ABSTRACT

The core concept of situational game design is (unsurprisingly) the situation. A situation is an interval of play that contains a choice. The simplest example of a situation is a turn in a turn-based game. The notion of the situation gives us a way to break down the experience of playing a game into small, manageable chunks. It allows us to analyze the player's behavior and motivation from moment to moment, taking into account how it shifts and flows in response to how the game unfolds. This fine-grain analysis allows us to pick apart the many different types of play a player experiences, and understand how each contributes to the overall texture of the experience. Situations are structured by constraints. The constraints that structure a situation determine which moves players are allowed to make, and therefore what choices it offers us.