Game mechanics
Common examples of game mechanics include turn-taking, movement of tokens, set collection, bidding, capture, and spell slots.
For example, in Monopoly, the events of the game represent another activity, the buying and selling of properties.
For example, in Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design, Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev classify game mechanisms into categories based on game structure, turn order, actions, resolution, victory conditions, uncertainty, economics, auctions, worker placement, movement, area control, set collection, and card mechanisms.
These points may be spent on various actions according to the game rules, such as moving pieces, drawing cards, collecting money, etc.
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.
In others, captured tokens are removed but can return to play later in the game under various rules (e.g. backgammon, pachisi).
An example is a player rolling a die or dice to determine how many board spaces to move a game token.
[25][26] 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.
[38] Changing modes while the game is in progress can increase difficulty and provide additional challenge or reward player success.
For example, power pellets in Pac-Man give the player a temporary ability to eat enemies.
[39] 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 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.
[42]: 311–313 SimCity is an example of an engine-building video game: money activates building mechanisms, which in turn unlock feedback loops between many internal resources such as people, job vacancies, power, transport capacity, and zone types.
[42]: 313 In engine-building board games, the player adds and modifies combinations of abilities or resources to assemble a virtuous circle of increasingly powerful and productive outcomes.
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.
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.
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.
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.
