The following examples of game mechanics are not a strict or complete
taxonomy. This list is alphabetical.
Action points Each player receives a budget of
action points to use on each turn. These points may be spent on various actions according to the game rules, such as moving pieces, drawing cards, collecting money, etc.
Alignment Alignment is a game mechanism in both
tabletop role-playing games and
role-playing video games. Alignment represents characters' moral and ethical orientation, such as good or evil. In some games, a
player character's alignment permits or prohibits the use of additional game mechanics. For example, in
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, alignment determines which demon assistants a player can or cannot recruit, and in
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, players aligned with the light and dark sides of
The Force gain different bonuses to attacks, healing, and speed.
Auction or bidding Some games use an auction or bidding system in which the players make competitive bids to determine which player wins 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.). For example,
Ra uses this mechanic. • The auction is a form of a promise that the winner will achieve some outcome in the near future. If this outcome is not achieved, the bidder pays a penalty. Such a system is used in many
trick-taking games, such as
contract bridge.
Capture/eliminate '' In some games, the number of tokens a player has on the playing surface represents their current strength in the game. A central goal is
capturing an opponent's tokens, which removes 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,
parchisi), also known as a
replacement capture or
displacement capture. • If the space immediately opposite must either be off the board or a marked
trap space, it is known as a
push capture. • Jumping a token over the space immediately occupied by an opposing token (e.g.
draughts), known as a
jump or
leap.
custodianship or
interception.
Risk and reward Some games include situations where players can "press their luck" in optional actions where the
danger of a risk must be weighed against the chance of reward. For example, in
Beowulf: The Legend, players may elect to take a "Risk", with success yielding cards and failure weakening the player's ultimate chance of victory.
Crafting Crafting new in-game items is a game mechanism in
open world survival video games such as
Minecraft and
Palworld,
role-playing video games such as
Divinity: Original Sin and
Stardew Valley, tabletop role-playing games such as
Dungeons & Dragons, and
deck-building card games such as
Mystic Vale. Crafting mechanics rely on set collection mechanics, since crafting new items requires obtaining specific sets of items, then transforming them into new ones.
Modes A
game mode is a distinct configuration that varies gameplay and affects how other game mechanics behave. A game with several modes presents different settings in each, changing how a particular element of the game is played. A common example is the choice between
single-player and
multiplayer modes in video games, where multiplayer can further be
cooperative or
competitive. A
sandbox mode allows free play without predefined
goals. In a
Time Attack Mode, the player tries to score, progress or clear levels in a limited amount of time. Changing modes while the game is in progress can increase difficulty and provide additional challenge or reward player success.
Power-ups are modes that last for a few moments or that change only one or a few game rules. For example, power pellets in
Pac-Man give the player a temporary ability to eat enemies. A game mode may restrict or change the behavior of the available tools, such as allowing play with limited/unlimited
ammo, new weapons, obstacles or enemies, or a
timer, etc. A mode may establish different rules and game mechanics, such as altered
gravity,
win at first touch in a fighting game, or play with some cards face-up in a
poker game. A mode may even change a game's overarching goals, such as following a story or
character's career vs. playing a limited
deathmatch or
capture the flag set.
Movement ''Many
board games involve the movement of tokens. Movement mechanics govern how and when these tokens are allowed to move. Some game boards are divided into small, equally-sized areas that can be occupied by game tokens. (Often such areas are called
squares, even if not square in shape.) Movement rules 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 randomize the allowable movements. Other games, such as
miniatures games, are played on surfaces with no marked areas.
Resource management Many games involve the management of resources. Examples of game resources include tokens, money,
land,
natural resources,
human resources and
game points. Players establish 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). Game rules determine how players can increase, spend, or exchange resources. The skillful management of resources lets players influence the game's outcome.
Set collection Engine building Engine building is a mechanism that involves building and optimizing a system to create a flow of resources.
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 players lay down lettered tiles to form words and score points, and
Tikal, in which players lay jungle tiles on the play surface then move tokens through them to score points.
Turns can be used to measure and limit the time taken by each player in a turn-based game.A turn is a segment of a game set aside for certain actions to happen before moving on to the next turn, where the sequence of events can largely repeat. Some games, such as
Monopoly and
chess, use
player turns where one player performs their actions before another player can perform any on their turn. Some games use
game turns, where all players contribute to the actions of a single turn. Some games combine the two. For example,
Civilization uses a series of player turns followed by a trading round in which all players participate. Games with semi-simultaneous turns allow for some actions on another player's turn.
Victory conditions Victory conditions control how a player wins the game. In many games, victory is achieved by a player who accumulates a sufficiently high
score, or a higher score than any other player. Other examples of victory conditions include the necessity of completing a
quest in a
role-playing video game, or the player being suitably trained in a skill in a
business game. Some games also feature a losing condition, such as being checkmated in
chess, or being tagged in
tag. In such a game, the winner is the only remaining player to have avoided loss. Games are not limited to one victory or loss condition, and can combine several at once.
Tabletop role-playing games and sandbox games frequently have no victory condition.
Catch-up Some games include a mechanism designed to make progress towards victory more difficult for players in the lead. The idea behind this is to allow trailing players a chance to catch up and potentially still win the game, rather than suffer an inevitable loss once they fall behind. For example, in
The Settlers of Catan, a neutral piece (the robber) debilitates the resource generation of players whose territories it is near. Players occasionally get to move the robber, and frequently choose to position it where it will cause maximal disruption to the player currently winning the game. In some racing games, such as
Chutes and Ladders, a player must roll or spin the exact number needed to reach the finish line; e.g., if a player is only four spaces from the finish line then they must roll a four on the die or land on the four with the spinner. If more than four is rolled, then the turn is forfeited to the next player.
Worker placement Worker placement is a game mechanism where players allocate a limited number of tokens ("workers") to multiple stations that provide various defined actions. The worker placement mechanism originates with board games. Stewart Woods identifies
Keydom (1998; later remade and updated as ''
Aladdin's Dragons) as the first game to implement the mechanic. Worker placement was popularized by Caylus'' (2005) and became a staple of the
Eurogame genre in the wake of the game's success. Other popular board games that use this mechanism include
Stone Age and
Agricola. Although the mechanism is chiefly associated with board games, the worker placement concept has been used in analysis of other game types. For instance,
Adams and Dormans describe the assigning of tasks to SCV units in the
real-time strategy game StarCraft as an example of the worker placement mechanic. ==See also==