by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark
A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach by Michael Sellers
An Introduction to Game Studies by Frans Mayra
Basics of Game Design by Michael Moore
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier
Board Game Design Advice: From the Best in the World vol 1 by Gabe Barrett
Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: an Encyclopedia Of Mechanisms by Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev
Character Development and Storytelling for Games by Lee Sheldon
Chris Crawford on Game Design by Chris Crawford
Clockwork Game Design by Keith Burgun
Elements of Game Design by Robert Zubek
Fundamentals of Game Design by Ernest Adams
Fundamentals of Puzzle and Casual Game Design by Ernest Adams
Game Design Foundations by Brenda Romero
Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton
Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans
Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames edited by Chris Bateman
Games, Design and Play: A detailed approach to iterative game design by Colleen Macklin and John Sharp
Introduction to Game Systems Design by Dax Gazaway
Kobold Guide to Board Game Design by Mike Selinker, David Howell, et al
Kobold’s Guide to Worldbuilding edited by Janna Silverstein
Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd Edition by Scott Rogers
Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet by Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth Foote, et al.
Narrative Theory: A Critical Introduction by Kent Puckett
Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates by David Herman, James Phelan, et al.
Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Fourth Edition by Mieke Bal
Practical Game Design by Adam Kramarzewski and Ennio De Nucci
Procedural Storytelling in Game Design by Tanya X. Short and Tarn Adams
Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing by Wendy Despain
Rules of Play by Salen and Zimmerman
Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Frontiers of Narrative) by Marie-Laure Ryan, Jan-Noël Thon, et al
Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers by Ethan Ham
The Art of Game Design, 3rd Edition by Jesse Schell
The Board Game Designer’s Guide: The Easy 4 Step Process to Create Amazing Games That People Can’t Stop Playing by Joe Slack
The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative by H. Porter Abbott
The Grasshopper, by Bernard Suits
The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies by Bernard Perron and Mark J.P. Wolf
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory by David Herman
The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten
Unboxed: Board Game Experience and Design by Gordon Calleja
Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques by Evan Skolnick
Writing for Video Game Genres: From FPS to RPG edited by Wendy Despain
Writing for Video Games by Steve Ince
100 Principles of Game Design by DESPAIN