4 Elements of Game Mechanics

There are 4 elements of game mechanics: quantity ,spatial ,state , andaction . The following chart defines each of them and provides some examples of each. After the chart is an application of the framework using 2D Mario games.

To demonstrate how you might use this framework, let’s say that we’re writing up the documentation for the health system in a 2D Mario game. We can start with the metaphor, as that’s always the most visible aspect:

Mario turns big when he eats a mushroom. When Mario is big, if he takes damage, he turns small, and when Mario is small and he takes damage, he dies.