ABSTRACT
A firm grasp of games starts with a good understanding of play. If you don’t understand the attraction and enjoyment of play, it can be hard to fathom the attraction of games. Even more importantly for a burgeoning game designer, it will be hard to create activities with which people want to engage. The playful activity is the elemental building block of games. Almost all games have at their heart an activity which you could describe as playing. This playful activity often resides beneath the level of core mechanic. It supports and animates the core mechanic. In a game like Bejeweled , it’s the playful activity of matching, which is then structured by a match-three game mechanic. In a sport like soccer, it’s the kicking around of an object that supports the mechanic of kicking the ball into goals. Aspiring game designers must be able to identify these playful activities, pick out the fun ones and build games around them.
